If you’ve spent any length of time educating yourself on cinematography concepts it’s
likely you may have heard the phrase ‘anamorphic’ before. I’d say that most people who watch
movies are even aware of it on a subconscious level.
As filmmakers though it’s our job to take practical concepts and understand the subconscious
effect that these concepts have on the audience.
Today I’ll be going over one of these concepts - the differences between anamorphic lenses
and spherical lenses. I’ll breakdown the basics, look at the differences between them,
and use creative examples from films to show how choosing between these 2 lens types can
affect how the audience interprets a story.
To understand the anamorphic format we first need to understand the spherical or Super
35 format.
The inside of every lens is made up of different pieces of curved glass, which we call elements.
Spherical lenses are so called because their lens elements are circular. When light passes
through spherical lenses and hits the digital sensor or film stock it produces a ‘regular’,
uncompressed image.
Anamorphic lenses are different. The elements at the back of an anamorphic lens are regular
spherical elements. However, there are added cylindrical lens elements at the front of
anamorphic lenses which appear oval, rather than circular, when looked through.
When light passes through anamorphic lenses and hits the sensor it produces an image which
appears ‘squeezed’. This image is then desqueezed before it’s presented to an audience.
Let’s go over some of the variations in image characteristics between these 2 formats.
The most prominent difference which is achieved by shooting with anamorphic lenses is that
they provide a widescreen aspect ratio.
Traditional spherical lens aspect ratios are more square. Common super 35 aspect ratios
are 1.33:1 and 1.85:1.
Anamorphic lenses produce an aspect ratio which is wider, such as 2.35:1 or 2.39:1.
Although some DOPs, such as Roger Deakins for example, prefer to shoot with spherical
lenses then crop the top and bottom off the image in post to get to a widescreen aspect
ratio.
Another prominent characteristic of anamorphic lenses, which is easiest to identify, is the
bokeh that they produce. Bokeh is the soft, out of focus area of an image.
Because of their circular glass elements, spherical lenses produce bokeh which is circular.
Anamorphic lenses, with their curved, cylindrical elements, have oval shaped bokeh.
Moving onto the more subtle, yet important difference in the image, are the distortion,
flares and sharpness of the lens.
As spherical lenses have less glass for the light to pass through and have simpler mechanics,
they tend to produce sharper images with minimal distortion across the entire image.
Anamorphic lenses can usually be identified by their reduced sharpness, increased distortion
and what we call falloff, which is where the closer we get to the edges of the image, the
more distortion, and softness we get. This results in what some describe as ‘painterly’
image characteristics.
They also produce more dramatic lens flares. Because they have more glass inside them,
when light hits an anamorphic lens, it bounces around in interesting ways, creating beautiful,
lateral flares. Some people like them, some don’t.
So those are the differences in the way the image looks, but it’s also important to
consider the practical differences.
Anamorphic lenses are expensive. Not only due to their rental price but also because
of the other cost implications for the set. Because anamorphic lenses are far more complex
and difficult to construct they cost far more to purchase and to rent out.
Spherical lenses are usually faster, meaning that they have a lower T-Stop, such as T1.3
to T2, and therefore let in more light. Anamorphic lenses usually have a stop of between T2.8
and T4, meaning that they let in less light. This means that to light sets when using slower,
anamorphic lenses, more powerful light sources are required. This means spending more on
lighting.
Also because anamorphic lenses are widescreen it means that they reveal a lot of the set.
This means that more has to be spent on production design. The narrower the shot is, the less
there is in frame that needs to be dressed.
Finally, anamorphic lenses usually provide less options. Spherical lens sets usually
have more focal lengths to choose from than anamorphic lens sets, which are traditionally
built around 40, 50, 75 and 100mm focal lengths. A popular spherical lens set, like the Cooke
S4 primes, has 18 different focal lengths to choose from, ranging from a 12mm up to
a 300mm lens.
If you’re interested in learning more about focal lengths I’ll link a video I made on
this concept in the description.
To illustrate some of these differences let’s take a look at some practical examples of
films and the lenses they were shot on to see what effect it provides.
Two films that were shot with very different aspect ratios, lenses and approaches to framing,
are There Will Be Blood - shot on C- and E-series Panavision anamorphic lenses - and The Lighthouse
- shot with spherical Bausch & Lomb Baltar lenses.
Both films are thematically linked to the idea of obsession, but their visual approaches,
informed by their lens choices, are opposing. Robert Elswit opted for a widescreen, 2:40:1
aspect ratio. The width of the image gives a sense of scale to the vastness of the landscape
in the film. He frames characters alone in a frame with emptiness on the sides, which
builds a sense of loneliness into the frames.
Jarin Blaschke went a different route. He chose an almost square 1.19:1 aspect ratio.
He describes his approach to framing in The Lighthouse.
“I found the square [format] and a moderately wide lens to be a very effective portrait
format. It was the perfect balance between person and environment. “
“It frames the vertical lighthouse even better, isolates our two characters even more,
and truly traps them together when they do share a frame.”
His approach therefore used spherical lenses to compress the frame, while Elswit used anamorphic
glass to expand it.
The image characteristics of lenses also have a psychological effect. This can be seen in
The Tree Of Life, shot on spherical Arri/Zeiss Master Primes, and Moonlight, shot largely
on Hawk V-Lite anamorphics.
In The Tree of Life, Chivo wanted to create a fully immersive image that used wide angle
lenses, yet which maintained maximum sharpness and clarity. Master Primes are very sharp,
precise spherical lenses with minimal distortion. This gives the images in the film a vivid,
naturalistic, immersive and lifelike clarity.
James Laxton shot Moonlight with a different intention. He usually shot wide open on anamorphic
lenses, which increases bokeh and falloff. This gives the images in the film a dreamlike,
nostalgic quality, which supports the telling of this personal, and at times experimental,
coming of age film.
And finally, let’s have a look at what practical differences the two types of lenses can have
by looking at Barry Lyndon - which was shot on different spherical lenses, notably a Zeiss
only with naturalistic candlelight, John Alcott employed a lens developed by Zeiss for NASA’s
moon landings, with the lowest aperture in film history.
This spherical lens allowed more light onto the film negative, which allowed Alcott to
shoot night scenes with only natural light.
These are just a few of the ways in which a cinematographer’s choice of lenses is
application to be able to best suspend the disbelief of the audience.
Thanks for getting through this technical breakdown of anamorphic vs spherical lenses.
If you enjoyed the video please like and subscribe. If there are any examples of the way lenses
are used in films that stood out to you I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Until next time, thanks for watching and goodbye.