Hey guys, Tito Ferradans here for the beginning of Module 2 of the Anamorphic Cookbook.
In Module 1 I talked a bunch about the origins of anamorphic lenses and the anamorphic format,
and how you can use that to boost the production value of your work.
If you missed that, well, that’s on you. But there’s a playlist you can use to catch up.
Also, huge thanks to Altas Lens Co who made possible for me to give you this content
free of charge! They’re really coming through on their mission: “Anamorphic for All”!
Module 2 focuses on anamorphic optics, which is kind of a generic name, so…
sorry. This first video is about the differences between anamorphic lenses and adapters.
Then we’ll go on to talk about cine vs consumer lenses, different focus mechanisms,
stretch factors and wrap up discussing if it’s better to own or rent gear.
So let’s get into it. Anamorphic lenses, or anamorphic adapters? If you look up
either on eBay, you’re likely to see similar, if not identical results. Although these names are
used interchangeably, lenses and adapters are not the same thing. An anamorphic lens is a “complete
setup” composed of a spherical component and an anamorphic component which, together,
produce a focused image onto the sensor or film plane.
An anamorphic adapter by itself can’t do that. Fun fact: people tend to mistakenly
call anamorphic adapters as lenses, but no one will ever call an anamorphic lens an adapter.
ANAMORPHIC LENSES
Anamorphic lenses are what Atlas offers. Or Panavision, Hawk, and Cooke, among others.
In the more affordable tier, what Vazen, SLR Magic, or Sirui offer. They’re the whole thing.
You just plug your camera behind them and you’re good to go. You have one focus ring
and one aperture ring. Anamorphic lenses usually come in sets, and you hear a lot
of people rave about how expensive they are. I mean, most of the time they’re not wrong.
Panavisions aren’t sold, just rented. Hawks and Cookes and Arris all sell for upwards of forty
thousand dollars. Atlas broke the market when they started selling for just under ten grand,
and winning awards from Newsshooter in 2017 and Product of the Year at NAB Las Vegas in
2019. Super cheap anamorphic lenses make a lot of people skeptical. That’s the general feeling about
smaller companies like Sirui or Vazen because of how affordable their lenses are in comparison.
The big deal with lenses is, they tend to come with a mount. For the big guys, that’s PL, the
default mount for cinema cameras. More recently, in 2018, Atlas popularized the EF mount for cine
anamorphics as well since they’re more affordable than their competitors and many of their users run
EF-mount cameras. They still come in PL as default though. When you start coming down the budget
line, you start to see different camera mounts. Sirui only offers mirrorless mounts, such as MFT
or E mount, and Vazen’s first set only works in MFT. These can’t be adapted to many other
cameras than their native mounts, but we’ll talk about that later, in module three.
The bottomline is that anamorphic lenses are designed for certain camera specs:
They’re made for a specific sensor size and lens mount,
and you can’t just modify or retrofit them to your liking. I mean, theoretically you can,
but if you had that kind of money, you probably wouldn’t be watching this course...
ANAMORPHIC ADAPTERS
Anamorphic adapters, on the other hand, are afocal systems, just like wide angle adapters,
or telephoto converters. In practical terms, that means they can’t focus light into a picture, they
can’t produce an image by themselves. An example I like to use is if we have a light source in the
ceiling, I can use any spherical lens to create a projected image of that light onto a surface,
like you see here. In this case, the counter works as the focus plane. But if I try doing the
same with an anamorphic adapter, I get nothing. This means that if we try putting an anamorphic
adapter in front of a camera sensor, we’ll never get a picture. They just squeeze the image and,
on the bright side they don’t cause any loss of light like many filters do. For us to see what
they’re doing, we’ll need a focusing component, which is the spherical lens we put behind the
anamorphic adapter. That’s what’s called a taking lens, and all anamorphic adapters need one.
Adapters can be remixed, modified, adjusted, experimented on and swapped with ease,
and while they were originally intended as the main focus of this course,
I realized I’d be overlooking a huge portion of anamorphic shooters who use actual lenses.
So I adjusted the program to cover all sorts of anamorphic image-making devices!
Although they are afocal systems, they need still need to match the focus of the taking
lens so you can see something on the camera. I’ll expand on how focus works for anamorphics
later in this module, but for now let sink in the idea that you have to focus
two pieces of gear when using anamorphic adapters: your taking lens and anamorphic adapter,
instead of just one when using any lenses, spherical or anamorphic.
Chrétien’s original anamorphic lens, was in fact an adapter! And as so, the early CinemaScope
productions like The Robe would have two first AC’s for a single camera, one of them would pull
focus on the anamorphic adapter and the other one would focus the taking lens, simultaneously.
Adapters used to be much cheaper than lenses and were mainly used in movie theatre projectors. As
film distribution moved away from film and towards digital, tons of these adapters were
rendered outdated and discarded. They end up on eBay or Craigslist for much less than their
original prices, while some still deliver an image performance that secured them an Academy Award.
THERE’S NO “WRONG” CHOICE
A goal in this program is to pick up some anamorphic glass and rig it to production
standards. If you’re going the adapter route, either for budget or versatility, there’s way more
to fiddle with to give you the same image quality and simplicity delivered by anamorphic lenses.
If you lean more towards lenses, your path will be much easier, although it can cost a bit more.
I had multiple conversations with Dan and Forrest from Atlas while working on this
content and one thing that kept popping up is the level of control you have over performance and
design as you build a lens from the ground up, as opposed to piecing it together from various parts,
DIY style. You can really optimize each element and its role in making the image.
The DIY path is for sure more engaging than just buying a ready solution and you
have more space to make choices such as flare color, or focal length. But at the same time,
it starts from a place of compromise, as you’re using multiple parts outside of their
intended original use, so while they “can” work together well, there’s no “perfect” setup.
Now that we’re good on the basic differences between
lenses and adapters, next week I’ll be talking about Cine vs Consumer lenses
and how they play into your budget. To get that as soon as it’s out, hit subscribe! If
my distinction between lenses and adapters isn’t clear, please leave a comment below and I’ll do my
best to answer your qualms! I know you’re enjoying the Anamorphic Cookbook, so consider becoming a
member of the channel to unlock extra benefits like early access to videos, as well as PDFs for
each chapter and an awesome Discord server full of people on the same journey as you.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next week. Tito Ferradans, out.