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Posts Tagged ‘Anamorphic’

Sirui rehouses its 1.33x anamorphic lenses for cinema rigs and adds T-stops

15 Aug

Chinese anamorphic lens manufacturer Sirui has introduced a new set of lenses bases on its existing four models. The Sirui MARS lenses are designed to offer better handling for rigged cameras, and come with built-in mod gears for both aperture and focus rings. The apertures have also been reclassified as T-stops and the focus throw of each of the models has been significantly extended to make accurate focus adjustments easier with follow focus equipment.

While the standard 1.33x anamorphic lenses from Sirui come in a range of mounts, the MARS set is offered only for the Micro Four Thirds system – though the company tells me they are considering other mounts for the future. The focal lengths on offer are 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 75mm, which correlate directly with the existing lenses. To unify the iris though the f/1.8 lenses now are marked T2, and the f/2.8 aperture of the 24mm is now marked as T2.9. Further modifications to the lenses include harmonised filter threads at 67mm (the existing 24mm takes a 72mm filter) and each of the MARS lenses is heavier and longer than its original equivalent.

From the group shot photograph it appears that Sirui has managed to reposition focus and aperture rings so that they all fall in the same place. This will allow lens changes without too much rig adjustment, helped too by the fact that now each lens has its own 1/4in thread mounting socket aligned between the two rings. The lenses also now have focus and iris scales that are visible from the side of the lens instead of only from the top.

Sirui says it hasn’t changed its optical designs for these lenses in the process, and the number of elements used and the way they are grouped is exactly the same as in the original models – though some close-focus specifications have changed.

At the moment the lenses are available only as a set rather than individually, and they come in a hard case that can hold them all. The sets are due to begin shipping on 20th August, and will cost just under $ 4000 – a premium of about $ 600 over buying all four of the original versions. For more information see the Sirui website.

Manufacturer information:

SIRUI MARS 1.33x Anamorphic Lens Set for Micro 4/3

  • Lens Kit for Micro 4/3 mount
  • 2.4:1 cinematic widescreen vision
  • 1.33x crop anamorphic front element
  • Built in Mod Gears
  • Long Focus throw
  • 1/4inch screw mount
  • Fast T2 aperture (35mm, 50mm, 75mm), Range T2-T16
  • Fast T2.9 aperture (24mm), Range T2.9-T16
  • Oval shaped bokeh and horizontal flaring
  • Create a cinematic feel in your videos
  • 67mm filter thread
  • Manual focus

With its 1.33x Ratio, the lens takes full advantage of the 16×9 sensor crop that these cameras shoot video in to produce a 2.4:1 aspect ratio that is synonymous with theatre movie experiences.

The lens kit uses an optically distorting anamorphic front element to squeeze the horizontal axis of the shot by 1.33 times which allows for more information to be fit onto the sensor. This is then stretched back out in post-production or in-camera (see manufacturers specs for compatibility) to create the wider field of view and ratio compared to a conventional aspherical lens.

The lens kit reproduces flares beautifully whilst the coatings on the lens keep them from obscuring the entire frame. The fast aperture of T2 to T2.9 to creates a very shallow depth of field increasing the oval-shaped bokeh effect that is found in anamorphic lenses. this soft out of focus area is one of the many benefits that a true anamorphic lens brings over its filter counterparts or digital crop bars that are used to imitate the anamorphic ‘look’.

SIRUI MARS 1.33x Anamorphic Lens Set is in four focal lengths: 24mm, 35mm 50mm and 75mm, which allow you to shoot from wide angle to telephoto. The solid build quality, signature anamorphic look and the affordable price combined to open up more opportunities for creative composition.

1.33x Squeeze for 2.4:1 Aspect Ratio

Normal spherical lenses shoot standard 16:9 video.
With a cylindrical optical element in the front, SIRUI anamorphic lens squeezes the image down 1.33 times horizontally. When the final image is desqueezed, you’Il end up with an ultra-wide CinemaScope 2.4:l aspect ratio.

Oval Bokeh Balls and Blue Lens Flares

The elliptical highlights and blue light streaks produced by SIRUI anamorphic lens offer plenty of anamorphic feel, adding a sprinkle of magic to your footage.

Comprehensive Focal Lengths

MARS has a collection of four focal lengths in the set, covering the most important focal lengths to shoot a complete project. This lens set will definitely give videographers more control over various settings.

Precise T-Stops

The lens set features declicked aperture rings measured in T-stops. Among the four lenses, except for the 24mm with a T-stop of 2.9, the other three have the same T-stop of 2.0. These fast lenses perform extremely well under low light conditions.

Solid Build Quality

This lens set is of full metallic housing with standard 67mm filter threads. The weight and size of the lenses differ slightly due to different mounts. A threaded front is included for screw-in accessories like the matte box.

Built-In Mod Gears

Mod gears on the focus ring and the aperture ring are designed for extra smooth control. To save you the trouble of readjusting accessories when changing lenses, the diameter and the distance between the focus ring and the aperture ring of each lens is made the same.

Long Focus Throw

To gain enough space for accurate focus pulling, the four lenses are all engineered with a long focus throw (the longest one reaches up to 303 degrees). Graduations on both sides of the focus ring allows you to quickly pull focus to the desired position.

1/4″ Screw Hole

With a 1/4″ screw hole at the bottom, the lens can be mounted directly on the quick release plate to maintain the balance of the whole setup.

M4/3 Native Mount

This lens set is available in native mount for Micro Four Thirds, compatible with Z CAM BMPCC4K, Olympus and Panasonic (specific models) cameras. Unified native mounts make shooting a lot easier for people who want to step into the anamorphic world.

Waterproof and Drop-Proof Strong Suitcase

Plastic injection molding housing, high-density EVA lining as well as the embedded rubber ring make the suitcase strong enough to meet an international standard rating of IP68, ensuring tight protection from the inside to the outside. This suitcase facilitates photographers/videographers to carry the lens set around without worrying about the safety of the gear.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Vazen announces the 65mm T2 1.8x anamorphic lens for MFT camera systems, rounding out the 3 lens lineup

01 Dec

Anamorphic lens specialist Vazen has announced its new 65mm T2 1.8x anamorphic lens for the Micro Four Thirds (MFT) system will cost $ 3,250 and is ready to ship immediately. The new lens completes the 1.8x MFT lens lineup, according to the company, alongside its 28mm T2.2 and 40mm T2 counterparts.

When used with the full 4:3 MFT sensor, the lens will produce a 2.39:1 ratio aspect image once the footage is desqueezed. Shooting in the 16:9 ratio, frames will end up 3.2:1 and will probably need cropping, so cameras that can record from the whole sensor work best. On a MFT camera, the horizontal angle of view will give users the width we’d expect using a 72mm lens on a full frame system, so this is the lens to use for portraits and moderately distant subjects.

In common with the other lenses in the series the 65mm T2 uses a front anamorphic design to make the most of oval out-of-focus highlights and the characteristic flare from point light sources. Vazen, however, claims the flare isn’t too saturated or over-powering. Like the 28mm, the 65mm lens does have a thread for filters, and accepts 86mm screw-in sizes or 95mm using the Vazen adapter. As you would expect, the focus and aperture rings are equipped with 0.8mod cine gears for focus pullers, and the focus throw is 300° from the closest position of 1.09m/3.6ft to infinity. The lens weighs 1.68kg/3.7lbs and measures 105x185mm.

These lenses are a good deal less money than models from most other anamorphic producers, such as Cooke, but are also bigger, heavier and more expensive than those offered by Sirui — though the Sirui lenses have a 1.33x squeeze rather than the 1.8x of these Vazen models.

Owners of the existing 28mm or 40mm lenses will be able to get a discount of $ 400 when they buy this new 65mm lens, and those wanting the whole set of three can buy a kit for $ 8950 instead of the $ 9750 cost of buying them individually. For more information see the Vazen website.

Press release:

Vazen launches the 65mm T2 1.8x Anamorphic Lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras

Shenyang China, Nov 30, 2020 – Vazen, a new Chinese cinema lens brand, has announced the pricing and shipping availability of the Vazen 65mm T2 1.8x Anamorphic Lens for Micro Four Thirds (M43) cameras. In addition to the previously launched 28mm and 40mm, the whole Micro Four Thirds 1.8x Anamorphic lens set is now completed.

All the Vazen 1.8x anamorphic lenses feature a front anamorphic design. It delivers a buttery smooth oval bokeh, signature blue but not overly saturated, horizontal flare and the widescreen cinematic look. The lens delivered an outstanding sharpness, even at wide open, which is unmatched by other anamorphic lenses with similar squeeze ratio. Vazen chose to adopt a 1.8x squeeze design to balance the anamorphic characters as well as the resolution of the image. The 1.8x produces a stronger anamorphic character than 1.33x / 1.5x anamorphic lenses. And when it’s paired up with 16:9 sensors, much less data (vs 2X anamorphic lens) is needed to be cropped away to create the desired 2.39:1 ratio.

The Vazen 1.8x works best with 4:3 ratio sensors like Panasonic GH5, Z-CAM E2, Panasonic BGH1 to produce the cinematic 2.39:1 ratio. It also works well with Blackmagic Pocket 4k cinema cameras.

The lens is designed with a 86mm filter thread and 95mm front diameter. Both aperture and focus rings are built with 0.8 mod gears.

Pricing & Availability

The lens is currently available to order from authorized resellers and in Vazen website (http://www.vzlens.com/). It is available to ship immediately.

The retail price in US is USD 3,250/pc. USD 400 discount will be offered to any existing Vazen 40mm / 28mm owners.

Specifications

  • Focal Length 65mm
  • T-stop range T/2 – T/16
  • Angle of View Around 33°
  • Format Compatibility Micro Four Thirds
  • Filter Thread 86mm
  • Front Diameter 95mm
  • Min. Focusing Distance 1.09 m (3.6 feet)
  • Dimensions ? 105 x 185 mm
  • Weight 1.68 kg (3.70 lbs)
  • Mounts Micro Four Thirds

For more information about Vazen, please visit http://www.vzlens.com/

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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How does anamorphic photography work?

25 Aug

Last time we posted about an anamorphic lens there were lots of questions about what anamorphic photography is and how it works, so we thought we’d offer a simple guide to the basics to help everyone understand what it is.

The word ‘anamorphic’ comes from the Greek words ‘ana’ and ‘morph’ which together suggest something that alters its shape but then changes back to normal again. In photography, it relates to a situation in which an image is distorted as it is taken, but is then undistorted to a normal shape when it is projected or displayed. A common example of anamorphic imagery can be seen in the cinema, when a movie is shown in that long letterbox format that stretches across the screen. This characterizes what most of us think of as anamorphic.

A 2.35:1 format image shot using the Sirui 35mm F2.8 1.33x anamorphic lens. The image was recorded in 4K video, so it started life in the 16×9 format.

The optical anamorphic process was invented during World War I to help observers in tanks get a wider view of the battleground without having to make the observation hole any larger, and the system was used on-and-off in cinema once the war was over. Anamorphic films became more popular in the early 1950s with the process re-energized to provide an exciting alternative to the almost-square format of television.

With the growing number of TVs in homes, Hollywood wanted to ensure cinema retained some unique qualities that would still make people leave their living room and part with their money to watch a movie. The long letter-box format is now synonymous with epic cinema all over the world and is a subconscious indicator for the audience that the movie they are watching has high production values.

That link with the atmosphere of ‘serious’ filmmaking is why anamorphic photography is so attractive to amateur and professional filmmaker alike, as it can lift production value in the eyes of the audience (or client), and elevate the filmmaker from the throng of video-makers shooting 16:9 or 4:3 on ‘lower-end’ equipment. Warranted or not, many people see using the anamorphic process as a leg-up on the way to artistic greatness.

The [anamorphic] letter-box format is now synonymous with epic cinema all over the world

The image formats associated with anamorphic cinema are also pretty interesting in their own right and engage some different compositional properties that are genuinely useful and unique compared to those that apply to a typical still image – in the same way that panoramic formats work in still photography.

Anamorphic aspect ratios

While in stills photography we tend to use whole numbers when discussing the aspect ratio of any given format, such as 3×2, 4×3, 5×4, 10×8, in anamorphic cinema these things are measured using 1 as the height of the frame. So, popular aspect ratios these days include 2.35:1, 2.39:1 and 2.40:1, though the official standard according to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) specifies 2.39:1 for widescreen projection.

CinemaScope is 2.66:1 and belongs to 20th Century Fox, but there were a whole load of other formats devised by other studios that didn’t fancy paying Fox for the license to use 2.66:1. Hasselblad fans will recognize the CinemaScope proportions as they are approximately the same as the XPan format that lives on via the 65:24 ratio in the X1D II camera.

This is a 2.66:1 CinemaScope format image, created by using a 2x anamorphic lens while recording 4:3 full-sensor video in a Micro Four Thirds camera

In this digital age, filmmakers can use whatever format suits them, though there is some value in sticking to an established ratio just for familiarity and what it might mean to the audience. The movie La La Land, for example, is shown in CinemaScope to help invoke a sense of the age it portrays – audiences, not just of a certain age, pick up on these things subconsciously and it adds something to the picture.

This diagram shows how different popular projection formats compare. The 4:3 aspect ratio was popular in film and still is in digital sensor formats, while 3:2 is what you get when you shoot full frame and with APS-C/Super 35 sensors, while 16:9 is the standard for most digital cameras in video mode and what we see most in popular video. Widescreen really starts at 2.35:1 and 2.39:1 with moderate anamorphic lenses, and 2.66:1 provides a really long and thin widescreen format.

In film-based cinema, the ends of a wide format might be cropped from the picture to meet the 2.39:1 requirement, especially when a 2x anamorphic lens is in use, but in digital video, a timeline of any proportions can be created to show a finished product in 3.5:1 if desired.

How the format is made

Normal, spherical, lenses look all around themselves in equal measure – viewing at the same angle left/right as they do up/down. Anamorphic lenses capture an elongated horizontal field of view. To achieve this, the lens squeezes the image horizontally to fit within the constraints of the sensor’s dimensions.

This anamorphic image was captured using an anamorphic lens on an iPhone 11 Pro. Use the slider to compare the desqueezed image (L) with the squeezed image (R).
Photo by Dale Baskin

This effect can be seen in the anamorphic video clips below.

That squeezed view has to fit on to a relatively square sensor, such as a 4:3 Micro Four Thirds chip, so the anamorphic element group in the lens squeezes/distorts the horizontal view so that it will fit into the available sensor space. To do this a cylindrical element is used that has the shape of a section cut from a tube – it is bent in only one plane rather than being convex all round as a normal lens would be.

This is clearly a piece of paper and not a glass lens element, but it gives you an idea of the shape of the anamorphic cylinder element that creates the wider horizontal field of view without changing the vertical field of view.

That cylindrical lens is the shape produced when you bend a sheet of paper – bowed in the horizontal aspect but still flat in the vertical aspect – allowing it to capture a wider field of view horizontally than it does vertically. Like in a Hall of Mirrors, this distorted surface creates a distorted image on the sensor or film. When projected to show the audience, that distorted image is passed through another anamorphic lens to distort the view once again, but this time in reverse – un-distorting it so that it looks normal. Historically, in anamorphic cinema, both the camera and projector are fitted with anamorphic lenses.

In the digital world an anamorphic lens is needed only to record the image, as software can be used to stretch the recorded image and make the subjects look geometrically correct again.

This picture was taken with a 1.33x anamorphic lens in stills mode on the Lumix GH5. The recorded image measured 5184 pixels wide and 3456 high, as shown in the Image Size window of Photoshop
To find the length that the image needs to be for the subject to look normal you multiple the recorded length by the anamorphic factor – in this case 1.33x
With the width and height dimensions unlinked you just enter the new width dimensions. In this case 5184 x 1.33 = 6895 pixels. Hit ‘OK’ and the image stretches to the right anamorphic format

In still photography de-squeezing a picture is pretty straight forward. You simply multiply the horizontal pixel count by the squeeze factor of the lens. So, if your original image measures 4000×3000 pixels, for example, you multiply 4000 pixels by the squeeze factor to get the width the final image should be. If the lens had a 1.33x factor we multiply 4000 x 1.33 to get 5320 pixels. In the Resize dialogue of your editing software, unlink the horizontal and vertical resolution figures so the aspect ratio can change, and then replace the 4000 with 5320 for the horizontal dimension, keeping the 3000 pixel (vertical) dimension unchanged.

Why not just crop?

You would think it would be easier just to crop a normal picture to make a letterbox format than going to all the bother of getting special lenses – and you’d be right. The issue though is that when you crop you create a lower resolution image – whether on film or on a digital sensor – and either waste film or pixels in doing so. Anamorphic lenses create an image that fills the film frame/sensor area so all those pixels you paid for are used.

This is a frame from a 4K video recorded with the Sirui 35mm 1.33x anamorphic lens. It uses all eight million of the sensor’s pixels. In contrast, cropping a 16:9 video frame to this 2.35:1 format would give us an image with roughly 6MP of data.

Shooting video using a 4K camera produces frames that are each about 8MP. Once you crop that 4K image to an anamorphic format, such as 2.39:1 for example, you end up with footage containing far fewer pixels. 4K frames shot in 16:9 (1.78:1) are 3840 x 2160 pixels, but when that frame is cropped to 2.39:1 it becomes 3840 x 1606, which is only 6.2MP. Using an anamorphic lens allows you to record using the full 4K area of the sensor, thus retaining all those pixels so the resulting 2.39:1 footage retains 8 million captured pixels instead of just 6.2MP.

This is a still image recorded on the GH5 through the Sirui 35mm 1.33x anamorphic lens. The top image represents what the view looked like, and the second image is how the image looks once the lens has squeezed the wide aspect onto the 4:3 sensor. In software, I de-squeezed the 4:3 captured frame to 16:9 so that the subject would look normal.

Some cameras, like the Panasonic Lumix GH5 and GH5s offer a specific Anamorphic mode that allows the whole 4:3 sensor area to be used to record the footage. In this mode, the GH5 can create 6K footage in which each frame contains the full 20MP resolution of the sensor. When that image is de-squeezed to produce the anamorphic final result those 18 million pixels will still be present.

If you were to use a 1.33x anamorphic lens like the Sirui 35mm F1.8 the footage de-squeezes to a 16:9 format, but one that contains 18MP instead of the 14MP you’d get by simply cropping the full frame to 16:9. Even then, cropping this 16:9 image to 2.35:1 will deliver a higher resolution frame than shooting with a 16:9 area of the sensor in 4K – 10MP instead of 8MP.

Here’s the Cooke 32mm T2.3 Anamorphic/i 2x lens on the Lumix GH5 – well, it’s more like the camera is on the lens rather than the other way round. With the camera in its Anamorphic Mode the 4:3 sensor-captured image de-squeezes to make a 2.66:1 CinemaScope format picture.

The difference is more pronounced when using lenses with a greater than 1.33x anamorphic squeeze factor. A 2x lens, such as the Cooke 32mm Anamorphic/i would create a 2.66:1 output from the full area of a 4:3 sensor or a 3.5:1 final result from a 16:9 area. So, if you were cropping 4K footage to match those aspect ratios you’d end up with 3840 x 1444 pixels (5.5MP) for a 2.6:1 format or 3840 x 1098 pixels (4.2MP) for 3.5:1 format. Both of those represent a significant drop in resolution from the original 8MP of 4K footage – which is all preserved when using an anamorphic lens.

Resolution isn’t the only benefit

Retaining decent resolution isn’t the only reason to shoot with an anamorphic lens: these lenses have specific characteristics many people find attractive.

The almost trademark blue streak extending across the frame of an anamorphic picture comes from point light sources reflecting in the surface of the anamorphic cylinder and spreading out across the scene.

The most commonly recognized characteristic is a blue streak that shoots across the frame when a point light source is aimed at the camera – a car headlight for example. This is caused by direct light reflecting off the anamorphic cylinder and then spreading out left and right across the frame.

Obviously, these blue lines are more prevalent in lenses that have the anamorphic cylinder at the front of the construction, and much less obvious in those that place the cylinder at the rear. The new Arri/Zeiss anamorphics spread the cylinder effect throughout the lens construction, rather than having a specific group of elements to do the job, which allows a degree of control over how dominant the blue streaks will be. In more regular anamorphics the blue streak effect can be played up with reflective coatings inside the forward elements to enhance the color of the streak and how easily it can be ‘activated’.

The bulbous anamorphic cylinder can be a magnet for light and can reduce contrast when even off-center lights are pointed towards the lens.

As well as this specific type of flare, light falling on the front element will create an overall flare that in turn can give anamorphic footage a low contrast atmosphere even when contrast is quite high. This again depends on the design of the lens. Older lenses tend to flare more easily while newer designs aim for more contrast and allow filters to be used when lower contrast is desirable.

The oval shape of out-of-focus highlights is usually demonstrated in night scenes with distant car lights, but this characteristic is also visible during daylight hours. Here you can see the light between the trees – which would usually appear round – takes on an upright oval shape.

The other immediately recognizable characteristic of anamorphic lenses is the elongated shape of out-of-focus highlights. These highlights – a street light in the distance for example – would reproduce bright discs in pictures taken with a normal spherical lens, but when shot using an anamorphic lens they appear as ovals. In fact, all out-of-focus details are reproduced with an elongated shape that exaggerates the degree to which things are out of focus. This in turn only makes the focused subject stand out more.

The appearance of an extra-shallow depth-of-field is further enhanced by the complications of the altered angles of view we get with an anamorphic lens. A lens with a 1.33x anamorphic effect will have its marked focal length widened by the anamorphic factor – so a 100mm 1.33x lens would deliver the angle of view of a 75mm (100 divided by 1.33 = 75). With more dramatic anamorphic lenses the effect is more pronounced too, so a 1.8x which would give that 100mm the view of a 56mm. The final look is of a 56mm lens that exhibits depth-of-field characteristics similar to those we would expect from a 100mm lens.

Above you can see how the same scene is reproduced differently by a normal spherical lens and an anamorphic lens of the same focal length. I used the Lumix X-Vario 12-35mm set to 35mm to compare with the new Sirui 35mm 1.33x anamorphic lens.

The camera-to-subject distance remained the same, as did the F2.8 aperture, but there is a slight difference in the degree to which the background appears out-of-focus. As you can see, the subject appears much smaller in the anamorphic images due to the extra width of the view, so naturally, a photographer would normally get closer to make the subject fill the frame, and thus increase the shallow depth-of-field effect simply by using a closer focus distance to achieve the same subject magnification.

What is also clear from these images is that the anamorphic lens delivers a considerably wider view for the same marked focal length. This comparison also shows the shape of out-of-focus highlights from the same scene rendered quite differently.

Is it worth the effort?

That’s a matter of opinion of course, but those wanting to make the most of all the tools available to influence the audience will say ‘yes’. The look is special and it can add something very substantial to the atmosphere of a film. As mentioned earlier though, an anamorphic lens can’t make a poor film into a good film, compensate for bad lighting, primitive camera work or wooden acting – it is only a part of the many elements that can make a movie an award winner or a rotten tomato.

Street lights just out of the frame (and a high ISO setting) contribute to a nice soft contrast in this scene, even though the actual scene was filled with deep shadows. The look and feel of the shot are different enough to that which we would expect from a regular spherical lens that we can tell there is a certain something else about it. The highlights and background details look a bit different and there is a wide feel but without the usual distortion of a close perspective.

Anamorphic photography also isn’t suited to all subject types, and while not a fast rule it tends to work best with drama rather than documentary. The widescreen says ‘now I’m going to tell you a story’ and can prepare the audience for all the exaggeration that makes a story moving, dramatic and emotional, while more regular formats might be better for presenting strictly factual information.

There are in-between cross-over areas though that still work well, such as those old wildlife films that present factual information with a deep Hollywood voice-over and in which all the lions in the family have a name and roam the grasslands to the sound of a full studio orchestra.

There’s also a sense of cinema about a still shown in anamorphic format

In stills photography, what an anamorphic lens will give us is something a bit different. ‘Different’ is something I value, though obviously ‘good different’ rather than the other. ‘Different’ makes our work stand out from the rest, and as there aren’t many stills photographers using anamorphic lenses ‘different’ is what you will get.

There’s also a sense of cinema about a still shown in anamorphic format, and with the built-in characteristics of an anamorphic lens that inherent atmosphere will feel stronger, making it possible to present movie-stills filled with an implied storyline – without actually having to go to the bother of shooting the movie.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Vazen announces an $8,000 85mm T2.8 1.8x anamorphic lens for PL, EF mount cameras

20 Aug

Chinese cinema lens manufacturer Vazen has announced the release of their new 85mm T2.8 1.8x Anamorphic lens for PL and EF mount camera systems.

The 85mm T2.8 1.8x Anamorphic lens is the first of a new ‘LF’ lineup designed for large-format cinema cameras, such as the RED Monstro, Alexa LF, Kinefinity Mavo LF and Z-Cam E2-F8.

The lens weighs just 1.5kg (3.3lbs) and measures only 17.5cm (6.9”), making it ‘the world’s lightest and smallest 1.8x anamorphic lens for full-frame cameras.’ It features an 86mm front filter thread, a front diameter of 95mm for mounting matte boxes to, 0.8 mod cine gears for follow focus systems and a minimum focusing distance of 9.6cm (3.8”).

Vazen says the anamorphic lens ‘delivers a buttery smooth oval bokeh, signature blue, but not oversaturated, horizontal flare and the widescreen cinematic look.’ When paired with 4:3 sensors, the lens yields a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Below is a video preview of the lens by Expressway Cinema Rentals:

The lens is currently available to order from the Vazen website and authorized Vazen retailers for $ 8,000. The first units will start shipping out in ‘late August.’

Vazen says it also has two other lenses in the works: a 55mm and a 105mm. These two lenses are expected to be released in ‘late 2020/early 2021’ and will eventually be sold as a three-lens set with the 85mm T2.8 anamorphic lens.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Hands-on with the Sirui 35mm F1.8 1.33x anamorphic lens

13 Aug

Anamorphic for less $ $

After much teasing, Sirui has finally launched its second anamorphic lens for interchangeable lens systems. The first was the 50mm F1.8 1.33x anamorphic that came out at the beginning of this year, and the company doesn’t seem to be wasting much time getting its second model out to the market.

One of the great attractions of the original lens was its price, and many will be pleased to hear that this new 35mm model is following suit. Anamorphic lenses are, in the main, quite expensive, so these sub-$ 800 Sirui examples open anamorphic shooting to a much wider audience. The lens is being launched via an Indiegogo campaign with early-bird prices from $ 599.

With its 1.33x anamorphic characteristic the lens offers a 2.35:1 aspect ratio to those shooting in 16:9 while GH5 and GH5S users using Anamorphic mode will get a high resolution 16:9 image with all the anamorphic trappings of flare, blue streaks and oval out-of-focus highlights. GH5S users shooting in 4096 x 2160 C4K will be able to achieve a 2.5:1 aspect ratio.

MFT mount with adapters

The 35mm F1.8 comes only in a Micro Four Thirds mount, but Sirui offers adapters for Nikon Z, Sony E and Canon EF-M bodies. The 50mm was offered with fixed mounts for MFT, Sony E and Fujifilm’s X mount so there’s been a bit of a shift in favor of Nikon Z and away from Fuji X. Sirui says there is a Fujifilm X-mount lens on the way, but it hasn’t said what focal length it will be. With all the video improvements Fuji has introduced in recent times there should be a decent market for an anamorphic lens, but Sirui says it can’t make an adapter to fit MFT lenses on Fujifilm X-mount bodies.

Designed to cover APS-C, Super 35 and MFT sensors, the smaller imaging areas will add some apparent magnification to the marked focal length. The 35mm focal length on APS-C sensors with a 1.5x factor behaves as a 52.5mm would on a full frame camera, but with the extra 1.33x width in the horizontal plane that 52mm stretches back to the appearance of the 40mm.

On MFT bodies the 35mm doubles to 70mm, but then stretches to cover the horizontal angle we’d expect of a 52mm. The angles of view achieved with this lens are wider than those achieved with the 50mm lens, but they leave a good deal of room for a wider lens in the future.

Gear rings

Sirui has helpfully included a pair of gear rings with this lens to allow it to be used more easily with follow-focus systems. The rings slip over the mount-end of the lens and marry with the ribbing on the focusing and aperture rings. Each ring is labelled so you know which goes where, not that it seems to make much difference.

The rings are essential for follow-focus but they also make hand-made smooth focus transitions much easier too. As the barrel of the 35mm is somewhat wider than that of the 50mm, these rings aren’t interchangeable between the two lenses.

Design

The lens has an all-metal ‘aircraft aluminum’ body that feels very solid in the hand and dense for its size – but without it being heavy. The smooth finish feels good to the touch and the focus and aperture rings turn nicely with just the right amount of resistance. The ribbing on both is perhaps a little fine for a sure grip in all conditions, but the addition of the gear rings soon solves that. I kept mine on all the time.

The aperture ring turns smoothly and without clicked stops, allowing iris altering during filming without disturbance, and of course focus is all manual.

Plain underbelly

The underside of the lens is completely plain other than for the close focus and filter size engravings. I rather like the look without any other text, but it does mean that when the camera is mounted above head-height you can’t see what aperture you are using or the focus distance set. For those more used to lenses designed for stills this won’t seem unusual, but for those coming from movie lenses this might be a surprise.

The distraction-free underside though shows clearly where the anamorphic element group is in the optical construction, as the forward end of the barrel expands to accommodate that wide anamorphic cylinder.

Looking through the lens

Further evidence of the position of the anamorphic group comes when we look through the lens. From the front the iris looks oval and from the rear it looks round, thus demonstrating that the iris is positioned behind the anamorphic group. Not all anamorphics have the anamorphic group at the front of the construction, as some use a design that places the group just in front of the mount, but those with a forward anamorphic group display more pronounced optical characteristics. Having the cylinder at the front helps it catch the light that creates flare and ensures we get those oval out-of-focus highlights.

Close focus

For a normal spherical lens a close focus distance of 0.85m / 33in would be considered a little long, but in anamorphic terms this is about standard. Distances are marked in feet and meters, and apertures in full stop measurements. All markings on the barrel are deeply engraved, with paint neatly dropped well below the surface.

It takes a 191° rotation of the focusing ring to shift focus from the closest point to infinity, which makes for swift shifts in the focus position.

Construction

The Sirui 35mm F1.8 1.33x anamorphic is built with 13 elements in 9 groups, and uses a 10-bladed iris. The glass is made by Schott according to Sirui.

The lens is really very small for an anamorphic, which is partly down to its reduced covering circle but must also be the result of some internal miniaturization in the design, elements and glass used. It measures 117mm / 4.61in including the mount, is 70mm / 2.8in wide at the front and weighs 700g / 1.55lb.

Compared to the 50mm F1.8

The overall look and design of the 35mm (right) is very much in keeping with the existing 50mm, so the two lenses are easily identified as part of a set. There are some minor changes to the font used in places but you’d only notice if you had the time to look at such things.

The 35mm is longer, broader and heavier than the 50mm, and although the focus rings match in depth they have different diameters due to the difference in barrel size. The aperture rings are different in design too, with the 50mm featuring a much narrower ribbed area.

Red dots

The shift from dedicated mounts to an adapter system has meant Sirui has had to relocate the index red dot. Maybe not such a big deal, but I’m used to Micro Four Thirds lenses having their red dot on the side of the barrel where it is easy to see rather than on the mount itself, so this took some getting used to. The dot has shifted from a permanently visible position to avoid confusion when a Nikon Z adapter is fitted, for example, as the Z mount has its red dot in a different place. Moving the dot to the mount means there will only ever be one on display as the MFT red dot that is marked on the mount will be covered by the adapter ring.

The mount adapters are fitted using the second set of screws in the base of the lens, with an index indentation to ensure it is positioned correctly. One set of screws has a star head while the ones we are supposed to use have a regular cross-head, to avoid getting them mixed up. The 50mm doesn’t have the facility to accept these adapters, so those using Nikon Z cameras, for example, will only have access to the 35mm at the moment. Only Sony E and MFT camera users can fit both 50mm and 35mm lenses.

Clips reel

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Sirui announces 35mm anamorphic lens is on the way

08 Jul

Sirui is teasing the launch of its next lens, which will be a 35mm 1.33x anamorphic with a maximum aperture of F1.8. Until recently, Surui was best known for making tripods, but it’s branched out into lenses, with this being the second released this year.

Like the 50mm 1.33x anamorphic that was launched in February, this new lens is designed for APS-C and MFT sensors. It will be only available in the MFT mount but there are adapters for Sony E, Canon EF-M and Nikon Z mount camera systems, according to a video placed on the company’s U.S. Facebook page. The lens will come with detachable geared rings for the focus and aperture rings, uses a 68mm front filter thread and has a minimum focus distance of 0.85m (2.8ft).

The lens is promoted as the wide-angle answer to the existing 50mm lens, and the company says it provides the viewing angle of a 26.3mm lens when used on an APS-C sensor. Sirui says that once de-squeezed, footage from a 16:9 area of the camera’s sensor will take on a 2.4:1 aspect ratio with characteristic oval bokeh and blue light streaks of flare.

The Sirui 35mm F1.8 1.33x anamorphic lens will be available for an early-bird price of $ 599 via an Indiegogo campaign page that goes live on August 3rd at 9am EST.
For more information on the company’s 50mm lens see the Sirui website.


Disclaimer: Remember to do your research with any crowdfunding project. DPReview does its best to share only the projects that look legitimate and come from reliable creators, but as with any crowdfunded campaign, there’s always the risk of the product or service never coming to fruition.

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Affordable anamorphic: hands-on with the Sirui 50mm F1.8 1.33x

12 Apr

Affordable anamorphic: hands-on with the Sirui 50mm F1.8 1.33x

The Sirui 50mm F1.8 1.33x Anamorphic is interesting for more than a couple of reasons, but the thing that makes it immediately attractive is that at $ 700/£660 it’s a lot more affordable than almost all other proper anamorphic lenses for filmmakers using interchangeable lens camera systems.

The lens is designed for APS-C and Super 35mm sensor sizes and comes in mounts for Sony E cameras, Fujifilm X and for Micro Four Thirds models. When used with a Super 35-sized sensor we get the equivalent of a 56mm horizontal field of view, while on a Micro Four Thirds camera this converts to an approximate 75mm horizontal field of view.

On E mount

The a7R IV may not be the ideal Sony camera for shooting all types of video, but it does include an APS-C/Super 35 crop mode, which is where it produces its best quality 4K video. This cropping might be a bug bear for some videographers, but it makes the camera a good match for this lens. It’s possible to use crop mode with FHD resolution as well, but since the camera produces better FHD footage in full sensor mode, we’d recommend sticking with 4K.

However, to see the footage de-squeezed live it’s necessary to use an external monitor with that capability since the feature isn’t built into the camera.

On X mount

Offering this lens in X mount makes a lot more sense now than it would have just a year ago – Fujifilm has upped its video game considerably with the X-H1, X-T4 and new firmware for the X-T3. The Eterna mode makes nice video straight out of the camera, but we also have F-Log and decent data rates too.

The Fujifilm X-T3 doesn’t technically need the grip to shoot video, as the body had both mic and headphone ports, but the grip makes the system easier to hold with the weight of the lens on the front. As with the Sony, you’ll need an external display with an anamorphic preview feature to see the de-squeezed image in real time.

On Micro Four Thirds

Users of the Panasonic GH5 have a couple of choices over the way they use this lens. It has an Anamorphic Mode that uses the 4:3 sensor area to capture video for de-squeezing in software afterwards. As this mode uses almost the whole sensor, the final image contains 18+MP of data to work with.

When you use this mode with the Sirui 1.33x anamorphic lens the wide aspect gets de-squeezed to a 16:9 format with a higher resolution than you’d get shooting in the normal 16:9 video mode, while the in-camera de-squeeze preview feature allows us to see what we are shooting via the rear screen.

To get the wide, cinematic anamorphic look that most will be expecting you need to shoot in the normal 16:9 mode, with Anamorphic Mode switched off. Even with Anamorphic Mode off you can still use the de-squeeze preview on the rear screen and inform the IS system that you have a 1.33x anamorphic lens attached.

The GH5S can also capture anamorphic footage using its 4:3 region, however, due to the nature of its multi-aspect sensor, the resolution isn’t quite as a high as the GH5 in this mode. Like the GH5, it can also show a de-sqeezed preview of the anamorphic image in-camera.

Fit and finish

The lens is constructed from 11 elements arranged in 8 groups, and features a 10-bladed iris. It certainly isn’t big but is long and thin, and weighs more than you might expect. It feels very solidly made and is nicely finished in a semi-matte black paint.

The focus and aperture markings are shown only on the top of the lens, and distances are indicated in both feet and meters with paint sunk into engraved characters.

Front element

The front element of the lens has that characteristic square baffle opening that we often see on anamorphic lenses. As with many single focal length anamorphic lenses the squeezing element is mounted onto the front of the basic optical design of the lens.

Front element

When viewed from the front, the circular iris of the lens appears elongated into an upright oval shape. This is because we are viewing it through the anamorphic element mounted on the front of the construction. When viewed through the rear the iris is shown to be round – well, a nearly round decagon at least.

The size of the front element, and its flat design, makes it a magnet to the flare so many film makers love. The flare appears in oval rings accompanied by thin blue lines that shoot horizontally across the frame. The blue tint seen in the front element appears to be designed to enhance the blue-ness of that line.

It is easy to overdo this effect so that the flare becomes the subject rather than whatever you are shooting, so caution is advised.

Aperture and focus rings

The aperture range on offer spans F1.8-16, while the closest focus is 0.85m / 33″ which is just close enough to get a decent tight head shot. Of course the aperture ring is clickless so exposures can be adjusted during recording without disturbing the audio track. The aperture ring turns smoothly with plenty of resistance to prevent accidental rotation, and you can get from one extreme to the other via a twist of about 90°.

The focusing ring takes a twist of 143.6° and must be turned to the left to reach infinity. The ring is quite stiff and the fine ribbing on the barrel may not always be enough to get a firm grip.

Image format on APS-C

When used with a camera recording in 16:9 mode the de-squeed image works out to a ratio of about 2.35:1, similar to the classic CinemaScope look. The black letterboxes above and below help illustrate the difference between this aspect ratio and the standard 16:9 video format.

Image format on Micro Four Thirds

This is a grab from footage recorded in Anamorphic Mode on the Panasonic Lumix DC-GH5. In this mode the camera records from the whole 4:3 sensor, so the 1.33x anamorphic effect only de-squeezes to 16:9, but it is a higher resolution 16:9 format image than you’d get recording in 16:9 with a normal lens.

Shooting in 16:9 with this lens on a Micro Four Thirds camera will also result in a 2.35:1 CinemaScope aspect ratio, albeit with a longer apparent focal length than on an APS-C/Super 35 sensor.

Trademark blue flare

Here’s an example of the blue-line flare that is a characteristic of this lens when aimed close to a light source. Some people will love it, and others will find it a distraction. As with most things, moderation might be the best policy.

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Shooting photos with anamorphic lenses is a fun way to get out of a creative rut

03 Apr

I’ve always been fascinated by anamorphic lenses, which optically compress, or ‘squeeze’, an image in the horizontal dimension, making it possible to capture an artificially wide field of view on a standard film frame or sensor.

I first discovered anamorphics in college, not because I shot with them but because I had a part time job as a projectionist at a small theater. Sometimes films came through in anamorphic format and I had to attach accessory lenses to the projector to desqueeze the image beamed up on the screen.

Fast forward a number of years. I’m still fascinated by anamorphic lenses, only now they’re becoming accessible enough to content creators that you don’t need to be a Hollywood filmmaker to afford them. One of these days I’ll get around to shooting an entire video project with anamorphics, but recently I’ve been intrigued by the possibility of using anamorphic lenses for still photography.

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Which is why, on a recent trip to Washington, DC, I found myself carrying no camera gear except for my iPhone 11 Pro and two small anamorphic accessory lenses. I’d been in a creative rut for a while and needed a diversion, so I resolved to shoot in anamorphic for the entire trip. It turned out to be a fun creative challenge.

Shooting anamorphic on a smartphone

The two lenses I used for this little experiment were the Moment anamorphic lens ($ 150) and the Moondog Labs anamorphic lens (also $ 150), each of which compresses the horizontal dimension by a factor of 1.33x. Both employ a simple twist-lock M-series bayonet mount (not to be confused with Leica M-mount) and attach to compatible cases from a number of manufacturers including Moment, RhinoShield and Sirui.

The Moondog Labs (L) and Moment (R) anamorphic lenses. Both squeeze the image horizontally by a factor of 1.33x, which is what makes the exit pupils appear oval in this image.

These lenses are primarily aimed at video shooters. When used with standard 16:9 format video they deliver a desqueezed aspect ratio of 2.35:1, about the same as CinemaScope, a widescreen cinema format originally developed in the 1950s.

Shooting still photos, however, requires some creative choices. The native aspect ratio for photos on most smartphones is 4:3, so a 1.33x desqueeze works out to an aspect ratio of almost exactly 16:9.

Of course, if you can already shoot in 16:9, why bother? Because anamorphic lenses provide a qualitatively differently look than simply cropping the frame. You’re effectively using a longer focal length but capturing the horizontal field of view of a shorter focal length, giving you more control over depth of field than you would typically have at that shorter focal length. Additionally, anamorphic lenses produce some distinctive optical effects, such as oval bokeh and horizontal lens flare.

Anamorphic lenses provide a qualitatively differently look than simply cropping the frame.

Of course, when working with a smartphone you would need to be pretty close to your subject to have any appreciable control over depth of field or to generate much bokeh, but there’s certainly the opportunity to create horizontal lens flare.

In the end I settled on a hybrid approach: I set my phone to shoot 16:9 in combination with a 1.33x anamorphic lens. This results in that wide 2.35:1 CinemaScope look, so that’s the route I went.

Shooting in anamorphic

Almost as soon as I began shooting I realized there were more choices to make. Should I shoot Raw or JPEG? Would it be better to use the iPhone’s built-in camera app or a third party app designed for anamorphic lenses? Let the experimentation begin!

Use the slider to compare the desqueezed image (L) with the squeezed image (R). The desqueeze process can be performed automatically by an apps, or in post-processing with a program like Photoshop.

The built-in camera app was the easiest way to get started, and ensured that I was taking advantage of all the wizardry of the iPhone’s computational photography. However, there was one downside: there’s no way to desqueeze the image in-camera. The image is always compressed horizontally, so you need to pre-visualize what the desqueezed photo will look like when framing a shot.

It’s not difficult, but it’s still not as natural as viewing a desqueezed image in real time, so I tried a couple third party apps designed to do just that: Filmic Firstlight (iOS, Android) and Moment Pro Camera (iOS).

Both are feature-rich photography apps that display a desqueezed image preview when shooting and include useful tools like manual controls, focus peaking, zebras, Raw image capture and the ability to export TIFF files.

The Moment Pro Camera app provides a real time desqueezed image preview, making it easier to compose photos.

The most noticeable difference I found is that the Moment app obscures parts of the image behind various camera controls, whereas the the Filmic app does not. As a result, I slightly preferred the Filmic app, but beyond that one issue they provide similar feature sets. They’re both good apps and the one you prefer will mostly come down to personal preference.

The Filmic Firstlight app provides similar functionality to the Moment app, but doesn’t obscure your image behind the camera controls.

Workflow and image quality

The workflow is far easier with third party apps since you can see what your final image will look like when shooting, and photos are desqueezed before being saved to the camera roll: no additional work required.

In contrast, photos shot using the built-in camera app require an additional processing step to desqueeze them. It was easy enough to create a Photoshop action to do this in bulk, but it meant a little extra work and some delayed gratification.

The workflow is far easier with third party apps since you can see what your final image will look like when shooting.

After experimenting with various combinations of app, file format and desqueeze methods, I learned some useful things:

The Filmic and Motion apps are more fun to shoot with thanks to real time previews of the anamorphic image. It’s more intuitive and you don’t need to imagine what the final shot will look like. They also make it easy to share photos in the moment instead of waiting until later.

Anamorphic accessory lenses allow you to capture classic anamorphic characteristics like horizontal lens flares.

iPhone 11 Pro with Moment anamorphic lens.

For the most part, desqueezed Raw images generally didn’t look any better than JPEGs from the iPhone’s native app, even after being stretched out. I expected this for photos taken in low light since the native app can do some exposure stacking, but it turned out to be true in most of the comparisons I tried.

Images captured with the native iPhone app and desqueezed in Photoshop generally looked a tiny bit better than the files from the Filmic and Motion apps. It’s possible the those apps don’t have access to quite the same computational wizardry as the native app, or it might just be that Photoshop does a better desqueeze.

Either way, the differences aren’t significant. As a result, I often found myself using the third party apps for a more enjoyable experience.

The greatest limitation on image quality are the lenses themselves. They’re really intended for video use, so it feels a bit unfair to judge them critically as still lenses. Keeping that in mind, you’re going to see flaws that wouldn’t be nearly as noticeable in a moving image.

iPhone 11 Pro with Moondog Labs anamorphic lens.

Overall, the Moondog and Moment optics performed similarly; as with any accessory lens, neither provides the level of optical clarity found on your smartphone’s built-in lenses. Once you add a desqueeze step that stretches the image horizontally, you’re going to start seeing artifacts. In fact, if you pixel peep the images in this article you’ll almost certainly be disappointed

Final thoughts

None of the anamorphic photos I shot with these lenses will win awards for technical image quality, but that really wasn’t the point of the experiment. Using them forced me to think differently about the way I composed and framed shots, and that’s always a good creative exercise.

Ignoring the optical limitations of the lenses for still photography, I really like the wide, cinematic aspect ratio. I was also pleased that I was able to provoke at least one of the distinctive characteristics anamorphics are known for, horizontal lens flare.

Now, couldn’t you just use the widest angle lens on your smartphone and crop to 2.35:1? Of course you could, but it won’t look quite the same. You’ll often hear cinematographers talk about the characteristics of a particular lens instead of how technically perfect it is, and even on a smartphone these anamorphic lenses result in a different look than you’ll get by cropping. Is it technically perfect? Definitely not, but it can be a lot of fun to visualize the world in a slightly different way.

iPhone 11 Pro with Moment anamorphic lens.

What this experience taught me is that I want to shoot more photos using anamorphic lenses. It’s not something that a lot of people do, but it challenges your creativity and presents an opportunity to create unique images. For my next experiment, I’m planning to kick it up a notch and pair a larger anamorphic lens with a mirrorless camera. That should allow me to take better advantage of unique anamorphic characteristics related to depth of field.

Want to try this this yourself? It’s a fun experiment that you can do on your own. All you need is an anamorphic accessory lens and a case with a compatible mount. In addition to the Moondog and Moment lenses I tried, there are similar lenses available from Sandmarc, BeastGrip and Ulanzi, and cases from Moment, RhinoShield and Sirui. If you give it a try let me know how it works and send me a link to your photos!

View the full anamorphic sample gallery

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Sirui announces 50mm F1.8 anamorphic lens for mirrorless cameras set for April release

26 Feb

Budget-conscious filmmakers looking for an anamorphic lens will finally be able to stop cropping the top and bottom of their movie frames next month when the Sirui 50mm F1.8 1.33x anamorphic lens will begin shipping through distributors outside of the initial Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns. The company has already shipped to many of its backers, but the Coronavirus has created delays that have set the general release back to April.

The lens, which enables 2.4:1 aspect ratio shooting, is available in mounts for Sony-E, Fujifilm X and Micro Four Thirds, and will retail for around $ 700 / £660. Designed to cover APS-C sized sensors the lens offers a field of view that equates to a 37.5mm lens, according to Sirui, as the optics increase the horizontal angle of coverage by 33%.

The compact lens is only 106.6mm (4.2in) long and has a maximum diameter of 69.2mm (2.72in), while weighing 560g (1.23lbs). It has a 10-bladed iris with openings covering F1.8-16 and the closest focus distance is 0.85m (33.5in).

For more information see the Sirui website

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Vazen announces new 28mm T2.2 1.8x anamorphic lens for Micro Four Thirds mount

17 Feb

Chinese cinema lens manufacturer Vazen has announced its latest anamorphic lens for Micro Four Thirds (MFT) cameras and teased another one that’s due out ‘in a few months.’

Vazen’s new 28mm T2.2 1.8x anamorphic lens for MFT camera systems is the second lens in its MFT anamorphic lineup, following up on its 40mm T2, an impressive anamorphic lens we had a little fun with on DPRTV. The new 28mm T2.2 features a lightweight design that Vazen claims makes it the ‘World’s Lightest 1.8x Anamorphic Lens for Panasonic GH5, Z-Cam E2 & Blackmagic Pocket 4k.’

It weighs just 720g (1.59lbs) and measures 80mm (3.15in) diameter and 107mm (4.2in) long. Its T-stop range is T2.2 through T16, it features a 72-degree angle of view and it has a minimum focusing distance of 82cm (2.7ft). Below is a sample video of footage captured with the lens on a ZcamE2(Vazen also shared this slightly NSFW music video captured with the lens):

In addition to the new 28mm T2.2 lens, Vazen also confirmed it’s adding a third lens to this lineup, a 65mm anamorphic lens. No details are given on the specs, but Vazen does not the 65mm lens ‘is expected to have the strongest anamorphic “character.”’

The Vazen 28mm T2.2 1.8x anamorphic lens for MFT camera systems is currently available to purchase through Vazen’s website for $ 3,250. If you purchase both the 28mm T2.2 and the 40mm T2 as a kit, Vazen drops the price for the pair by $ 400.

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