Anamorphic lens for wide-screen slides a la Panavision?

[Rob-F]

Has anyone tried this? Seems like a great idea. I've been composing in a wide screen format for years, and then cropping the slides using Wess AVA202 mounts for a 2:1 aspect ratio. But that sacrifices about 25% of the film area. An anamorphic lens with a 1.5:1 squeeze ratio, used with the 1.5:1 aspect ratio of 35mm, would yield a final ratio of 2.25:1. That's wide enough, and not too wide.

One of the several Panavision formats, maybe Ultra Panavision 70, used the idea of combining a mild squeeze of around 1.5:1 with the wider film format. I'd like to do the same thing with still slides for projection.

I know there is an Isco lens out there, and I think some others, but I don't know their anamorphic ratios. An adjustable one might be good.

Has anyone played around with this idea?

 

[sevo]

The Isco pair of taking and projection lens is the best by far - all other anamorphic lenses for 24x36 I've come across were front-attachment gimmicks in the vein of fisheye adapters. And even the Isco has lots of CA.

Cine anamorphic lenses beyond the ISCO won't fill 24x36 - and they are not really top quality either, anamorphic taking lenses were mostly for low budget motion picture productions, or, more recently, for Super-16 TV production in 16:9 ratio. Regular motion picture use of anamorphic lenses was strictly at the projection side, with the taking side using uncompressed 70mm or 35mm with a variety of non-standard film gates.

 

[Rob-F]

Am I understanding that the Isco system uses two separate lenses for taking and projection? I thought the same lens was used for both, since the reciprocal property should cause it to squeeze on the camera, and unsqueeze when projecting through it back-to-front.

I'm wondering how the Anamorphic lens attaches to the prime projection lens. Or does it?

 

[sevo]

Over the course of time Isco had a taking lens, taking attachments and a variety of projection lenses and attachments. I had a Exakta mount 50/2.8 and a barrel mount 90mm for projection - but I can't remember whether the latter had a attachment, or was a fully integral anamorphic lens.

 

[kbb]

The ISCO system required that you transfer the anamorphic front-attachment from camera to projector lens.
For really good(and 'good' in this case is debateable)optical performance, the anamorphic unit has to be calculated specifically for the matched taking lens on the camera, and precision mounted to the prime.
Also, in the best systems, the anamorphic front cell has it's own focusing action, accomplished in Panavision and the other cimema systems with an expensive precision internal mechanical linkage between the prime and anamorphic units. Complicated and expensive!
Add to all this the two counter-rotating anamorphic elements also incorporated into the lens internals in order to counteract the variable anamorphosis with focused distance(the feature that made Panavision's initial success), the issues with depth of field for two different focal lengths(horizontal and vertical), curvature of field, increased flare from added lens elements, etc, and you can see why all attempts at anamorphics for stills use have never been economical.
If you want to play around with anamorphics on a budget, look[in the USA] for an anamorphic unit called 'Optivision', sold for a while in the mid 1970's. You should be able to buy one for $50 or so.
It was intended as a same-lens-for-camera-and-and-projector type system, with 2:1 squeeze, and commonly came with a 52mm front thread adapter. The widest lens you can shoot through it is about a 100mm. Personally, I'm looking to get a Nikon D3x, so that when I'm finished cropping, I'll have about a 10 or 12 megapixel image.
Edit, three years later: Now I have 36MP on the 24x36 frame; Cropped panos are better, but merged multi-shot panos are clearer still.

 

[Rob-F]

Thanks for all the info, everyone.

Something fascinating and distracting about anamorphic movies is the way that highlights go from round to oval when they go out of focus. There is a scene in The hunt for Red October where this is especially noticeable. Is that the variable anamorphosis in action? Or the effect of two different focal lengths?

 

[kbb]

I vaguely remember that I read at some point a credible sounding explanation of the elliptical blur effect with anamorphics, but I don't recall where. Try the Google. It is one of the fascinating 'defects' that anamorphics produce.

 

[Rob-F]

Revisiting this thread after having looked into possibly trying a used Panavision Panatar variable anamorphic lens. The one I'm thinking of is actually made for the projector; but apparently can be used for photography as well. I wonder how good the results can be? The example I saw on You Tube didn't look good. Has anyone played around with the Panatar? It uses prisms rather than cylindrical lenses. They seem to be fairly available used.