A 43rumors reader just sent me his review video of the new SLR Magic Anamorphot:
Just watched TheCameraStoreTV video on the SLR Magic Anamorphot, and was disappointed to find it was not up to the quality of most of their videos. I just posted this video a couple days ago with my unboxing and impressions of the SLR Magic Anamorphot, where I go into detail that will give potential buyers a better idea of the adapter and the results it can give you.
You can grab the anamorphot lens on [shoplink 47326 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
11 Responses
OK…so I NEVER shoot video. As a matter of fact the first thing that I do when purchasing a new camera is to disable the video. I consider them separate disciplines, but to each there own. 🙂
I am an avid still photographer and love great cinematography in movies
(yes, I notice) so I was a little curious about this new product, just
from an awareness standpoint.
I watched The Camera Store video and the one up above by Shattered Glass Productions that were produced to inform us about the Anamorphot.
OK…so The Camera Store vid seemed to cater to the on-camera-person posing it up and giving his best “look, but gave me very little useful tech info about the Anamorphot, other than how it effecting the image frame.
The Shattered Glass Productions vid on the other hand was MOST informative, especially if you actually want to implement the ($1000+!) product into your shooting scheme. The narrator does not give his name, but he gives all of the tech info about the adapter rings, prefered f/stops-and-why, and also the range that the diopters may be needed.
The Shattered Glass Production’s vid was was well “filmed” and more professional and informative.
If I click on any of the home-grown videos on this site I am usually cringing within 30 sec…but that certainly was not the case here. …and HEY….I learned something, too!!!!!!
NICE JOB Shattered Glass!!!!!
While i consider still and film as a similar discipline, film requires alot of extra skills.(if you do all the stuff yourself, a cinematograpger can stick just to his job which is the photography aspect of the movie as a whole.) Maybe this is one of the reasons that there more (imo) average videographers then there are average photographers. hence the sites you mentioned.
I think a “good” still photographer has a whole set of skills and many are quite different than the cinematographer…although…the C-guy has to know more probably (?) and definitely spend more (!!!! LOL..keeps me away!)….I think you really need to be specialized to be REALLY great at one or the other. There are some few freaks out there who have large wallets AND are very talented in anything they touch…but that is rare.
how do you “disable” video on your cameras? I’ve never seen that option.
OK…not all cameras allow that, but many up-to-date cameras have a LOT of versatility. I currently have three cameras.
Canon 5DIII which I compliment with my MFT E-P5 and E-PL6.
On the Canon I can simply throw the toggle collar around the movie button and it locks it off and allows LiveView whenever I need it.
My Olympus cameras, of course, are much more versatile even though they have terrible menus and makes it hard to find the changes. LOL!
…but with both of my Olys I can reassign the movie button to something that is more useful to me.
On the E-P5 I changed the movie button to the HDR funciton and on my EPL6 that has smaller size but less manual controls I have it set to change my ISO settings.
If I had a bit of extra cash right now, this is one of the toys I would like to pick up. Unfortunately I think I will have to wait for christmas. Hint Hint!
Nice review.
Kinda sucks that you have to stop down the lenses. In those test videos, because of the shallower depth of field, you can barely see the squeezed bokeh which is one of the nice things about anamorphic. Also, it would be hard to use at night, where you can get lens flares. Other than the anamorphic aspect ratio, I can’t really see the appeal to such an expensive adapter. Wouldn’t a wider angle lens and cropping top and bottom would achieve something similar?
Anamorphic gives you the bokeh of longer length but with view angle of wider lens, this one gives pretty good example http://petapixel.com/2014/05/07/shooting-anamorphic-lens-dslr/
That’s why I’m staying that with the lens stopped down you can barely see the squeezed bokeh. His test videos don’t look anything like the pics on the link you posted.
Anamorphot is 1.33x squeeze instead of 2x squeeze so the FOV is not as wide as that example, but this video does show squeezed bokeh, some lens you can use full open (F1.4) with Anamorphot
https://vimeo.com/100453053