CharlesH
LMF-Patron Gold
Anamorphic lenses are associated with wide screen cinema; with big lenses for big cinema cameras. But the new Sirui Saturn Carbon Fiber series anamorphic lenses are small enough and light enough to be practical for photography with our L-Mount cameras. The result can be very nice images from hand-held shots. These lenses are available in 35mm, 50mm and 75mm, all with a 1.6x squeeze. I have the 50mm version because I wanted a little more reach than 35mm. And I got the neutral flare version instead of blue flare to make it more favorable for photography (it also works fine with video).
Why anamorphic? Shooting with this lens is like having a 50mm lens in height but a wider 31.25mm lens in width. With this lens the S5II aspect ratio changes from 1.5:1 to 2.4:1 (about the same as Cinemascope). That is, the picture width increases by 1.6x. This can give the nice effect of a 50mm lens, but with a wider field of view. The picture is squeezed by the lens to fit the sensor, and needs to be de-squeezed to its full width with post processing; a fairly straightforward process.
How? Anamorphic lenses use a cylindrical lens up front to squeeze the image to fit the sensor so the wider image fits. Take the photo and it looks very squeezed together. The way to de-squeeze these photos is to use Photoshop. Lightroom Classic works in concert with Photoshop, so my workflow is to bring the RAW files into Lightroom, do any tweaking there, and then export the files to Photoshop with the command Photo < Edit in , and select "Edit in Adobe Photoshop" to transfer the image to Photoshop.
In Photoshop select Image < Image Size. This shows the Image Size screen. Here change the image width by 1.6x. Change pixels from 6000 to 9600. This de-squeezes the image.
To get it back to Lightroom from Photoshop select File < Save a Copy. The default is a TIFF file that goes back to the same folder as the RAW files you are already working with in Lightroom. Select the default tiff settings and click okay - this moves the de-squeezed photo back to Lightroom.
Example S5II photo (a JPEG from the RAW), squeezed by the anamorphic lens.
Example final S5II photo (a JPEG from the TIFF) de-squeezed with Photoshop.
Other: The S5II has the ability to display the de-squeezed image on the screen before you shoot. HOWEVER this is only for VIDEO, and not for Photos. You can use this S5II feature if you want, flipping back and forth to frame the shot in the Video mode and to take the picture in the Photo mode. I tend to just work with the squeezed image in the Photo mode and not do this. Also, like all anamorphic lenses the Sirui lenses are manual focus. If you are rusty with manual focus technique (like me) you will need to brush up on this. You could get the same effect as anamorphic by just shooting with a normal 31.25mm lens (if there was one) and trimming the top and bottom to the same 2.4:1 aspect ratio. But you would give up lots of pixels to do this. Or you could get the same effect by shooting a panorama to the same aspact ratio, with a 50mm lens. But you can't shoot things that move with panoramas, and you don't normally do hand-held photos for panoramsa.. A reason to shoot wide screen with anamorphic is to freeze the motion, to enable hand-held, and to preserve pixels. And, of course, you can also use the lens for wide screen video.
Why anamorphic? Shooting with this lens is like having a 50mm lens in height but a wider 31.25mm lens in width. With this lens the S5II aspect ratio changes from 1.5:1 to 2.4:1 (about the same as Cinemascope). That is, the picture width increases by 1.6x. This can give the nice effect of a 50mm lens, but with a wider field of view. The picture is squeezed by the lens to fit the sensor, and needs to be de-squeezed to its full width with post processing; a fairly straightforward process.
How? Anamorphic lenses use a cylindrical lens up front to squeeze the image to fit the sensor so the wider image fits. Take the photo and it looks very squeezed together. The way to de-squeeze these photos is to use Photoshop. Lightroom Classic works in concert with Photoshop, so my workflow is to bring the RAW files into Lightroom, do any tweaking there, and then export the files to Photoshop with the command Photo < Edit in , and select "Edit in Adobe Photoshop" to transfer the image to Photoshop.
In Photoshop select Image < Image Size. This shows the Image Size screen. Here change the image width by 1.6x. Change pixels from 6000 to 9600. This de-squeezes the image.
To get it back to Lightroom from Photoshop select File < Save a Copy. The default is a TIFF file that goes back to the same folder as the RAW files you are already working with in Lightroom. Select the default tiff settings and click okay - this moves the de-squeezed photo back to Lightroom.
Example S5II photo (a JPEG from the RAW), squeezed by the anamorphic lens.
- Panasonic - DC-S5M2
- SIRUI
- 50.0 mm
- 1/250 sec
- Pattern
- Manual exposure
- ISO 100
Example final S5II photo (a JPEG from the TIFF) de-squeezed with Photoshop.
- Panasonic - DC-S5M2
- SIRUI
- 50.0 mm
- 1/250 sec
- Pattern
- Manual exposure
- ISO 100
Other: The S5II has the ability to display the de-squeezed image on the screen before you shoot. HOWEVER this is only for VIDEO, and not for Photos. You can use this S5II feature if you want, flipping back and forth to frame the shot in the Video mode and to take the picture in the Photo mode. I tend to just work with the squeezed image in the Photo mode and not do this. Also, like all anamorphic lenses the Sirui lenses are manual focus. If you are rusty with manual focus technique (like me) you will need to brush up on this. You could get the same effect as anamorphic by just shooting with a normal 31.25mm lens (if there was one) and trimming the top and bottom to the same 2.4:1 aspect ratio. But you would give up lots of pixels to do this. Or you could get the same effect by shooting a panorama to the same aspact ratio, with a 50mm lens. But you can't shoot things that move with panoramas, and you don't normally do hand-held photos for panoramsa.. A reason to shoot wide screen with anamorphic is to freeze the motion, to enable hand-held, and to preserve pixels. And, of course, you can also use the lens for wide screen video.