Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:17 pm
Yes. I've shot with the HAWKs. They are lovely.
I shot a film using Alexa (ProRes) about 18 months ago and i tested Hawk 1.3X and Lomo 2x. Have a look at the footage here.
A lot of people argue that the 1.3X anamorphic isn't *enough* of an affect. They want bigger distortions, bigger flares and MORE oval bokeh.
I prefer a lens that's optimised to the sensor. The hawks don't exhibit a lot of the more *obvious* anamorphic flares, which are accidental, but a lot of people tend to LIKE. Flares for example. The Hawks are very flare resistant, and even when they do flare, they tend to not do the big horizontal streak.
So shoot Hawks if you want more optical resolution on the sensor and some of the anamorphic look in terms of geometry and framing, but not if you want flares and obvious bending.
I find it hard to be dissing the Angenieux anamorphics considering I don't think any footage has been released.
You could certainly use either a 2X or a 1.3X anamorphic on the camera. The only issue will be the crop if you're using a 2X (which is why the 1.3X is better) and the lack of any anamorphic monitoring support. You could probably rig something up to monitor over the HD-SDI to make anamorphic monitoring work though.
jb
John Brawley ACS
Cinematographer
Currently - Los Angeles