How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

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Kays Alatrakchi

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How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostSun Jun 30, 2019 8:33 pm

Here's a small test that I just shot:



I think there is some confusion and misinformation regarding shooting anamorphic on the Pocket 4K.

It is absolutely possible to do it right now, it just requires some adjustments to one's workflow.

For this test, I used a Canon FD 50mm 1.4 as the taking lens, and a Sankor 16C projection anamorphic as my anamorphic lens. I am also utilizing a 55mm to 40.5mm Step-down filter ring adapter to screw the Sankor directly onto my Canon because I find the clamps system to be much more prone to misalignment issues.

The main issue that you're going to have is that the Pocket 4K rear display will look squished, unfortunately that's the way it is and I doubt this is changing anytime soon (or ever). If you use a separate external monitor, you can try to get one with a de-squeeze function -- it still won't be 100% proper but it'll be a bit closer to reality.

I highly recommend enabling the 4:3 aspect ratio guides on the Pocket 4K as those will give you a better sense of the Left and Right boundaries of the frame, not 100% perfect but it should be close enough for this type of rock 'n roll.

Once you bring the footage into Resolve, this is how you want to set it up:

First of all, right-click on the Clip Attributes and change the pixel ratio from Square to 1.8 (at least if you're using the Sankor this seems to yield the proper stretching factor). After that, you can drag your clip into your timeline, and you'll want to enlarge by a scale factor of 1.42 for both width and height which will give you a proper 2.40 framing.

You will lose about 20% of your left and right sides of what you shot, but honestly I don't think this is such a bad thing when shooting with this type of hack. You'll end up with a sharper overall image since you're not using the very edges of your lens. People keep asking Blackmagic to enable a 4:3 shooting directly in camera, but basically what you're asking is for the cropping to happen at the capture stage instead of post. I'd rather do it in post, and have the ability to reframe slightly left or right if necessary.

There are other ways to get to the final frame/aspect ratio, but at least for me I have found this to be the simplest method to get there.

I still can't recommend this type of set up for anything serious or professional. The dual focus nature of the anamorphic adapters, coupled with the lack of proper viewer display on the Pocket 4k, coupled with the propensity for these types of adapters to get misaligned, and on and on; make this better suited for no budget experimental shooting where time and f-ups are not the luxury that they are in the pro world.

I hope this helps some who are curious about shooting this way.

Photo on 6-30-19 at 1.06 PM.jpg
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>>Kays Alatrakchi
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Adam Silver

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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostTue Jul 02, 2019 12:32 am

Looks great!
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostTue Aug 13, 2019 12:55 am

Good info here, thought I'd bump it as I've started with the ISCO Ultra Star red using the same work flow in post.
The one thing I am confused about it the stretch width and height factor to make the footage view-able on 16:9 screens.
I don't want the entire screen to be filled, I actually like the black bars but left as is with a 2x squeeze the bars are way too much.
from this "you'll want to enlarge by a scale factor of 1.42 for both width and height which will give you a proper 2.40 framing"
I'm not sure I'm getting my cropping correct. I import the footage as cinemascope and keep the timeline at 16:9.
Then I stretch the footage horizontally by 1.25 and vertically by 1.4. This looks ok on the 16:9 screen but I'm not sure this is "accurate"
From the above, should I simply zoom the footage by 1.42? rather than horizontal and vertical separate?

Cheers,
Alex.
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostTue Aug 13, 2019 10:31 am

Update,

Tried the 1.4 zoom and seems to work quite nicely. (should have worked that out myself but...).

See example below of my daughter actor eating.. ;-) shot wide open on 50mm FD lens taking lens.

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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostTue Aug 13, 2019 3:28 pm

If this is a normal 2x anamorphic, you only alter one dimension, not both the vertical and horizontal. Is your goal to have a widescreen 2.4:1 aspect ratio? What was your recording aspect ratio in camera?


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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostTue Aug 13, 2019 9:35 pm

This is a 2x squeeze.

If I alter only one dimension then the other doesn't look right. Ie if I crop the edges, it still looks very letter box when viewed in 16:9. Yes that the way it would look but I don't want that, there is too much black on the top and bottom of the screen.
You may be onto something with the recording aspect, I've left it at 4kDCI so that I can zoom / crop and still have some resolution to play with, but if I try it at 1080 HD, the view area is much more zoomed in.

Might give that a try tonight, see what works best. Its all for 1080 viewing anyways.

Alex.
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Kays Alatrakchi

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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostTue Aug 13, 2019 10:02 pm

Boardpig wrote: I import the footage as cinemascope and keep the timeline at 16:9.
Then I stretch the footage horizontally by 1.25 and vertically by 1.4. This looks ok on the 16:9 screen but I'm not sure this is "accurate"
From the above, should I simply zoom the footage by 1.42? rather than horizontal and vertical separate?



It depends a bit on your Anarmorphic lens, turns out they're not really 100% accurate as far as the squeeze factor goes on various lenses, so there's a bit of trial and error IMHO.

On my Sankor 16C with a 50mm 1.4 Canon FD, when I change the Clip Attributes in Resolve to 1.8 things look "proper", however the letter boxing is far too severe for my taste, which is why I then upscale the footage in my timeline by 1.42 so that my letter boxing (when viewed in a 16x9 frame) is the equivalent to a 2.4:1 letter boxing.

Your workflow is slightly different since you're actually importing the footage (i.e. setting the Clip Attributes) as Cinemascope and not 1.8 which in turn squeezes your footage horizontally too much, and requires you to stretch the frame in different ratios in your timeline. Try the 1.8 instead of the Cinemascope and see if it works for you.
>>Kays Alatrakchi
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Resolve 18.1.4, Mac OS X 12.6.3 (Monterey), iMac Pro 64Gb RAM, Decklink Mini 4K, LG C9

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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostTue Aug 13, 2019 11:52 pm

Thanks for the info, yes I did get quite a good result from the 1.4 zoom on the clips. When viewed in 16:9 it looked like I would want it to so in that regard I think its working for me.
I'll try a different clip attribute setting as a test, see if it makes a difference but again I guess its all in what you are happy with ;-)

Thing about these lenses is that once you start getting results, its hard to go back ;-)))

Alex.
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How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostThu Aug 15, 2019 3:23 am

Now I don’t use all those pixel aspect ratio settings in Resolve via Clip Attributes. They’re fixed values and they may not be correct for your shoot. Close but may not be correct. For example when your subject is near, you’ll get less squeeze than at a normal or far distance. The 2x squeeze applies to normal distances.

While doing this make sure you have set your Project Scaling currently either no scaling or stretch with crop, but not stretch to fit all corners” as that will distort your image.

I leave Resolve thinking it has square pixels. I use the Edit Page, Transform controls on the right hand side of the screen. Unlink the Zoom X and Y axes.

Widescreen isn’t really 2.4:1, it’s that odd 2.38964 kind of number. You get there by setting your video to 4096x1716 or 3840x1608 or 2048x858 or 1920x804. If you are starting with DCI 4K footage, just set your Timeline to “using 4096x1716” and your zoom Y axis to 0.5. You’ll have letterboxing though.

If you want to get rid of the letterboxing, set the X axis to 1.2587x and the Y axis to 0.6294x (1.2587x0.5). In getting rid of the letterboxing, you have thrown away over a quarter of your pixels.

Background for general solutions;
Let’s start again please. It sounds like you want to produce a 16:9 output. But that can’t happen without letterboxing.

You need to decide what dimension you want your deliverable to have. If you shoot DCI 4K 17:9 and are using a 2x Anamorphic, you’re wasting a lot of pixels.

With a 2x Anamorphic, if your goal is a roughly 2.4:1 Widescreen image, you want to shoot with a 6:5 aspect ratio image. When you desqueeze the image in post you’ll have 2.4:1 (12:5). With no waste of pixels. People who insist they must have a 4:3 window just don’t get it. Their brains have been washed by Panasonic. Unless they want to produce 2.66:1 deliverables of course.

That 6:5 aspect ratio is currently on the URSA Mini 4.6K and BMPCC6K camera’s and will come to the BMPCC4K soon I hope.


Let’s say your original footage was UHD 3840x2160 square pixels. And you want to deliver either 3840 or 1080 video.

Leave the X axis at 1.000. Set the Y axis to 0.500. Now your video will look like 3840x1080. But that’s not Widescreen. It’s 3.55x. So you need to set your Project Settings appropriately which would be “using 2592x1080” and your letterbox (top and bottom black bars) will be gone.

Now I believe a video with a custom size such as 2592x1080 will be troublesome. You need to set things up to use the standard X axis dimensions such as DCI 4K or UHD or 2K or HD.





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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostThu Aug 15, 2019 9:01 pm

I must say that the 4:3 shooting directly in camera does not equal the cropping at post.
It retains the edges of the frame, which is very important for more impressive anamorphic distortion, bokeh and foreground separation, producing a more three-dimensional image. Looking forward to the next firmware update.
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostThu Aug 15, 2019 11:46 pm

Nice breakdown as always Rick... always hurts my head slightly trying to follow it ;-)

The 6:5 aspect ratio sounds like the one for me. Hopefully this is coming to a P4K near me.
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostFri Aug 16, 2019 1:54 pm

Yes, 6:5 on the mFT platform is highly desirable given true anamorphic lenses with 2x squeeze are more affordable due to size reductions. Still beyond my reach. Very nice to have that in your kit.

I use my 1.33x anamorphic adapter on the BMPCC4K and URSA Mini 4.6K. Considering I only have PL lenses, I really appreciate having both cameras work well with my limited lenses.


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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostFri Aug 16, 2019 4:32 pm

Black Winter wrote:I must say that the 4:3 shooting directly in camera does not equal the cropping at post.
It retains the edges of the frame, which is very important for more impressive anamorphic distortion, bokeh and foreground separation, producing a more three-dimensional image. Looking forward to the next firmware update.


Depends on the quality of your anamorphic lens, and your personal taste. Using anything other than a proper anamorphic lens results is pretty unusable edges IMHO, so I personally don't mind cropping them out and using the central part of the image which typically has less CA, and less weird inner reflections.

As I wrote in another thread, using anamorphic add-ons is a hack and is not a proper replacement for actual anamorphic lenses, but it can yield reasonably good images if used judiciously and with realistic end goals.
>>Kays Alatrakchi
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostFri Aug 16, 2019 6:40 pm

Look at those blurred distorted edges:

Capturar.JPG
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Man, I love how anamorphic messes up with the image. So magical, so pretty! These modern days super expensive cinema anamorphics look kind of sterile, not much apart from letterboxed spherical. At least to me. Old school anamorphic look is art!

I really, really dont bother monitoring 1.33x squeezed image from the Pocket 4K. Doesnt interfere in nothing at least untill now and I use it as natural as it could be in my workflow. With new firmware it could become even sweeter. But definetely, why couldnt you shoot anamorphic today with it? I dont see the faintest reason.
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostFri Aug 16, 2019 8:01 pm

What set up did you use for that shot?
>>Kays Alatrakchi
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostFri Aug 16, 2019 10:38 pm

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:What set up did you use for that shot?


For this shot: BMPCC4K > Viltrox M2 MkII > Sigma 18-35mm > SLR Magic Anamorphot 1.33x 50.
Oh, and a Hoya IRND Filter which was constantly been seawater sprayed from the waves breaking on the rocks (along with the rest of the gear).
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostSat Aug 17, 2019 2:02 am

Are you happy with the results of combining a focal reducer and the 1.33x Anamorphot?

I’m thinking of doing the same, but using the SpeedBooster. However there’s a few posts here saying that the results will be soft. I don’t quite understand that as the Metabones SpeedBooster claims to increase MTF. I just want to see what it’s like working with a 135 film AOV. That’s what your video is showing us. Sure edges might suffer but that’s part of the character.


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How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostSat Aug 17, 2019 2:04 am

By the way I foolishly posted recently that the anamorphic desqueeze was implemented on the Pocket4K monitor. It’s not... yet!


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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostSat Aug 17, 2019 3:06 am

rick.lang wrote:Are you happy with the results of combining a focal reducer and the 1.33x Anamorphot?

I’m thinking of doing the same, but using the SpeedBooster. However there’s a few posts here saying that the results will be soft. I don’t quite understand that as the Metabones SpeedBooster claims to increase MTF. I just want to see what it’s like working with a 135 film AOV. That’s what your video is showing us. Sure edges might suffer but that’s part of the character.


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The blurry in the edges, as far as I understand, are from the anamorphic nature of things (and I find it beautiful). In this case, it was the out of focus portion of the image. I need to test more but I dont think it got less sharp or softer. Theoretically, it should in fact make it sharper. The focal reducer itself produces no artifacts at all and I tested it a lot. The downside I'm finding so far is that it will only work with a 35mm lens and above so I can only use my Sigma at 35, as a prime, and it still give a very subtle vignette.
Focus is hard too. But I need to get more experience with it. As soon as the sun comes out in the weekend Im gonna shoot another "experimental" video with a parkour guy and then we will know better.
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostSat Aug 17, 2019 4:09 am

Thanks for the feedback on the making of that image. Vignetting is expected with the Sigma and the focal reducer. Perhaps better to use lenses that would cover 135 film and avoid the vignette in that scene.


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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostTue Aug 20, 2019 3:31 am

I'll post a few examples but I'm also using an M42 to M43 focal reducer (using an F5 50MM) and the results are still very sharp. (at least for what I need).
I actually like the slight distortions within the image when using the Ultrastar, to me it gives warmth, character and my kids think they are now acting in "proper" Hollywood film ;-)
I can get very sharp and clear results using the Sigma 18-15 but to me it doesn't seem like "film" and isn't quite the look I was after.
The only pain at the moment is the dual focus (its not thaaaaat much of a pain but you do have to think about your subject distance) however I hope to resolve this with a Rapido tech FVD16.

I should add that while the image is squeezed on the monitor it does make focusing a but tricky, especially at F1.8. I find though if you use the zoom function on the view monitor and the "normal" view on the camera screen, you can see the focus guides on the zoomed monitor easier and use the camera screen for shot framing. (the future de-squeeze might help with this).

Cheers,
Alex.
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostFri Aug 23, 2019 6:50 am

a few brief tests on sharpness with the Ultra-star, shot wide open F1.8. Does OK down to about a meter.

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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostMon Oct 07, 2019 10:19 pm

I've started doing some tests with the Rapido Tech FVD single focus. Results seem good so far, I do a lot of filming withthe kids, this makes the focus a bit easier, will post a few shots shortly. In the meantime, this is the setup.

Alex.


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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostSun Oct 13, 2019 3:26 am

Finally got around to posting some example footage from the Ultra-Star and Rapido Technology FVD 16.

Its by no means a scientific test, just some examples of what I've been shooting the past few weeks and around the house for tests.
All the shots are between F2 and F4, the close(er) shots are just under a meter out.

Since I mostly film the kids and family, the FVD single focus is actually quite useful. If I use the focus assist on the feelworld monitor, I can usually get it reasonable quickly. Its sharp enough even at F2 and mostly smooth during the throw. (it does look like you are shooting a music video when at the park though ;-))

example footage


Setup
IMG_5696.jpg
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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostSun Oct 13, 2019 4:16 am

Nice.


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Re: How to do Anamorphic on the Pocket 4K today

PostSun Oct 13, 2019 3:08 pm

Is it just me or from the anamorphic videos out there, it doesn't look as good on the Pocket 4K as other cameras like the GH5 and ZCAM?

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