What is an original anamorphic lens? Does having it mean having a sense of cinema?

If you like to shoot videos, you must have heard of anamorphic lenses, and even considered buying anamorphic lenses. What exactly is an anamorphic lens, and does the video shot with it really have a cinematic feel?

Speaking of anamorphic lenses, Panavision must be inseparable, but in fact the prototype of anamorphic lenses is Hypergonar invented by Frenchman Henri Chretien. In order to promote CINEMASCOPE (widescreen movies), 20th Century Fox purchased Hypergonar technology from Henri Chretien. patent.

CINEMASCOPE movies in the 50 years of the last century

In the 1950s, in order to attract more audiences to the cinema while reducing costs, 20th Century Fox launched the CINEMASCOPE system. Compared with the earlier Cinerama system, CINEMASCOPE has a simpler structure, requiring only one projector to achieve wide-screen display (Cinerama requires 3). However, at that time, the film industry mainly used 35mm film (135 format) to shoot movies with an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, which was not suitable for playback on CINEMASCOPE, so Panavision anamorphic lenses came into being.

I believe anyone who has used a film camera knows that you need to pass the film every time you shoot, and pull the film from the horizontal direction to the back of the lens. There are also film advance devices in film cameras, but the difference is that the film camera advance device is rotated 90°, and the film enters the rear of the lens from the vertical direction, which means that the maximum width of each frame of the film is only about 24mm, which is not like XPAN. Like a camera, multiple films are “spliced” into a wide screen. XPAN’s film advance device Arri 35-III film advance device Some people may say that cutting the 1.37:1 picture up and down can achieve the 2.35:1 (CINEMASCOPE) effect. This involves the problem of film quality in the past. After cutting the 1.37:1 picture into 2.35:1, the area of ​​a single frame film will be reduced from 4 perforations to about 2 perforations, which is sharply reduced by half. At the same time, the picture needs to be projected more. Displayed on a large screen, the picture quality is destined to drop sharply, which is unacceptable. To achieve CINEMASCOPE under the premise that the film size remains the same and the image quality does not change, it is necessary to use an anamorphic lens, which uses the lens to horizontally compress the picture to a film with a 1.37:1 aspect ratio, and then uses the anamorphic during editing or playback The lens is restored to normal proportions, so that CINEMASCOPE can be achieved with almost no loss of film area. The early anamorphic lens is generally 2X, and the aspect ratio is 2.74:1 after the 1.37:1 film is restored to the normal ratio. To achieve 2.35:1 or 2.4:1 CINEMASCOPE, left and right crops are required. Later, with the development of technology, 1.3X, 1.8X anamorphic lenses and anamorphic lens extenders appeared in the market, but the deformation effect of the latter was very unsatisfactory. 35mm cutting realizes the size of only 2 perforations under the wide screen, which is much smaller than the 4 perforations under 1.37:1 Compared with a spherical lens (ordinary lens), the anamorphic lens has a more complex optical structure and a larger image circle, so the optical defects are more obvious-the lens speed becomes slower, the vignetting angle is heavier, the distortion is severe, and the glare increases sharply , The light source will produce blue horizontal drawing glare, the breathing effect is more serious, there will be a sense of dizziness outside the focus, the round spot will become an ellipse, and the cheek effect will appear (the face becomes fat). In the movie “Liberated Jiang Ge” shot with anamorphic lens, the wall in the background shows obvious cylindrical distortion However, many optical defects have become the hallmarks of cinematic after decades of precipitation, such as blue horizontal brushed glare and elliptical focus, even after the ARRI ZEISS Master Anamorphic lens came out. Master Anamorphic retains the elliptical out-of-focus and wide screen characteristics of the anamorphic lens, overcomes the shortcomings of breathing effects, distortion, and glare. With high resolution and high contrast, it cannot reverse the morbid preferences of filmmakers for decades. Cinematic feeling is a mysterious and mysterious feeling. It requires the coordination of lens, lighting, composition, lens movement, and color adjustment. The anamorphic lens can bring almost iconic film effects such as elliptical out-of-focus and blue horizontal drawing flare. It is just one of the non-essential conditions, and it is impossible to determine whether the video has a cinematic feel. The film “Liberated Jiang Ge” shot with Panavision film camera and anamorphic lens