Absolutely! Projection lenses by Schneider received the Oscars' Technical Achievement Award in 1976, 1978, 1989, 2000, 2001 and 2005. If you think about it, a studio isn’t going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars making a film, only to have the most important part of the experience, the projection of all that hard work in a cinema, be out of focus! There has always been a focus on the lenses used on set, but the last lens that’s ever used on a film is the one that your cinema projects it with. Even today, a digital projector needs a lens to shine the image onto the screen, so you can see it, and that lens better be good! p.s. All of the screenshots on this page are from my own work, shot on the anamorphic lenses I've personally built, that I'll be teaching you to build inside this course.
I believe that shooting with anamorphic lenses will help your work stand out, elevating the look of any project you're working on. Give yourself and your reel an edge by making a real difference to the images you create, with an optical process that can't be faked or added in post.
Not only that, it'll reignite your passion and love for shooting as you re-discover the world through a fresh set of eyes, and I hope it will bring you an immense amount of joy and awe; it does for me, every time I go out shooting with my anamorphic lenses.
But there are a lot of hurdles to overcome when you’re putting together a set of anamorphic lenses.
If one of these things goes wrong; say your lens isn't perfectly tuned to infinity for example, the whole image will be slightly out of focus, and your client won’t be calling you again.
I don't want that to happen to you!
In this course, I’ll walk you through all the parts you'll need to build a fully working set of anamorphic lenses, all using parts available online. I'll show you how to put your rig together so it doesn't fall apart on set, and I'll also take you through the exact prep process I go through before every shoot. When the client wants to shoot in 6K, you better have all the parts aligned correctly!
In this video course, I'm not just teaching you about the glass, but I'm proud to be sharing all my rigging secrets with you, too. I can change a lens as fast as if it were a spherical lens, and I'm excited to show you how.
Here are some things we’ll be covering. Maybe you’ve already been at this a while and you’ve got a setup that you’re kind of happy with? Have a look below and see whether these topics would help bring extra clarity to your process and efficiency to your workflow.
(If you’re brand new to all this, a lot of these names and terms might not make sense yet, but they will!)
What is a taking lens (hint: it just means a spherical lens!)
How to select the right clamps for your lenses and who sells the best ones
Why you won't have to double focus these lenses
How to get smooth oval bokeh that isn’t hexagonal
A direct comparison between a Kowa Bell and Howell and a Kowa 16H; is the B&H actually better or is it just hype?
The method I use to perfectly tune my lenses to infinity before a shoot
Which 2x projection lens actually goes the widest? (it’s not the Kowa B&H; it’s not even a Kowa! Sshhh…)
A breakdown and visual comparison between the HCDNA, Rapido 35A, 16A, 16B 8A and Proto DNA single focus solutions: all the information you need to decide which one to go for
How to use a matte box with these lenses; what your options are and the pros and cons of each
Why I don't personally use Iscorama lenses
What’s the difference between all these anamorphic projection lenses anyway? Test results from Kowa, Hypergonar, Elmoscope, Isco, Schneider, Zeiss etc.
Why our lenses offer you much better visual quality and more flexibility than a Sirui Anamorphic or a Moment Anamorphic lens
Myth-busting 'focus through' as a made-up term
Which close up diopters are the best for anamorphic work; and are the cheap ones any good?
The best way to desqueeze your footage in post (lots of heartbreakingly bad advice on this; we’ll do a pixel deep dive and I’ll show you, visually, which method retains the best quality)
The minimum resolution you need in any camera for anamorphic work
How to decide whether you need a 2x, 1.75x, 1.5x or 1.33x lens
Why you mostly don’t need an ‘anamorphic mode’ on your camera to shoot anamorphic
The difference between Micro 4/3, Super 35 and Full Frame cameras when shooting anamorphic, and how to adapt your setup to any camera or sensor in the world!
What you need in a monitor for anamorphic shooting and which monitors I use for my work
How to reduce vignette on your setup and maximise your scope’s field of view
The system I use to change focal lengths in under 60 seconds on set
And much, much more..!
You can have blue flares by day and orange flares for sunset. Our system is modular, so you simply swap out the projection lens to another one that you own with a different flare profile.
The only way to change the flare colour with fully built out anamorphic lenses is to buy an entirely new set of lenses. And that colour will be dictated by the manufacturer, so what they choose, you get. And another set will cost you between £60K-£200K. We can change the colour of the flares in our set for a few hundred pounds.
We're also somewhat at the mercy of the projection lens manufacturers, but colours like blue and orange are more common, and there are pinks, purples, yellow and green flaring lenses out there. I'll talk more about which lenses offer which colours inside the course.
If you had told me in 2013 after I shot my first project on rented anamorphic lenses that I would one day own my own set, I would not have believed you; or maybe I would have been sad that one day I’d rob a bank.
If you’ve shot with anamorphic lenses, you might remember how it felt that first time, using optics that define the widescreen cinematic experience, breathing new life into your work. And if you haven’t had that moment of no-return yet, you will!
I'm a writer, director and cinematographer from London, England. I've shot and directed hundreds of films; music videos, short films, commercials.
I'm a proud nerd, passionate tinkerer and relentless perfectionist. I'm extremely content, sat in the back corner of a wood-panelled pub with a cold beer in my hand, talking about filmmaking. I've spent 7 years shooting with anamorphic lenses and the last 3 of those have been with lenses I own.
I still have both kidneys.
Sure! I'm happy to clarify anything. Drop me a line at info@CineSaga.com with the subject line 'Ana Course Question' and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I'm sometimes on set shooting, so give me a day or two, please.