I´ve always been fascinated by anamorphic lenses, which optically compress, or `squeeze`, an image in the horizontal dimension, making it possible to capture an artificially wide field of view on a standard film frame or sensor.
I first discovered anamorphics in college, not because I shot with them but because I had a part time job as a projectionist at a small theater. Sometimes films came through in anamorphic format and I had to attach accessory lenses to the projector to desqueeze the image beamed up on the screen.
Fast forward a number of years. I´m still fascinated by anamorphic lenses, only now they´re becoming accessible enough to content creators that you don´t need to be a Hollywood filmmaker to afford them. One of these days I´ll get around to shooting an entire video project with anamorphics, but recently I´ve been intrigued by the possibility of using anamorphic lenses for still photography.
$(document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({`containerId`:`embeddedSampleGallery_5346513962`,`galleryId`:`5346513962`,`isEmbeddedWidget`:true,`selectedImageIndex`:0,`isMobile`:false}) });
Click the large image above to view the full sample gallery.
Which is why, on a recent trip to Washington, DC, I found myself carrying no camera gear except for my iPhone 11 Pro and two small anamorphic accessory lenses. I`d been in a creative rut for a while and needed a diversion, so I resolved to shoot in anamorphic for the entire trip. It turned out to be a fun creative challenge.
Shooting anamorphic on a smartphone
The two lenses I used for this little experiment were the Moment anamorphic lens ($150) and the Moondog Labs anamorphic lens (also $150), each of which compresses the horizontal dimension by a factor of 1.33x. Both employ a simple twist-lock M-series bayonet mount (not to be confused with Leica M-mount) and attach to compatible cases from a number of manufacturers including Moment, RhinoShield and Sirui.
The Moondog Labs (L ...
|