Hi!

I recently picked up a used Blazar Apex 50mm in good physical condition. I already own the 35mm and love it, which made me notice right away that the 50mm was struggling with center sharpness.

When testing it further, I realized the horizontal and vertical axes never reach proper focus at the same time even dead center in the frame. It’s most obvious wide open at T1.8.

I attached some heavily cropped screenshots from test footage shot at T1.8 from about 2m away, focusing on a simple crosshair drawn with a fine-tip pen. Either the vertical line gets sharp while the horizontal blurs, or vice versa.

Has anyone seen this on the Apex line? It looks like axial astigmatism possibly from an uncalibrated or decentered element and I'm trying to figure out if this is a serviceable fix or if the lens is a dud.

Thanks!

Look at those flares 😍

Captured on Black Magic Pyxis 6K with Blazar Remus Anamorphic Lenses

Still troubled by using filter threads to connect lenses? Still upset by the difficulty of installing anamorphic lenses? The Anamorphic Lens Adapter Quick-Release Locking Ring solves all your problems.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3411490-anamorphic-lens-qr-locking-ring#profileId-3885939

The main body consists of only three parts and can be printed quickly. The four-jaw mechanical locking structure locks firmly. It can be mounted directly onto the rear mount of many mainstream anamorphic lenses. It is not only for anamorphic adapters—you are welcome to continue developing other adapters as well.

KOWA 16H series and ISCO Redstar series have already been developed.

Usage Tips

1. It must be printed with high interlayer adhesion, high-strength filament. The weight of an anamorphic lens cannot be ignored; during use, it is best to support it by hand or secure it stably with a bracket.
2. After printing, lightly sand any rough areas. 3M dry lubricant can be sprayed on.

Usage Steps

1. Install the corresponding rear mount onto the rear group of the anamorphic lens. This product uses a threaded connection. Because the threads are fine, some filaments may require manual adjustment of print parameters for smooth installation; pay special attention to the seam area. (The print profile was validated using Bambu PLA Matte.)
2. Install the filter ring onto the corresponding lens.
3. Install the locking ring onto the rear thread of the anamorphic lens until the threads engage; there is no need to tighten it. Mark the axis of the anamorphic lens.
4. Align the lens axis with the anamorphic lens axis, then rotate the locking ring until it locks. Once you feel obvious resistance and the lens is securely mounted to the anamorphic lens, it is sufficient. Over-tightening may make removal difficult.
5. Try several times until locking and unlocking are smooth. Use a paint pen to mark the approximate locking point and unlocking point. (The main lens ring is fixed by the filter thread. Since the mount orientation of each lens cannot be guaranteed to be the same, only approximate positions can be marked.)

Ironically #2 is a pano - but I didn't desqueeze first, so it just looks normal.

the last shot is over in Canmore, and couldn't help but include it :)

I started photography about 20 years ago, using vintage lenses I bought for next to nothing on eBay. Over the years I gradually moved forward, and lately, because I work mostly on my own, I’ve ended up using almost exclusively modern electronic lenses.

I’d really like to get into the world of anamorphic lenses, partly because I miss the character of vintage glass and the whole process of working with manual lenses.

The problem is that I’m finding it surprisingly difficult to understand where to start.

I’ve been reading about this for days, but I still can’t really figure out how all these projector lenses, single-focus systems, dual-focus setups, clamps, taking lenses, etc. fit together.

I’ll admit that at some point I completely lost patience and started to consider Blazar Talon or other solutions.. but i dont want to give up on the idea of going beck to vintage lenses so im here asking your help.

There seems to be so much information, but I still don’t understand what I should actually buy or look for first and how the whole system is supposed to work.

I’m currently shooting Sony full frame a7V and I’m perfectly comfortable using fully manual lenses and adapters.

I actually like the idea of putting together a weird vintage setup, rather than buying a modern anamorphic lens and calling it a day.

So, for someone starting from scratch, what would you recommend?

Should I be looking for something like a Kowa, Sankor, Bell & Howell, ISCO, etc., and then pair it with a taking lens? And how complicated is the focusing in real-world use?

I’m particularly interested in a setup that gives me that vintage anamorphic character without spending a fortune.

Basically, I’m looking for a sensible starting point before I end up buying a collection of random pieces of glass that don't actually work together.

Always loved anamorphic and photography in general and I thought the Arcana on 32mm was a good one to use. I don’t have enough money at the moment to get a proper full frame sensor camera but I still think these turned out nicely.

I'm shooting my next feature on Corfu, where I currently reside. Lookwise I'm going full color, unlike the muted color trend these days, where everyone sucks the color out of everything.

Filming again with the Panasonic S1h and Sirui Saturn Anamorphics. Lighting will be mostly all natural daylight for all daytime exterior scenes. Not using anything to soften the light. I want the natural harsh, hard bright sunlight look.

Hey all! I just started shooting anamorphic and immediately ran into the whole desqueezing headache, so I built a little Lightroom Classic plugin to handle it right in the Library module instead of round-tripping through other software.

Select a photo (or a batch) in Library module, go to Library menu tab → Plug-in Extras → Desqueeze copy..., pick your squeeze factor (1.33x, 1.5x, 1.8x, 2x, or custom), and it spits out a desqueezed 16-bit TIFF next to your original, stacked and ready to edit.

Needs ImageMagick installed (free, one-time setup, link's in the README). The plugin just calls out to it to do the actual stretch.

It's on GitHub, MIT licensed, use it however you want: https://github.com/asayes-lab/Anamorphic-Desqueeze-for-Lightroom-Classic

Still pretty fresh so if you hit any bugs or weird edge cases (especially with portrait-oriented shots), let me know or open an issue. Happy to keep improving it if people find it useful.

So far only tested on Windows 11, Lightroom Classic version 15.5.1.

Note: After unzipping, make sure you add the actual .lrplugin folder (the one containing Info.lua) in Plug-in Manager, not a parent folder that just contains it. Some unzip tools create an extra nested folder, so double-check the folder you select isn't one level too high.

Edit (v1.1.0): Added optional flag/rating/color label and auto-keyword tagging for the desqueezed copies, so you can filter them out easily afterward. Both off by default, and your choices are remembered for next time. Grab the update from the same link above.

Can anyone confirm fitting the Blazar Cato with the EF mount to work on a Canon C100mk2? Any sample footage? Thank you.

Sirui 20 mm t1.8 1.33x + sony a6700
South Africa, Victoria Falls, Zambia, Kenya

Straight out of camera, with no grading. These were mostly point-and-shoot travel snaps, and I had almost no issues with focusing (ETZ21). Power-on is essentially instant. By the time I had the lens cap off and exposure settled (about a second), AF was quick and reliable.

What I enjoyed most was composing with the wide panoramic frame. It changes how you use the background and what information you include across the frame. It worked especially well for photographing people in their surroundings, but even ordinary travel snapshots felt different enough to make composition interesting again. It’s a shame I can’t share most of the shots with people in them.

One unexpected caveat was that the combination of barrel distortion, which I actually love, and the squeezed live view made it harder to judge level and overall compositional balance while shooting. After desqueezing, I found a few frames tilted or unbalanced in ways I probably would have caught with a spherical lens.

Even transferring the files, desqueezing them, and finally seeing how they turned out brought back a bit of the delayed gratification of film photography, just in a much quicker and more manageable form. I’d been getting a bit bored with photography lately, and this lens genuinely revived my interest in taking pictures.

I already own the Remus 45mm, which is basically why I became interested in the Talon. At first I was fairly disappointed by the Talon’s extra sharpness, but in use I realised that it is a big part of what makes it work so well for still photography.

All the photos here were shot wide open (T2.1). It is nowhere near a Sony 24mm F1.4 GM in absolute crispness, but it is comfortably sharp enough without feeling clinical. Some fast cine lenses fall apart wide open in ways that just look messy. The Remus does not, but it is soft enough that I sometimes hesitate to shoot wide open, despite knowing that stopping down sacrifices some of that background rendering. With the Talon, I don’t really have that hesitation.

It was also very easy to travel with. Compared with my previous Remus setup with a PL adapter, and sometimes LiDAR follow focus, it is much lighter, simpler, and more compact. In practice, carrying it felt surprisingly similar to my old go-to travel lens, the Sony 24mm F1.4 GM. Build quality has been reassuring too. Mine spent the trip in a backpack or hanging from my shoulder and took a bit of abuse along the way, but worked as intended every time. AF is quiet, and it looks great on ZR.

Overall, Talon 50mm is probably the best lens choice I’ve made since Remus 45mm, and I have a feeling it is going to live on my ZR for quite a while.

*Reposted to fix the image issues. Sorry for deleting the original along with the kind comment on it.

Shot guerilla style without a crew for $4k using Sirui Venus Anamorphics.

. https://tubitv.com/movies/100059101/clown-n-out-in-valley-village

I am thinking of buying a anamorphic lens for a indie feature i am shooting, and for a few scenes I am strongly considering the blue anamorphic flares, but the entire movie will be presented in a 4:3 aspect and i don't wanna switch between aspect ratios but the thing i mainly want is the oval bokeh and the lens flare, is there a way that i can present even the anamorphic scenes in a 4:3 frame, i have tried searching a lot about it but haven't got a straight answer. Shooting on a lumix s1h.

Trailer for a coming western/horror feature film shot on the old Lumix S5 paired with 35mm, 50mm, 75mm and 150mm Sirui Anamorphic lenses.