any old panasonic and sony mini dv shooters will remember the panny,the optex and the century. b&h new york 15 months ago still had new old stock of the panny. 6-8 years after they where made only sold because of the recent craze. the optex sold out because the bbc purchased loads i know cos i purchased loads of them cheap 3 years ago. century sold off new old stock 3 years ago for 99 dollars each. the spare original stock was remounted and sold off as generic and soligor brands 1 production run soligor,century,generic and optex and it took 7 years to clear out all the new old stock. an anamorphic priced at 200-400 usd will sell a ton. more is cutting the market down. the people that are making the most noise here should give slr magic a lump sum up front if they are so sure of what will sell and what will not say 10 thousand dollars. this is not a cctv lens adapted for m/43 it is a big financial risk. panasonic dumped the entire anamorphic stock on 2 stores in new york because after 3 years sitting in storage they did not want them hanging around any more. century sold close out anamorphics for 99 dollars..go to bottom of page even then it took 6 weeks to clear stock. a hell of a lens for 99 bucks.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-gl-series-dv-camcorders/18850-century-optics-16-9-widescreen-adapter-4.html

anamorphics nearly wiped century out but they got saved by schneider. in and out inventory is the key i here warehouse space in hong kong is quite expensive. not to mention the mainland china copy cats who will also be offering real or fake slr magic variable compression anamorphics.

great times for the customer i suppose. low price is the key to big sales and empty warehouses.or if slr magic make the lens like this

then they can charge lot's more by going slow with good quality.

@ Redstan, amongst all the anamorphic options you listed with much sympathy, how many are truly usable out of box on an HD camera ? How many would be a perfect match to " A " or " B " or ... taking lens that one could purchase from store. The comercial demise of anamorphic adapters came as the result of quick shift of DV to HDV and consumer eating it up like hot pastry. Many prosumer HDV cameras came with lens built in and bad with low lights. God knows I tried to put my anamorphic adapters on them to no avail. You are making it like consumers decidedly turn their back on anamorphic in consumer level. Before that shift the consumer anamorphic was a dud because consumers were not able to enjoy their anamorphic DV on their tubes - conveniently, at the least as conveniently as it was on home 16mm - 8mm projectors.

The only reason average Joe is attracted to anamorphic again is because of DSLR revolution and sensor sizes and of course the plethora of third party taking lens adapters.

Make it convenient to use, give it OK quality, keep the price reasonable - people will buy. Unless we all shift to 4K in less than a year. That would be the repeat of history from DV to HDV.

The design of an anamorphic adapter is not so dificult to do.

to add a negative lens in front of the main lens gives the propertie to put a wider field of view in the sensor.

If it is designed for a camcorder with fixed lens it is more easy to do because the camcorder lens have the hability to focus macro.

The anamorphic adapter for a camcorder can be an one element lens, very very cheap. it can be a negative lens designed in a cilindrical way, similar to a lens to correct astigmatism in human vision. when this lens is attatched to the camcorder, the camcorder needs to enter in macro focusing to get proper focus through this one negative element lens. This lens is similar to a wide angle adapter. the difference is the wide angle adapter is negative in a circular way and the anamorphic lens is negative in a cilindrical way. I can build a DIY anamorphic for a camcorder spending just 50 usd including the transport, the glass, the plastic body and the service to machine the glass and the body. this design will give some chromatic aberration because a single element lens makes the rbg light to divide in three slightly different directions, but it can be easily corrected in post, doing a small different amount of "horizontal stretch zoom" in each RGB channel.

To avoid the chromatic aberration is not so difficult also. It is done with a two element design, both cilindrical, one negative and one positive, with two different refraction index. this way the less powerful positive lens with a different refraction index will correct the chromatic aberration and keep the negative result to allow the anamorphic properties.

The challenge to design the anamorphic adapter for a DSLR is its lenses does not focus macro so when put the one/two element negative cilindrical lens in front of the dslr lens the image will be out of focus. to solve this issue a positive circular lens (also called diopter) can be fit between the negative lens and the dslr lens. this positive circular lens will also include some chromatic aberration to the system and to solve it the diopter can be an achromat, a two element positive lens made of a stronger positive and a weak negative, with different refraction index to cancel the chromatic aberration.

So an anamorphic adapter for a DSLR can be made of four lens elements in two groups. the first frontal group is a cilindrical negative achromat double and the rear group is a circular positive achromat double. put a plastic body and it is done.

So tell me, what is the difficult? why it need to be expensive?

Ok, let us me to explain again. Idea is simple.

Why people want a one lens solution?

Pros 1) Best match for best IQ 2) Most compact design possible 3) Anamorphic portion cost is lowest due to least materials used.

Cons 2) Cannot use existing lenses and you are practically buying one whole new lens

Why people want adapter solution?

Pros 1) Maximum compatibility 2) Can use existing glass in own collection

Cons 1) The lens combo you use might not result to best IQ results 2) Adapter would either be bulky if it works with wide angle and you are using 50mm or more FL lens. It would also be unnecessary heavy. Large adapter when not needed means extra cost you paid that you do not need to use. 3) If adapter is compact then it will only work with longer FL length lenses (the most common issue with existing options). Much affordable option if matched with the right lens but if you try to use wide angle and it does not work then it means the money you paid for the compact adapter cannot be used and will cost you the most.

I said many times but it seems no one can understand me. It does not matter how difficult it is to cut the glass. Larger glass is exponentially more expensive than smaller glass. You need large glass for large adapter/lens supporting wides and less glass for adapter/lens with longer focal length. More lens elements = higher cost larger lens elements = higher cost. What it means is A large adapter (Isco's for example) cost more than small adapters or lens using small elements. A small adapter (8mm ones?) will cost much lens than lens solution but the adapter will not work with wides. Maximum cost is of course lens solution with wide angle at the same time as it is the largest, longest, and use the most lens elements.

I think the most simple example is diopters as we are all familiar with that. Finding a diopter (95mm or more in size) is very expensive for the LA7200. 82mm diopter is best for use on Isco's but everyone use stepdown ring to use 77mm instead. For smaller anamorphics we can use maybe 52mm diopters. The larger the more it cost. The smaller the less it cost. What everyone is pay for is really for the materials used for the product. A large element uses more materials and is much harder to process as well. I love giving examples. Sometimes it works sometimes not the best. Maybe a better example for processing difficulty is it is much easier to draw a cut a straight line with scissors 3cm long than to do the same for a 30cm straight line. Same materials, same tools, same job. And when it does not work you do it again then there is wastage and cost also increases. Does that make any sense? The earlier glass in an adapter sample is not comparable as the glass that can fit in an adapter is very small.

If we feel we can meet the market expectation and demand we will try to offer a solution. If it is impossible for us to meet the the market expectation in terms of price and offering we are not able to offer any solutions.

-Andrew

@stip

the more the squeeze the less the quality. It is a fact. Just like ultra wide angle lenses has less resolving power than normal focal length lenses and ultra telephoto lenses will also not have as good resolving power than normal focal length lenses. When you go extreme the best you can do is to keep loss to a minimum. If we consider again a 1.33X will be better than 1.5X in quality. Artistic feeling is another story.

@RRRR The main reason we say it is not a viable option to make it cheap because we do not have plans to make an adapter or lens with compromised IQ. It seems the gap in the market is one that is large and support wides and it may be the direction we should be heading for but it will not be cheap to be making a large one so we really need some time to think about it. We make it large and it would cost more and it seems people would rather buy the high ended options instead but are designed for longer FL and smaller lenses.

There are affordable options on eBay and as some suggested they can DIY one for $50 or so only with the conditions labor and tooling cost is zero and materials can be bought for $50 only. That is definitely not the direction we are heading.

@apefos The problem is we all know the cost for a "cheap" version. Then we want a good version. Manufacturers make a good version then the next problem is consumers think the price is too much as the price expectation is for the raw cost of the "cheap" version.

For example, by making the cheap $50 single element lens you spend 1 hour looking for materials. 3-5 hours on grinding and polishing. $30 on tools. You end up spending 1 work day on it and the total you spend is $80. You try to sell it and people think it should cost $50 or less. However, for one work day I am sure you earn much more than doing all this as no one thinks you should be charging any extra for labor. You end up at a loss of $20 and 1 work day hours. Sometimes smaller manufacturers really need some support from the community for their offerings =)

We made a really beautiful lens gear for our 12mm 1.6 lens because we received many emails we should make one as it is hard to rack focus with our lens. We listened and made some. If you look at the Noktor 12mm 1.6 forum the feedback we received is we priced too much for the lens gear we made and it is worth no more than $8 and it is taken out of an old clock for $0.69. With such feedback it is not possible for us to develop anything. If we knew this would happen we should never have listened in the first place. We invest and spent time on optional accessories and we get hate mail for selling it after completion =(

So, it would be helpful if we can get some true feedback on if we do make an Anamorphic for $1200-1500 would people be going for the $4000 and $300 eBay options still or they will seriously consider what we have to offer. I will not mention which products but we do have 2-3 models in our product line where we received emails saying there is a huge market and after all people who gave feedback never bought from us to support our developments as they went for other options on eBay instead.

@slrmagic If you make an anamorphic in the $1200-1500 price range that is wider than 35mm I will buy it for sure. I can't afford a $4000 lens, and I think this goes for a lot of the members here at personal-view, but I'm not satisfied with what I get for $300 either. The voigtlanders are good examples of expensive but popular m43 lenses, and I think a good anamorphic would sell well. (I'm no economy expert, though)

However: It is rather important to me that it can operate at apertures lower than f3, since a too deep DOF would hide much of the anamorphic characteristics. The DOF of the wide FL also makes it all the more important with a stretch of at least 1.5x. Personally I don't know what would be the most attractive solution: a prime or an adapter. It is maybe easier to justify a high price for an adapter that can fit with people's exisitng glass, but the prime may have better IQ. Just remember that imperfections in IQ is often what gives a lens its special character ;)

And @Ralph_B: When you speak of bokeh and flare as unnecessary artifacts you come off as quite ignorant. If you've followed this thread you know that those "artifacts" matter a great deal to the majority of us...

As someone who does not own any anamorphic lenses yet, I would much rather buy from SLRmagic than from ebay for a multitude of reasons. I dont have the time or desire to spend hours hunting around ebay for an old projector lens with possibly compromised IQ. If spending 1200usd is what it takes for an easy, compact, and non-frustrating product that offers anamorphic to the "masses" (meaning that they're easy to buy, and I dont have to spend days or weeks lurking ebay waiting for one to turn up) then SLR magic has my purchase.

@redstan thanks for your words, very encouraging. I stoped working with 35mm adapter manufacturing some time ago but if i have a free time i will think about to play with some experimentations in the anamorphic world.

Prolly the same target group who like 12mm 1.6 and 25mm 0.95. You know those looking for the unique look.