http://www.eoshd.com/content/396/the-anamorphic-miracle-filter

I'm using the century with the kit 14-42mm and with the +1 diopter, I can say that edge sharpness increase dramatically. The Century lens doesn't work well with lenses greater than 35mm. It gets blurrier as you increase your lens' focal length.

@BurnetRhoades good point. Was recently watching The Mission, which won an Academy Award for cinematography and was shot on Cooke Itals, and I noticed several scenes with visible blur on the edge of the frame that reminded me nothing so much of a couple of shots from my LA7200.

On the wide angle tip, here's some footage that I reference myself as making a pretty decent argument against limiting yourself to 24-28mm and above as your base wide-angle lens with these adapters. The Century is only 1.33x so, as long as you're not starting out with a fish-eye, you're going to reach vignette before you get anywhere near distortion or FOV that's anything but pleasing and consistent with what you see employed in film for true wides.

Agreed, there is visible CA in these stills, which I took from a re-render of some of the first anamorphic imagery I ever shot (WekFest Austin, Summer 2012). But I don't find it horribly ugly and I've seen similar levels in Super-35mm laser scans for $100M+ films. I'd sometimes have to analyze these sorts of optical issues so that I could properly marry digital effects elements to the frame and make it look like a whole. They aren't worth cursing over unless you're having to pull a green screen key.

This is using the nominal 14-42mm kit lens and no diopter @ 18mm. I'd bought my Tokina from Redstan before ever pulling the trigger on a Century Optics, to make sure I had one, but I wanted to test the limits of my lens combos without it so that I could adequately judge its value.

These stills are not only using the much pooped upon kit lens (since I hadn't received my F-to-M34 yet), they represent un-hacked GH2 footage. Like the doublet decision, I wanted to get familiar with my camera and see what it could do, and how it compared to the 7D I used to shoot Sick Boy before experiencing any of the patches.

I decided to go back to this old project file, transcode all the source clips with 5DtoRGB and give my new copy of ColorGHear (@shian) a whirl to see what I could do to enhance the colors and remove some of the haze that I felt in the original from the bad lighting at the show.

Anyway, my perspective is admittedly a narrow one and mostly influenced by my interest in anamorphics for future narrative and documentary work. I don't really care what is or isn't good enough or consistent with stills photography standards or wedding videos or industrials or fashion. The folks that have to make their purchasing and/or creative decisions based on their own specific needs needn't worry about mine either and do what they gotta do.

Yeah, I'd seen other 20mm Lumix pancake footage used as a taking lens that looked good and unexpectedly good even at wide open, something my 35mm Nikkor can't pull off without getting "dreamy" at f/1.4. That Lumix lens is so small and the glass as well by comparison to your average SLR lens. The size of the optics themselves must allow for overall better performance at the edges, like the classic 8mm and 16mm anamorphics.

I haven't picked one up yet wanting to get a chance to try out a 17.5mm Nokton to see if that picked up the edges on my Century Optics, though now, with that Metabones adapter on the horizon, it's going to be harder for me to pull the trigger on any super-specialized, super-expensive M43 lens because if I'm not shooting anamorphic it's going to be through a Metabones.

@kellar42 I do think these pancake lenses, stuff I've seen with the Lumix 20mm as well, throw a lot of the conventional expectations out the window. I don't pretend to understand the nitty or the gritty, but their front element being smaller than, and actually able to take in all of the back element of, these anamorphics is my guess.

Even though they're kinda flavorless, as modern lenses are intended, they might actually have an unexplored advantage over glass folks would otherwise choose to work with these adapters.

I really dig your cone of step-up-rings. Space between the front element of the taking lens and the back element of the animorphic wouldn't be a good thing I would think but Iove it when someone proves you can't always depend on conventional thinking when you're using items in unconventional ways.

Hmm, @BurnetRhoades I know we spoke about the Lumix 20 earlier in the thread, but I have had, other, full frame lenses do ok at wide apertures so I wasn't positive that was it, and after a little testing I'm still in a quandary although 'small glass' might definitely be part of it, for the reasons you mention, I guess.

And @maximizer, looking good, but do you notice a difference when using all these step up rings?

Below we have a few shots, none are done scientifically and now that I see them on the big screen I was probably a hair closer than I would be in real life on all of them as they're on the edge of focus. That said, we have:

1.) NEX5n, 16mm 2.8 Sony e mount pancake with no less than 5 step up and down rings to get to the LA7200. Focuses six inches from the bag.

2.) NEX5n, Kit Zoom at widest it'll go without vingetting (20-22mm) same five step up rings. Had to come back a hair to find focus but still 8-12" and on the countertop.

3.) GH2 and Nikon AIS 35mm F2, four step up rings. Had to get 5-6 back, as 'usual'.

4.) GH2 and Lumix Pancake, 3 step up rings (I don't have any combinations to try more), not great in the shot here, but surprised me by how close I can get, maybe a foot, which is close enough. Did I just not notice before? Certainly not possible on the lumix kit zoom.

What's going on? Well, apparently the 'rules' of the LA7200 aren't rules, first off. Next, something with pancakes, modern glass? Or is it just the wider you can go, the closer you can go? After all the 16mm on an APS-C sensor gives us something like a 19mm horizontal field of view with the LA7200 which is wider than anything else I've tried, and it gets the closest.

At any rate I hadn't 'noticed' close-focus with my pancake on the GH2, first step is to try shooting some close-ups that I had been doing without the adapter and cropping in post, out in the field. Next I suppose would be to see how much worse the video quality of the 5N is and try some close-ups on it. Lastly I need to get more step up rings to be able to experiment and remove that as a variable.

On the side note that BurnetRhoades brings up, I'm the guy sitting in a pile of FDs, AIS lens, buys Rokinons for still photography, etc. I like manual stuff and old lenses. Once the LA7200 entered my life, however, I have not turned my nose up at the Lumixes, Sonys, whatever works, as they gain plenty of organic character with the anamorphic and, it turns out, have quite a few advantages. (Sometimes exposure, lightning fast autofocus, again, whatever works.)

Nice color on the yellow honda.

Oh, oops, I thought I was posting that to the ColorGHear discussion, lol.

Just a hunch, but I'm guessing it's going to vignette. It'd be worth trying with an LA7200 though, maybe, the 14mm having such a tiny front element, maybe it might work. Just looking at the picture it seems quite a bit smaller than the rear element of the Century. My 14-42mm starts to vignette below about 18mm but even its, smallish front element, appears noticeably larger than the 14mm pancake prime.

You peaked my interest.

@soundgh2 I'm betting that's from however you're adapting it to your taking lens. I've seen multiple videos of folks with the 20mm and no vignette at all. It's also, like the 14mm, got a smaller front lens element than my 14-42mm kit zoom and I can go to 18mm wide with that one.

...ah, here's a guy with the 14mm 2.5 and the Century working. It doesn't say anywhere that he had a diopter. For certain types of shots the extreme BD would be pretty cool.

@BurnetRhoades was a super slim step down to 46mm straight on the front - its very slight but was there - dont have the Century anymore or the 20 so cant have another look - used a Tokina 0.4 on the front which worked well with one of RedStans front clamps improved the quality a lot.

I'll try handheld, I have a 10mm Kern Switar but no rings for the Century yet (just got it lended to me).

Could you try the 14mm 2.5 for me, please?