Anamorphic shooting has always been a common aspiration for many independent filmmakers. Fortunately, with the popularity of the mirrorless compact cameras and recently released anamorphic adapters and lenses this type of workflow becomes more and more affordable these days. If recently you got your hands on the latest Sony RX10 II the odds are you probably aren’t quite aware of the fact that you can also capture some great anamorphic images by using the SLR Magic 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter. According to Emm from Cheesycam, unlike the Panasonic GH4, the SLR Magic 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter seems to be the perfect fit for the Sony RX10 II.
Generally, utilising this adapter on an interchangeable camera system might be challenging as you need to find the most proper lens before you attach it to the camera itself. Pulling focus is another issue that also might make the process too cumbersome and overwhelming. Fortunately, all these problems are absent when you mount the adapter on the fixed Carl Zeiss 24-200mm f/2.8 lens of the Sony RX10 II.
Given the fact that you can shoot in UHD resolution, along with the capability to utilise the S-Log2 while recording and choose some quite fast frame rates on top, puts this combo into a quite unique position. In the following video Emm shares his insights on working with the setup.
There are two major considerations that you should keep in mind, though. In the first place, you should work with focal lengths above 50mm to get rid of the vignetting in the corners produced by the anamorphic adaptor. Once you do that you can actually pull focus manually directly using the focus ring on the lens of the Sony RX10 mark II. The results you can get with this setup are quite amazing as we can see from the video below.
Given the fact that camera is capable of shooting in UHD 4K resolution in S-Log mode, along with a built-in (3 stop) ND filter it provides makes the anamorphic shooting and pulling focus a breeze.
The only extra step you need to do in post is applying de-squeezing before you start editing the footage just like you’d normally do with any other clip from the camera. Here is some example footage and what else you can expect from the combo itself.
It seems that this is an extremely affordable way to shoot some great anamorphic footage with this little 4K mirrorless beast. I’m quite excited to see what it would be like to shoot with the latest 2x anamorphic adapter by SLR Magic as well. All in all, anamorphic shooting with the RX10 II and SLR Magic Anamorphic Adapter seems to be another viable option and for now, this is one of the most affordable ways to achieve this specific stylised look.
For around $2,000 you can put your hands on an affordable anamorphic camera system that is something that we couldn’t even dream about even 5 years ago. Kudos to Emm for testing and showcasing this set up to the community.
B&H Order Links:
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 II Digital Camera
SLR Magic Anamorphot 1.33X Lens Adapter
[source: Cheesycam]
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