Some of you might be asking yourself right now, what is an anamorphic lens? To keep this simple, Anamorphic is widely used in cinema and gives you that typical widescreen look you are so used to seeing in Hollywood movies. So if you want those cinematic wide shots and epic flares, an anamorphic lens is what you want to use. What the lens does is horizontally squeeze the image, this distortion is reversed in edit, giving you that wide aspect ratio.
For the indie filmmaker or most, anamorphic lenses usually tend to be out of their price range, they normally costs thousands of dollars. And sure, there are some cheaper aftermarket solutions to ’fake’ the anamorphic look, but these never really seem to cut it.
So here comes Sirui with the first real, affordable anamorphic lens, which is quite an achievement. It costs approximately 600$ so filmmakers who are on a budget can already own this lens and can create that epic look with flares and wide cinematic shots. The lens is available in SONY E-Mount, FUJI X-Mount, and M 4/3 Mount.
So are there cons? A few. At the time of this writing it’s only available in 50mm so far, a wide angle lens will certainly be forthcoming though. The mount options are also limited, there’s no EF mount option available which also excludes the use of a speed booster for example on the BM Pocket 4k and 6K. Also, it is a manual lens, but for the real enthusiasts I’m not sure that is a real problem.
For an anamorphic lens we found it has a nice sharp image, and I love the distorted anamorphic look.
So in short, we found this lens impressive, especially given the very low price-point, if it is in capable hands.
We are looking forward to seeing what Sirui will bring in the future. A lens with a wider angle would be very much welcome. Sirui is the only company with an anamorphic lens in this price range, which is amazing and finally opens up anamorphic to a much wider audience.
Be sure to checkout their website for more details here.