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anamorphic adaptor or squeeze mode?
Hello,
i just bought another DVX100A camera. My first was the DVX100, which i have been shooting with for the past 2 1/2 years on a documentary i am working on. I’ve been shooting in 24P advanced mode because of the possibility of one day going to film.
What i’m wondering about is whether i should begin to use the squeeze mode on the DVX100a camera and possibly get an anamorphic adaptor for the DVX100. How would these match up and what is the difference between the internal squeeze and the adaptors? Is one better than the other?
Lastly is it worth getting one of these adaptors now that i’m so far into the project or should i just stretch everything to 16X9 in post when it comes time to do so?
Thanks for any advice,
Rob -
4 Replies
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Should you switch to 16:9 in the middle of a project? It depends on what the project is. A number of documentaries use footage from many sources, some 4:3, some 16:9. It usually works fine.
I think the anamorphic adapter looks better than squeeze mode, and I use one. But they’re not without their problems. The alignment can be knocked out fairly easily in a run and gun situation, and the little adjustment screw is very easily stripped.
And good luck stretching 4:3 to 16:9.
Ed -
Which adaptor are you using? I’ve seen the Panasonic one, along with a Cetury optics adaptor.
It sounds like the adaptors may be quite fragile. I’m doing a documentary where the camera could get knocked around quite a bit.
So you find the adaptor better than the squeeze mode in the DVX100a?
I’ve tried stretching 4:3 to 16×9, what seems to be the problem? It looks fine to me.
R
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I don’t think Century makes an anamorphic adapter for the DVX-100A. I think Panny’s the only choice.
Stretching 4:3 to 16:9 horizontally only makes all your skinny on-camera friends fat; stretching vertically too just loses resolution.
Ed -
Although glass is recomended to do the anamorphic, the squeeze mode sounds like what you might want to be using in this film. The 100A uses a digital version of anamorphic to squeeze the image to tape. It gets reorded squeezed as it would if you used an anamorphic adaptor.
If you want to shoot 16×9 it should be because you are planning to finish the film in 16×9. This means that all of the 4:3 images need to be blown up to fit into the 16×9 frame, so you are going to take a quality hit for the rest of your film. The 16×9 you shoot now will look great but you will loose qaulity fitting the existing 4×3 film into a 16×9 frame.
We are not just talking about chopping off the top and bottom of a 4×3 image. If that is what you are doing then do not bother shooting in 16×9(squeeze) mode because it will not be worth the headaches. Stay with what you have been doing. especially mid project. By the time you are versioning you will understand why. It can be a huge pain to mix footage.
David
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