Hypergonar S.T.O.P. 16 ST

• Anamorphic Adapter by Henri Chrétien
• Double Focus
• Mount: N/A

Focus was a bit stiff on the copy I tested, so if I didn't have an FVD I'd be in a sea of trouble. My biggest challenge shooting with this rig was holding it steady because of the overall length and weight. Image quality is ok when stopped down, still showing a fair amount of blooming. The Hypergonar is quite soft when shooting wide open giving it all a somewhat dreamy look, and the flares are pretty trippy. I think I like this footage mostly because of colors than because of the image quality.

This is only one of the many variants of Hypergonars out there. They were made in France by the almighty Henri Chrétien, the father of anamorphic lenses. It's definitely a projection lens. The metal walls are super thick, adding a ton of weight to the setup. The lens weighs around 680g! Focus comes down to 1.5m and it's suuuper double focus.

It doesn't have back or front threads, which means you're gonna need clamps to mount it and align. The weight of it throws stress on the taking lens, so use lens support. I mentioned I had a FVD for single focusing and in order to connect that, I had to take out the front of the barrel of the Hypergonar using a tiny screwdriver. This also locked focus.

Image quality is never ok wide open, even using proper diopters, which might be a case of alignment, but it sharpens up a lot stopped down. Edges are shady, and if you can shoot 4:3 and avoid edge areas entirely, go for it.

Flares are maybe the only remarkable thing about this lens. They show this "infinity" symbol that I've seen very few times and that could be a cool thing to make your footage stand out. But then if you're relying in only flares to stand out, I think you're in trouble. Cool, still.

Vignetting is not terrible. Unusable at 50mm unless you crop some more in post, but almost clears full frame at 85mm, which means you can clear 2.4:1 around 65mm. 135 is completely clear. I'm yet to see something vignette at 135mm.

Overall this is not a bad scope, but it's faaaar from being in my list of favorites - or even my list of second runners. This lens shows a lot of the traits I dislike about projection lenses: It's unnecessarily heavy and long, offers no help to mounting and using filters, and delivers just acceptable images.