Laowa 1.33X Rear Anamorphic Adapter

• Anamorphic Adapter by Venus Optics Laowa
• Single Focus
• Mount: PL

Let’s go for some insights on Laowa's rear anamorphic adapter and rear anamorphics in general.

There are three types of anamorphics: front, middle and rear anamorphics, but only front anamorphics give “that look” that people want when we talk about anamorphics. Rear anamorphics don’t give you “the look”. At all. And this was the reason they became so popular in the 1970's and 80's.

If you remember the origin of anamorphic, as we talked in Module 1 of the Cookbook, the idea was to transform the experience of going to the theatre, but change as little as possible behind the scenes, continue using the same cameras, projectors, film sizes and technology already available at the time. This was in the early 1950's and the change in aspect ratio was a winning feature.

Decades later, filmmakers are starting to use computer generated imagery - or CGI - to enhance their stories, and guess what? Computers do not love what anamorphic fronts do to the image. There are just too many organic qualities, and unusual distortions going on. Until this day, a lot of post-production work avoids anamorphic lenses.

So filmmakers start to wonder "how can we continue to make widescreen pictures and use all of the film area without the distortions and artifacts introduced by front anamorphics?". These are also the decades when big zooms became popular, and entire lens sets would be replaced by one super versatile zoom. So someone came up with the idea of squeezing the image at the back of the lens.

It turns out this has almost no side effects on the pictures, besides compression itself. No crazy distortion, no flares, no oval bokeh. Nothing that we recognize as the "anamorphic look". So at the time DP's and CGI artists loved it! These rear adapters offered a 2x squeeze and worked in combination with the most popular zooms available. We’re talking Cooke, Angenieux, and the likes of 25-250mm focal lengths These rear adapters were made by various brands and are still rare and expensive to this day.

A rear anamorphic adapter is a weird beast in the sense that it works as a tele-extender because it makes you lose some light, and introduces more distance between the back of the lens and the sensor, but it also compresses the image, sort of acting like a focal reducer to give you more field of view.

But, this rear compression only works because the image circle of the spherical lens is large enough to be squeezed onto the sensor. If the image circle was tightly limited to the S35 format, adding a rear adapter would only compress that image and add black on the sides! This is exactly the case with Laowa's combo. The OOOM itself has an image circle that is slightly larger than S35, so adding a rear adapter permits you to squeeze that extra area onto the S35 format.

Although the adapter was designed for the OOOM, it can also work with other PL-mounted lenses, as long as they fit in there. The lens mounts into the adapter, and this goes into your camera. I managed to mount this on the back of my Foton-A for some deeply disturbing results!

On Laowa's website you can download and print a clearance checker for verifying if the adapter is compatible with your PL lenses. You can also find a list of compatible lenses on there featuring many popular zooms and Zeiss CP series.

For background, Laowa wanted to make an anamorphic zoom, which is a rare thing still, but front anamorphic zooms get crazy expensive and heavy real fast, so they decided to take their already existing all-rounder, parfocal OOOM lens and give it a widescreen back.

I’ve heard many times that using a zoom lens when you’re not planning on zooming during a shot is lazy filmmaking but I disagree. Being able to choose exactly what focal length you want by sliding a dial lets you organically find your framing and feel out what kind of perspective works best for the story you’re telling. For run & gun, carrying one bigger lens rather than 5 smaller ones can make you more agile and grab shots you might otherwise miss during lens switches.

Again, rear anamorphics do NOT create what we call the "anamorphic look". It doesn't give you oval bokeh, or streak flares. The flares change a little bit when compared to flares created without the adapter, but nothing like a streak shows up!

And, when paired with the OOOM, the rear anamorphic ends up narrowing our field of view on a 35mm sensor. We lose a little bit on the sides, and a fair amount on the top and bottom, along with light transmission. So, what are the advantages of actually using it?!

The 1.33 squeeze factor is mild but compatible with 16:9 sensors, outputting an almost cinemascope aspect ratio straight out of the box. But is it enough to compensate for the loss in field of view? Let’s look at these two matching frames, one using the adapter, and one cropped from just the spherical lens.

I appreciate that the rear anamorphic doesn't mess with the OOOM being parfocal, and even if it did, Laowa includes shims and instructions with the kit to adjust performance in case things go sideways. Speaking of sideways, you also get markings to realign the squeeze if you ever decide to do that.

Using the adapter changes your max T stop and focal lengths, so Laowa has included a switch on the OOOM's barrel that allows you to rotate the cutouts and reveal a different set of markings to match the rear anamorphic settings, with T stops starting at 4 and focal length range from 35 to 140mm. It's a small detail but one that goes highly appreciated.

The adapter can be mounted both vertically or horizontally, allowing you to squeeze the image in either direction. Mounting it vertically lets you have a virtually taller sensor, and definitely not standard operation. Maybe something you can use to facilitate for more square and vertical aspect ratios.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how this fits in the anamorphic market though, and who it's aimed at. We're missing the main traits of the anamorphic look and getting just the squeeze.

Now, if you’re perfectly happy with you S35 camera, though, and you just want to use the entire sensor area without cropping in post, Laowa’s rear anamorphic will won’t degrade your original image quality. There's some merit there, as you're getting a special aspect ratio without cropping, plus you keep the sharpness and character of the OOOM, or whatever other lens you decide to pair with it.