It’s a herd mentality.
Anamorphic lenses are that great at all, but they look great and everybody is using them, you may say? In a book called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay provides detailed highlights of how some things get blown out of proportions by marketers (causing market bubbles) that literally causes madness (well the general summary of it, it’s a lengthy book!). this causes everyone to lose money when everyone else realises that what they thought was valuable is in effect worthless. Lookup Tulip mania, it’s hysterical and sad at the same time. It’s amazing how people believed a flower was more valuable than a London house or gold. Similar thing has been done with “Production Gear,” and anamorphic lenses being the most marketable to the indie filmmakers.
Unfortunately a lot of internet blogs serve as a review and marketing platform rather than being a platform of expression, knowledge and experience that enables their audience to grow (artistically). Bloggers post articles of how this new upcoming thing is amazing and why you should buy it while at the same time being paid handsomely to promote overprice products from companies. From their it will all snowball until it becomes a “Popular Delusion.”
Have you ever noticed how “Film” blogs never seem to have their own opinions or knowledge, they just share other people’s work or make a comment on it?
Resolution isn’t a problem anymore.
Originally anamorphic lenses were developed for 35mm film stock for motion picture cameras back when the 1:1 aspect ratio was the standard. Anamorphic lenses were used to gain horizontal stretch cinemascope aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Filmmakers used the extra resolution to entice people to visit cinemas and experience “more resolution” when everything had a 1:1 (square) aspect ratio.
Fast forward to modern day filmmaking, with the onset of high resolution digital cameras, the “We need more resolution” isn’t a problem. We have affordable 2K (16mm equivalent) and 4K (35mm equivalent) cameras which are reasonably affordable to independent filmmakers. How much resolution do you really need? Even a 1920×1080 video can be blown up to cinema screen without any serious issues. Did you know 28 Days Later was shot on a DV camcorder which wasn’t even HD? Those guys didn’t have any issues selling their film.
According to Moore’s Law, technology doubles every two years, with the compounding of technological power doubling and more being produced, its bound to get cheaper. It won’t be very long before we start seeing 12K cinema cameras being produced. Using anamorphic lenses to gain resolution advantage is just ridiculous and plain stupid for digital filmmaking.
You need to purchase additional gear.
It is pretty stupid to call anamorphic lenses actual “Lenses,” when in reality they’re really just a glorified lens attachment. Like any lens attachment, you need to have a base lens to be able to use the attachment itself. When using an anamorphic lens you will need to consider the cost of the taking lens, ideally a prime lens. Things are even worse of you’re using projector anamorphic lenses as you’ll need the correct prime lens, anamorphic clamps, and filter clamps for the anamorphic just to be able to use the damn thing. The cost will be in thousands.
Sharpness takes a nosedive.
Every time you put anything in front of a camera lens, light has to pass through more elements which means that less light and reduced sharpness. Even using a UV filter you’ll be losing about one full f.stop of light. The more elements light has to pass through, the muddy the image starts to become, so your super high resolution camera becomes pretty pointless. It’s just how physics work. What do you think will happens when you put a two inch glass in front of your lens, i.e an anamorphic lens?
Just head over to vimeo and watch any random video made with anamorphic attachments. You’ll see how muddy and distorted they all seem to look.
You’re clients and audiences don’t give a shit.
Do you think your clients or audiences are going to care that you’re using a £10,000 setup? No. The only things your client is going to consider is your level of skill and that you’re charging £3000 more than the other guy. Which one is you potential client going to choose?
The only aspect of your service is your clients (even audiences) are concerned about is your skill. You can’t buy your way into being a Airline pilot just like you can’t buy your way into being a professional filmmaker. Sure, some people may hire you based on what you own but eventually they’ll realise that your skills aren’t in expectation with the price. It’s even less of an issue with your audiences if you’re making a film or videos. In this day and age you can shoot a film with an iPhone and your audience will not be able to tell the difference. The Blair Witch project was shot on a $500 DV camera, does anyone really care?