Pulling focus with anamorphic + helios 44m

[ChristopherArter]

Hello,

As my GH2 makes its way to me in the mail, I'm looking to go with a vintage anamorphic setup.

My concern is, I realize it's impossilbe to pull focus with this setup, unless I literally have two people. Are there ways around this? Would I be able to focus the anamorphic to infite and pull focus on the base lens (the helios 44m)? Much of what I will be shooting will be following actors via glidecam so I'm wondering what focus challenges I'm going to face :/

 

[jax_rox]

So, do you mean an anamorphic adapter on a spherical lens, or an actual anamorphic lens adapted to the mount? Most newer anamorphics (say, the past 50 years) contain mechanics so that you only need to focus once. It's a bit complex to get into the mechanics of it, but you don't have two focus scales, only the one. On older anamorphics, and with anamorphic adapters you need to focus the two lenses, which makes it very difficult to rack focus.

Anamorphics should generally be used at ~T4.0-T.11 for greatest results anyway, so how much racking you'l be doing depends on your shot. Also, a lot of older anamorphics exhibit a lot of breathing and distortion when racking focus, so constantly pulling focus is not always recommended.

Anamorphics are very different to spherical lenses and require you to think very differently about them, especially if you're working with any slightly older, or cheaper lens, or an adapter. They can look nice, but you need to weigh up whether it's worth it.

In terms of your steadicam shot, assuming you're shooting at a decent stop like T5.6, and it's a walk-and-talk, and you can therefore keep similar distance between yourself and the subject during the move, you should be okay.