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camera What lens is this, and why am I using it?


Recently we decided to switch lenses on the virtual cameras used in our project. The difference is subtle, but can be seen in every shot of this short video. I was curious to see who could answer this first correctly. What type of lens did we switch to, and why? The why part is where the answers should get interesting.
 
I don't know....... is it a 35mm? Just guessing it because i'm curious about your explanation. 35mm because that is the widest you can go without distortions. But this is a digital workflow so.... if you go wider in a digital environment....do you have distortions?
 
Yeah, it models physical lenses exactly, so it matters. This is an anamorphic virtual lens. You can tell by the vertical oval shaped lens flares. They tend to increase the sense of scale in a subtle way. The unique aesthetic created by the native distortion and compensation within the lens produces a familliar cinematic aesthetic that can't be achieved with standard lenses. Once you learn to spot them, you'll be surprised how many films were made with them. In example "The Batman" and "Avengers Endgame", plus all of Tarentino's stuff, and about a million others.

They are harder to focus pull, but once you start to master the technique, you can get a lot of cool effects out of them.
 
The virtual lenses in UE5 work like zooms, but with the clarity of primes, so you can just dial it in. Having the one lens is the same as having a full set 8-300 mm. The video above was shot mostly in 35 mm, which is my standard go to. I use the 50 a lot, and 24 for a coherent wide shot 12 for an fx wide. 85 for facial close ups.

Specifically with the anamorphics, the DOF scales more with different focal lengths, so I'll probably get more experimental now that I'm using them.
 
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