From as early as 1969 I have had a desire to continue shooting widescreen and more particularly with the recent purchase of the consumer level Century Optics 16:9 converter lens, I can again get involved and hopefully pass on some of the tricks to get the best out of the lens.
Be aware that judging image quality from what is shown here is not accurate, these are highly compressed jpeg images to save space and provide better up times for the page. These image files are a 10th of the size of others on some pages of this site.
The comments here are specific to the converter lens detailed below when fitted to a Sony TRV 110e PAL Digital 8 camera and a Sony DCR-PC1e Digital Handicam camera as related to images after processing to a SVCD, XSVCD or DVD-R using firewire, Premiere 6 and the Main Concept DV Type 2 codec in a VfW wrapper as the baseline.
02 February 2002: tests with a Sony TRV120e camera produced the same level of results as described here for the Sony TRV110e, so please read TRV110 as also meaning TRV120.
Link to Home Page. ----------------------- Link to my widescreen pages.
I have now tested the camera in its 16:9 mode as that actually provides a 2.35:1 Cinemascope image. The viewfinder with this model actually switches to letterboxed viewing and that is an advantage. The 2.35 Cinemascope image when seen on the 16:9 TV is of the same quality as a full screen 16:9 image from this combination. I would not use this setting for viewing on a 4:3 TV, even though this is normal on a commercial DVD, the letterbox in my view is excessive. Once I own a 16:9 TV I would however change as the challenge of shooting is a lot higher.
The lens has performed well and does not suffer from vignetting and has better quality edge to edge of the frame. Its interesting to note the wide end of the zoom range is wider than the TRV 110, indeed by comparison, with the Century Optic’s lens attached, it provides the same width of coverage as a 28mm lens on a 35mm camera and that, I might say, is an real advantage.
The camera system employs a totally different exposure system which ensures the lens never goes to f16 in normal sunlight conditions. I works at around f8-f11 with increased shutter speeds to 1/215 of a second instead of the f16 setting. In sunlight it has full infinity, but if the lens is worked at below about f4 it goes out of focus at around a zoom setting of 8:1 and I will need to watch that. Sharpening in post production does improve such an occurrence.
The trick used to improve the edge quality with the TRV 110, ie setting the “sporting” program does not work with this lens, the results overall were less sharp. This lens is a true photographic lens and that is a difference. There is less barrel effect at wide settings and therefore the edge verticals are a lot straighter – it’s a pleasure to use, only a 3CCD TRV 900 or VX 2000 would be better! The remainder of my description here remains un changed and applies subject to what is written above.
SOME GENERAL COMMENTS:
This converter lens cannot be used with a camera lens that uses front element focussing. Most modern video cameras thankfully employ internal focusing in which the filter mount does not rotate.
THE LENS:
Just how much and whether the final presentation is of better quality than the poorman's widescreen when viewed full screen on a 16:9 TV is to be determined. If you currently have a wideangle lens on the front of your camera then this converter lens is not likely to degrade the image or distort the image as much.
The converter lens with adapter as it is called (Century Optics stock number: 0DS-1609-37) has a front 62mm filter thread and 37mm rear screw mount. The package includes 3 step rings for fitting to other cameras with smaller lens mounts of 27, 30 and 30.5mm. These rings will space the lens 3.5mm further from the front element of the camera lens and may change its performance. It has a clever adapter mount which allows you to fit the lens to the camera and lock it in place. Be sure not to misplace the screw as it is an important part of setting up - I lost mine during testing, beware. The protection caps are of aluminium.
As you will see, its not something you should take off and on the camera very often. The instructions that come with the lens are very basic and in my view inadequate for those unaware of the pitfalls associated with the addon anamorphic squeeze lens. Let me describe the process I used to attach the lens.
SETTING UP THE LENS:
Now fit the conversion lens to the camera as instructed "screw the converter 1.5 to 2 turns with the white index line facing up" and be very careful to align the horizontal and verticals in the LCD screen. This is shown by image 2 above. If you are a little off, the verticals will be skewed and the horizontals will be anything but horizontal - image 3 shows what happens with about 1mm of misalignment. Lock the ring as instructed.
Now shoot some footage around the house. Include a shot of a brick wall edge in such a way that you can check for "barrelling" at the edge of the frame. If the lens is not set correctly you may find the wall to be curved. Fine tune the settings as appropriate and prepare for your first shoot and a maybe a few surprises.
At the wide angle end of the zoom, does the lens vignette? That will depend a lot on the distance between the back of the converter lens glass and the front element of the camera lens. You may find that if you try to use one of the step rings as is provided for the smaller cameras there will be some "internal" vignetting which will prevent full use of the wide angle end, hopefully not. This will be indicated at the corners of the frame and will be quite fuzzy in appearance. With my camera there was none unless I added a filter ring, with the filter glass removed of course. I tried this because its a way of making the converter lens removable without having to reset the lens up each time.
The other form of vignetting (external) comes from fitting a lenshood, the manufacturer will tell you to use a rectangular one but most will no doubt try the normal circular lenshood. The image below left illustrates the effect, you will find this if the lenshood you use is to long. This image was from a 62mm lenshood 25mm deep. Notice how the image tells how well the camera lens is centred. The lens hood shown in the centre picture below is based on a 67mm thread with stepup ring from the converter lens of 62mm thread. It was 32mm deep and did exhibit vignetted top corners that was not actually visible in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen.
The alternative is to use a deep lenshood with appropriate cutaways to delete the corner problems it induces. This can only be done after you are happy with the the setup. Image 3 shows my attempt to carefully add slots to suit the misalignment of the lens, the top slots are deeper than the bottom ones. It is effective even if done with nothing more than a file.
The first opportunity you will have to view the results will be direct from the camera LCD or during capture via a connected TV. Both are likely to be in the 4:3 format with compressed horizontals. In the editing process you will be very surprised at the size of the picture. In poorman's widescreen the viewing image size that represents a 16:9 TV is 768 x 432 PAL or 640 x 360 NTSC and the image which uses all the lines is 1024 x 576 PAL, 853 x 480 NTSC, it is enormous by comparison.
COMMENTS SPECIFIC TO THE TRV110e & TRV120e
There is no infinity anymore at the end of the zoom.
With my camera I could safely use about 75% of the optical zoom range and that will tax your technique when using the converter with the TRV 110/120 as you cannot afford to enter the critical zone that occurs. It will probably improve your presentation as it is easier to hand hold the camera with less zoom on board.
You may find the auto focusing gets confused, perhaps as a result of squeezing in 33% more image width. I tested the TRV110e combination with a 15 minute shoot at the "Tour Downunder 2002" bike race.
Naturally it was more difficult to shoot without an infinity at the far end of the zoom range but it was a good first shoot with the lens. In the subsequent edit I found the wobbly line reappears at the top or bottom of the frame, particularly when played on the computer. I therefore modified my avisynth scripts to remove lines from the top and bottom of the frame height.
TRV 110e QUALITY - IMAGE DETAIL:
Is there a way of getting better quality from the combination?
In short, YES! There are three options at least:
1. CHANGE YOUR TECHNIQUE and CAMERA SETTINGS:
I discovered that by changing the camera setting in the Program AE options to "landscape" provided a higher image quality outcome. This option is designed to allow you to shoot through a glass window without the auto focus locking onto the window and giving out of focus results further out. I am more and more convinced the TRV 110/120 autofocus system sees the Century Optics Converter as a window and using this "landscape" option as Sony call it, the results were more than just "better" than the normal way of use. It means you must always set the camera up as it will not stay defaulted to the setting after turning off.
I was also amazed to find that forcing the lens to wide open (f1.4) improved the quality at the edges of the frame. The TRV110 has a program option called "sport" which uses the lens wide open up to shutter speed of 1/3500th of a second and only when the exposure requires a faster shutter speed does the lens close down. This indeed is opposite to the norm for a photographic lens - stop the lens down to improve performance. In this reversed case the edge of the frame is improved but the combination becomes somewhat harder to focus. Its another alternative which should be at least tested in the process of squeezing more out of the combination.
I also fitted an eyecup to the viewfinder to keep out stray light so that I could see detail more clearly in the consumer level viewfinder, oh for a professional level one. The best results come from using manual focus but first using the auto focus button to get into the ball park and then pulling focus manually. This will require some skill in selecting where to focus and you will have to learn a new technique to succeed - its worth it.
2. IMPROVE IT IN THE EDITING PROCESS - SHARPEN IT:
Premiere 6 and any other NLE program has a sharpening option available for use but you may well find that doing the sharpening process is better if done in avisynth on the way to the encoder. Avisynth also provides the quickest process time. Using it carefully, and with much experimentation has resulted in a very good image as the outcome.
3. CONSIDER AN ASPECT RATIO CHANGE:
Consider that the image shown on your TV is shielded by the TV surround, you never see all of the frame, in the letterbox process we can make good use of that to improve the presentation particularly in relation to what is seen at the edge of the frame.
In the image above I have attempted to demonstrated the losses at the edges of the frame. Image 1 is a normal AE program shoot, it is not one done with the "sports" option. It shows the whole frame, it is part of a slow pan and images 2 & 3 are enlargements around the boat, 2 at the center as shown in 1 and image 3 when the pan reaches the edge of the frame.
Additionally in image 1 the vertical band C shows that which is lost to the viewer under the surround. The vertical band S is that which could also be cropped off and used to achieve a width of view as though the image was 15:9 but still with the full number of lines available in the height. In letterboxed format the band S will also be under the surround. As a result of this editing process the presentation is greatly improved since the viewer only sees between the black lines and effectively some of the edge drop off, where it is worse has been deleted.
Doing this within Premiere 6 is extremely difficult but a simple script file for avisynth makes it a breeze in authoring a DVD for the letterboxed format.
The script file simply does this - takes the export file from premiere, crops off 8 lines top and bottom of the frame to get rid of the wobbly line effect that occurs in a letterboxed output. Crops the width of the frame to the viewing area indicated between the black lines in image 1 above. Adds a black fill (S in image 1 above) to achieve the 15:9 width. Separates the fields and expands each to the correct width, compresses each to the correct height. Sharpens each field to the level chosen to improve the image and weaves the fields back into one. The last action is to add the black letterbox bars top and bottom to get the correct original size and presto the image is ready for encoding to either DVD or SVCD.
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PERFECT RESULTS! and what I expected from the TRV110e combination.
The PC1, now at least 3 years old, has a 30mm Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar lens with a 10:1 optical zoom. This is only half that of the TRV 110e and therein lies a message to be noted! Would it not be a great facility if the camera makers provided an option to lock out or limit overuse of the optical zoom as they do with the digital zoom which no one should use anyway.
I simply attached the 30-37mm adapter ring provided by Century Optics, screwed in the converter, aligned it as described for the TRV 110 and used it.
No vignetting, infinity and full zoom range available, no auto focus errors and full use of the camera in every respect, wow!
Indeed at one point is a test shoot at the beach I could not see the image in the view finder properly so I simply pointed the camera at the "kites in the sky" and presto, total image sharpness as an end result. Image quality throughout the optical range (as I would expect from the Zeiss lens) is above that provided by the TRV 110e combination in standard auto focus mode.
CONCLUSION:
Good Luck, I hope these notes will help!
This page first written 18 January 2002
This page modified: 20 July 2002 with changes indicated in this color.
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At the end of my New Zealand shoot (22 April 2002) I purchased in New Zealand at the airport a new Sony mini DV handicam with a Zeiss lens, the TRV 15, now outdated of course. It was purchased specifically to get better widescreen results. This choice was based entirely on the tests I did with my daughter’s PC 1 (below). I did not even see any results until I tested the camera after arriving back in Australia. I do not regret buying the camera even though it only has a 10:1 optical zoom and no one would use the digital zoom anyway!. I cannot hand hold beyond 8:1 so it is not a loss to be even considered.
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I have described what I called the poorman's widescreen on my other widescreen pages. This specific page will provide comments on the alternate method of achieving widescreen with a true anamorphic lens. The process has the possibility of providing full screen 16:9 TV presentations using all of the lines in the frame height with better visual quality. Certainly that is the aim and hope!
Broadly, the lens is an addon and not specifically designed for a particular camera, it is therefore a compromise in design and there will be some degrading of the image quality as a result.
Setting the lens up is important and it is not just a case of screwing it on. You will be well advised to consider the following procedure. Mount the camera on a tripod and shoot up the kitchen wall tiles without the 16:9 converter lens in place. Make sure you are square on to the wall and that the horizontal and verticals are correctly aligned in the LCD viewfinder. Lock the tripod. This idea is shown in image 1 below.
The first real surprise for anyone not familiar with the squeeze lens addon is that as you zoom in the image goes out of focus and the result is you cannot use all of the zoom range. Check both auto focus and try the manual focus to determine exactly at which point the image becomes unacceptable.
On the lounge room TV, in forced letterboxed format, direct from the camera tape and as viewed on a professional level TV monitor, its soft, and disappointingly so at the edges and overall at the telephoto end of the scale. The images on this page do indicate the edge of frame drop off. One must be careful to not use too much zoom. With high level of cross frame motion there are signs of the auto focus getting lost. So what now, is it money down the drain?
The preceding discussion, and that with the PC1 test below,is the result of using the camera as you always have - autofocus, point, frame up and shoot.
It is said good editing can fix any stuff ups in the take or nearly so. I have resorted to something I have never done in 3 years of authoring VCD's and DVD's, applying or changing the sharpness of the video image in the process. One has to be very carefull not to overdo it and in this case, with this lens and the TRV 110/120 camera combination, quality benifits from image sharpening. This is particularly so as one approaches the telephoto end of the zoom. One cannot of course bring back "infinity" but .......
This applies to someone doing a letterboxed 16:9 in a 4:3 frame. I wonder how many of you have noticed that the pro's often do not use the full 16:9 aspect ratio, they often edit some of the width so as to achieve, as one of the outcomes, smaller black bands on the 4:3 TV. The BBC in the UK often broadcasts documentaries in this way. A professional DV camera has in fact options to cope with this by providing masks for the viewfinder, no such luck for the consumer.
Be sure to test the camera and converter combination before you buy if thats at all possible. You may not be able to align it correctly in the shop but at least it will give you an indication of what limitations you may have thrust upon you. You could be forced to change you shoot techniques and also your editing processes. Make your own decissions and stick with them!