The FX9 has a large multifunction dial for menu navigation or iris/ND control.

Can You Shoot Anamorphic with the PXW-FX9?

The simple answer as to whether you can shoot anamorphic on the FX9 or not, is no, you can’t. The FX9 certainly to start with, will not have an anamorphic mode and it’s unknown whether it ever will. I certainly wouldn’t count on it ever getting one (but who knows, perhaps if we keep asking for it we will get it).

But just because a camera doesn’t have a dedicated anamorphic mode it doesn’t mean you can’t shoot anamorphic. The main thing you won’t have is de-squeeze. So the image will be distorted and stretched in the viewfinder. But most external monitors now have anamorphic de-squeeze so this is not a huge deal and easy enough to work around.

1.3x or 2x Anamorphic?

With a 16:9 or 17:9 camera you can use 1.3x anamorphic lenses to get a 2:39 final image. So the FX9, like most 16:9 cameras will be suitable for use with 1.3x anamorphic lenses out of the box.

But for the full anamorphic effect you really want to shoot with 2x  anamorphic lenses. A 2x anamorphic lens will give your footage a much more interesting look than a 1.3x anamorphic. But if you want to reproduce the classic 2:39 aspect ratio normally associated with anamorphic lenses and 35mm film then you need a 4:3 sensor rather than a 16:9 one – or do you?

Anamorphic on the PMW-F5 and F55.

It’s worth looking at shooting 2x Anamorphic on the Sony F5 and F55 cameras. These cameras have 17:9 sensors, so they are not ideal for 2x Anamorphic. However the cameras do have a dedicated Anamorphic mode. When shooting with a 2x Anamorphic lens because the 17:9 F55 sensor, like most super 35mm sensors, is not tall enough, after de-squeezing you will end up with a very narrow 3.55:1 aspect ratio. To avoid this very narrow final aspect ratio, once you have de-squeezed the image you need to crop  the sides of the image by around 0.7x and then expand the cropped image to fill the frame. This not only reduces the resolution of the final output but also the usable field of view. But even with the resolution reduction as a result of the crop and zoom it was still argued that because the F55 starts from a 4K sensor that this was roughly the equivalent of Arri’s open gate 3.4K. However the loss of field of view still presents a problem for many productions.

What if I have Full Frame 16:9?

The FX9 has a 6K full frame sensor and a full frame sensor is bigger, not just wider but most importantly it’s taller than s35mm. Tall enough for use with a 2x s35 anamorphic lens! The FX9 sensor is approx 34mm wide and 19mm tall in FF6K mode.

In comparison the Arri  35mm 4:3 open gate sensor is area is 28mm x 18.1mm and we know this works very well with 2x Anamorphic lenses as this mimics the size of a full size 35mm cine film frame. The important bit here is the height – 18.1mm with the Arri open gate and 18.8mm for the FX9 in Full Frame Scan Mode.

FX9-Image-circle-frame-lines1 Can You Shoot Anamorphic with the PXW-FX9?
Sensor sizes and Anamorphic coverage.

Crunching the numbers.

If you do the maths – Start with the FX9 in FF mode and use a s35mm 2x anamorphic lens. 

Because the image is 6K subsampled to 4K the resulting recording will have 4K resolution.

But you will need to crop the sides of the final recording by roughly 30% to remove the left/right vignette caused by using an anamorphic lens designed for 35mm movie film (the exact amount of crop will depend on the lens). This then results in a 2.8K ish resolution image depending on how much you need to crop.

300x250_xdcam_150dpi Can You Shoot Anamorphic with the PXW-FX9?

4K Bayer doesn’t won’t give 4K resolution.

That doesn’t seem very good until you consider that a 4K 4:3 bayer sensor would only yield about 2.8K resolution anyway.

Arri’s s35mm cameras are open gate 3.2K bayer sensors so will result in an even lower resolution image, perhaps around 2.2K. Do remember that the original Arri ALEV sensor was designed when 2K was the norm for the cinema and HD TV was still new. The Arri super 35 cameras were for a long time the gold standard for Anamorphic because their sensor size and shape matches the size and shape of a full size 35mm movie film frame. But now cameras like Sony’s Venice that can shoot both 6K and 4K 4:3 and 6:5 are starting now taking over.

The FX9 in Full Frame scan mode will produce a great looking image with a 2x anamorphic lens without losing any of the field of view. The horizontal resolution won’t be 4K due to the left and right edge crop required, but the horizontal resolution should be higher than you would get from a 4K 16:9 sensor or a 3.2K 4:3 sensor. Unlike using a 16:9 4K sensor where both the horizontal and vertical resolution are compromised the FX9’s vertical resolution will be 4K and that’s important.

What about Netflix?

While Netflix normally insist on a minimum of a sensor with 4K of pixels horizontally for capture, they are permitting sensors with lower horizontal pixel counts to be used for anamorphic capture. Because the increased sensor height needed for 2x anamorphic means that there are more pixels vertically. The total usable pixel count when using the Arri LF with a typical 35mm 2x anamorphic lens is 3148 x 2636 pixels. Thats a total of  8 megapixels which is similar to the 8 megapixel total pixel count of a 4K 16:9 sensor with a spherical lens.  The argument is that the total captured picture information is similar for both, so both should be, and are indeed allowed. The Arri format does lead to a final aspect ratio slightly wider than 2:39.

FX9-Image-circle-frame-lines2 Can You Shoot Anamorphic with the PXW-FX9?
Alexa LF v FX9 and super 35mm 2x anamorphic.

 

So could the FX9 get Netflix approval for 2x Anamorphic?

The FX9’s sensor has is 3168 pixel tall when shooting FF 16:9  as it’s pixel pitch is finer than the Arri LF sensor.  When working with a 2x anamorphic super 35mm lens the image circle from the lens will cover around 4K x 3K of pixels, a total of 12 megapixels on the sensor when it’s operating in the 6K Full Frame scan mode. But then the FX9 will internally down scale this to that vignetted 4K recording that needs to be cropped.

6K down to 4K means that the 4K covered by the lens becomes roughly 2.7K. But then the 3.1K from the Arri when debayered will more than likely be even less than this, perhaps only 2.1K

But whether Netflix will accept the in camera down conversion is a very big question. The maths indicates that the resolution of the final output of the FX9 would be greater than that of the LF, even taking the necessary crop into account. But this would need to be tested and verified in practice. If the math is right, I see no reason why the FX9 won’t be able to meet Netflix’s minimum requirements for 2x anamorphic production. If this is a workflow you wish to pursue I would recommend taking the 10 bit 4:2:2 HDMI out to a ProRes recorder and record using the best codec you can until the FX9 gains the ability to output raw. Meeting the Netflix standard is speculation on my part, perhaps it never will get accepted for anamorphic, but to answer the original question –

 – Can you shoot anamorphic with the FX9 – Absolutely, yes you can and the end result should be pretty good. But you’ll have to put up with a distorted image with the supplied viewfinder (for now at least).

460x150_xdcam_150dpi Can You Shoot Anamorphic with the PXW-FX9?

One thought on “Can You Shoot Anamorphic with the PXW-FX9?”

  1. Please SONY, help the operators being creative! You have one of the best lens mount, allowing to use most of the lenses in the market, vintage or modern, but no anamorphic system! it’s a pity: look at youtube videos: so many operators make great pictures using (cheap or expensive) anamorphic systems, in S16, S35 or even FullFrame. Yes, these are weird unorthodox devices but they rock!
    In a future firmware, please improve your FX9 with an anamorphic option, available for any sensor size (Full Frame and S35), that is to say:
    – x2 and x1.5 and x1.33 EVF (and monitor outputs) ANAMORPHIC DESQUEEZE
    – customisable EFV (and monitor outputs) CROP MARKS (to adjust the desired frame ratio)
    That should be easy for your technicians: it is only a monitoring option and it doesn’t change anything to the recorded signal.
    So many affordable cameras (BMPCC 6K, URSA mini) or DSLR have this option, for few years now. My DSLR have this option and I can shoot FullFrame with my ISCORAMA x1.5! Why could’nt a pro camera??? this is frustrating!
    If this option is not included in a future FX9 firmware, my choice is done: I will not buy the FX9, but the Canon F500 mark II, that already have this option.
    Thank you and happy new year!

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