Making A DIY Anamorphic Lens

[Prof.]

If anyone has ever considered making their own lens, but felt it would be beyond their capabilities, this DIY article that was published sometime ago might just change your mind..

It's a very straight forward description of what's required to produce a very reasonable Anamorphic lens..
Anyone with any Carpentry skills should be able to make up the lens box..and the method of setting up the prisms is clearly explained and shown..

http://www.zuggsoft.com/theater/prism.htm

[yourgrandma]

I'd make one of those in a heartbeat, but the picture would be wider than the room. Sure would be nice to get extra screen size with no major degradation in picture quality.

[Prof.]

How wide is your room!!?
My theatre room is only 10'6" wide, but I have an 8' wide scope screen..

One of the advantages of scope screens is their low profile, which means you have more space to mount speakers above or below the screen, in narrow room situations..

[Mike P.]

Excellent article, Prof. I wonder if the bigger the prisms are the less pincushion effect there will be.

[Prof.]

Mike...Unfortunately no..
The only thing that affects pincushion is the throw ratio..The longer the throw ratio, the less pincushion effect..

The advantages of the larger prisms is that they can be used with a variety of projectors, and possibly help to collect maximum light output from the projector..

[Mark Techer]

Whilst the DIY lens has tradionally being a prisms lens, it may be possible to do (more difficult and expensive, none the less) to make a DIY cylindrical.

Anyone interested in discussing this?

Mark

[Mike P.]

You have my attention. Are there any advantages to a cylindrical lens over a prism lens?

[atledreier]

Definetly interested! This is intriguing. I like cheap DIY as long as it works.

[Mark Techer]

MikeP wrote:

You have my attention. Are there any advantages to a cylindrical lens over a prism lens?

Many, including the ability to focus, which you can not do with prisms...

atledreier wrote:

Definetly interested! This is intriguing. I like cheap DIY as long as it works.

No, will not be cheap...

Mark

[Prof.]

Sounds very interesting Mark...
Are these cylindrical lens elements readily available?

[Mark Techer]

Prof. wrote:

Sounds very interesting Mark...
Are these cylindrical lens elements readily available?

No. I am having them made to my specs. I have pricing and it makes a fully corrected cylindrical lens "affordable", but ultimately not cheap - still a couple of grand...but half the price of anything currently on the market in the same class...

Mark

[Prof.]

I presume that you would need a quantity of lens elements to be made up to keep the cost down..
Will it be a viable proposition considering the lack of interest that was shown towards the Mark 111 lens?

[Mark Techer]

This lens will not sell like the older prism lens, and the pricing I have been given are for a 1 off only. Only time will tell if this is viable enough to mass produce, but at least I end up with a new, fully performing anamorphic lens...

Mark

[Prof.]

Well if I ever win the Lotto..I'll put in an order for one..

In the meantime I'm still very happy with the Mark 1..

[Mark Techer]

Yes, and I was happy too, then someone showed me better...

Mark