What is an Anamorphic Lens?

When you watch a widescreen 2.39:1 movie on a standard 16:9 projector without an anamorphic lens, the projector “turns off” the pixels at the top and bottom to create black bars. This means roughly 33% of the projector's potential light output is discarded.

With an anamorphic setup, you use an "electronic scale" (built into the Pro2 and Max) to stretch the image vertically to use the entire 16:9 imaging chip. The anamorphic lens then optically ‘unstretches’ the image to achieve proper 2.39:1 geometry. This process utilizes the light from all pixels, resulting in a significantly brighter image (~30% gain in brightness).

As mentioned above, when you watch a widescreen 2.39:1 movie on a standard 16:9 projector without an anamorphic lens, the projector does not use the pixels at the top and bottom (resulting in black bars). This means roughly 33% of the projector’s pixels are not being used, or only 1600 vertical lines instead of the full 2160.

By scaling the image to fill the entire chip before it passes through the lens, you are using all available pixels to describe the image. This increases pixel density, reduces the "screen door effect," and creates a more film-like, seamless image texture.

While high-end projectors have decent contrast, the "black bars" in a letterboxed movie are rarely truly black; they are usually a dark grey caused by "light leakage." This can be distracting and lowers the perceived contrast of the film.

By using an anamorphic lens setup, the black bars are removed, and the projected image fits perfectly in a Cinemascope (2.39:1) screen. Because the projector is "painting" the entire screen with the movie, there is no light being sent to the areas above or below the frame.