Anamorphic Lenses?

Anamorphic lenses are specialty tools which affect how images get projected onto the camera sensor. They were primarily created so that a wider range of aspect ratios could fit within a standard film frame, but since then, cinematographers have become accustomed to their unique look. This article discusses the key considerations with anamorphic lenses in the digital era.

Anamorphic lenses were originally designed so that wide format imagery would fully utilize the film area of standard 35 mm frames. Otherwise wide format imagery would have left the top and bottom of the frame unused, and required cropping these out using masks in the projector.