You Can Shoot Anamorphic, Easy—Moment Returns with a Modern Take on Anamorphic Adapters

Moment has some solid experience making glass, but aren’t anamorphic adapters a thing of the past? Or is the Washington-based company bringing sexy back?

Founded in 2013, Moment capitalized on the popularity of Kickstarter to get some super rad products off the ground. From anamorphic adapters for your smartphone and drone to camera bags and diffusion filters, the once-tiny company quickly grew into a creator haven. It’s now a creator marketplace for all your digital content needs. 

Save for the CineBloom Diffusion filter, most of Moment’s products focused on mobile filmmaking. But now, there’s something new on the horizon. 

Introducing the Moment 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter. Reminiscent of the SLR Magic Anamorphot, it's a proper lens adapter that slaps onto (almost) any lens in your kit, giving it anamorphic qualities. But does an anamorphic adapter have a place in a world where Venus Optics and Sirui are offering proper anamorphic lenses for roughly the same price? Let’s find out after you watch this.

One Adapter, Many Lenses

The first selling point of Moment’s pitch is the fact that you can use your existing lens kit with its anamorphic adapter. While it’s nice to have a dedicated lens set built for anamorphic shooting, sometimes you just want to take that old Nikon AI-s or Canon FD out for a spin. 

This is what made the SLR Magic alternative so attractive. It was affordable and versatile, even though it had its problems. 

Two things make the Moment 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter stand out from the other adapters currently available. A single-focus rangefinder system and a one-button alignment feature.

The former allows you to focus your taking lens to infinity and lets the adapter do the work, while the latter is a pretty ingenious alignment system that I wish came with other adapters. After you attach the adapter, you push one button to align the whole system and lock it into place.

While SLR Magic implemented a focus system in later models, not every adapter in their product stack had it.

Moment’s anamorphic adapter comes with a native 67mm filter diameter for attaching to taking lenses, which can be expanded to 72mm, 77mm, and 82mm with the included step-up rings. With its 1.33x squeeze factor, any footage shot in 16:9 will give you that sweet, sweet 2:35:1 widescreen look.

For all the other specs, here’s a handy list.

Tech Specs

• Lens Type: Front Anamorphic Lens Adapter
• Construction: 6 Elements/4 Groups
• Squeeze Ratio: 1.33x
• Focus: Front Single Focus
• F-Number (max): 2.0
• Close Focus: 0.7m
• Focus Rotation: 180 deg
• Rear Prime (S35): 35mm-100mm+
• Rear Prime (Full Frame): 50mm-100mm+
• Prime Lens Focus: Infinity
• Front Filter Size: 82 mm
• Rear Aperture: 44mm
• Coatings: Gold Flare
• Rear Mount: M67 x 0.75 thread
• Product Length: 77.6mm - 92mm (Without lens cap)
• Weight: 880g

How Does It Look?

For Moment, designing this adapter wasn’t just about the squeeze factor. The team wanted to deliver iconic anamorphic characteristics such as horizontal flares, widescreen aspect ratio, subtle distortion, and gentle roll-off in sharpness, all while maintaining a character of its own. 

From the test footage the crew has already shot, it looks pretty sweet. Here’s a comparison video of a Canon FD with and without the adapter. 

As you can see from the footage, the adapter makes the Canon FD have even less contrast, making for a nice dreamy look. The flares are subtle yet pleasing and the distortion is just where you want it to be. 

This isn’t Moment's first go around the anamorphic block. Its smartphone and drone adapter have been pretty popular, which is why the team brought the gold flare look into this new adapter.

So—Why Moment, and Why an Adapter?

The gang from Washington hasn’t been around for that long, but in that time, they’ve brought some solid products to the market. Most of their Kickstarter campaigns were funded in under an hour, and they are pretty open about the risks involved in supporting them.

Best of all, the entire team is open to talking about the details of everything they make. Here’s a video with Mike Thomas, Moment’s optical designer.

What makes Moment's great stand out to me is how it's created by people who actively use it. From where I'm standing, it just looks like a bunch of creators wanted to shoot anamorphic footage, decided to make the gear, and just happen to be selling it. I feel inspired. 

It’s hard not to get infected by the creative energy of the Moment team. Which is why…

Money, Meet Mouth

I bought one. Or, I guess, I pledged for one.

Yes, there are other proper lens kits around, as I mentioned before, but an adapter fits my workflow better. I already used the Sirui anamorphics and found them to have some quality-control issues that left me unable to attach a lens to my camera. 

I also used the SLR Magic Anamorphot back when they were all the rage, and while I loved it, I wish it had a few more quality-of-life features. The Moment 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter seems to fit the bill, at least on paper. But I’ve been a true believer in what Moment has been doing, so I’m putting my money where my mouth is to see if the new adapter really does bring sexy back.  

If you want to join me, you can pledge to the Kickstarter campaign. The final price of the Moments 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter will be $1,299, but you can snag one for $999 via the campaign. As of this article, there are still some discounts available.

But since the whole campaign was fully backed in under an hour, you'd better hurry.