Anamorphic Optoma Lens or Panamorph Lens?

[speakerboy]

Hi, I have an opportunity to buy a used and well discounted demo Optoma lens and sled. I emailed Panamorph and they mentioned that the Optoma is a bit older and the current Panamorphs have some improvements. What they are, I don't know yet. I'm still waiting to hear back.

So the question is...would there be much picture quality difference with an older Optoma lens/sled vs. a NEW Panamorph lens/sled?

[Dean McManis]

I owned two ISCO and a Panamorph fluid lens. The ISCO I lens looked sharp, but it was not a perfect 1.33:1 proportion, the ISCO II lens that I had was the best one and it looked great. The Panamorph fluid lens was cool(I still have it) but it was a 2.35:1 lens, and when I moved to a native 16:9 projector I couldn't use it any more.

The Optima lens is supposed to be a Panamorph UH380 glass lens, and it has been reviewed quite well. Of course Panamorph is going to say that their newer model is going to be better, but then again they want to sell you one for $3K-$5K.

Even though the anamorphic lenses are cool, and they give a slightly softer (filmic) look without losing clarity, I'd spend the difference in cost to simply buy a better projector because pixel-gap is not that much of and issue at normal viewing distances these days, especially with the newer generation of 1080p projectors.

In short, I don't see a huge advantage for anamorphic lenses these days, but if you are set on getting one I seriously doubt that there will be any visible improvement of the new Panamorph compared to the last model.