BLAZAR Anamorphic Aspect Ratio and Crop Calculator Tool Introduced With a Useful Visual Preview

Lens News

by Alexandra ThompsonNovember 28^th, 2025

Subscribe to News - Lenses

Anamorphic can be hard to picture until you see the final frame. The image you record is squeezed, the frame you edit is stretched, and the difference between the two is not always obvious when you’re on set. Enter BLAZAR, who is offering an online calculator that makes this part a bit easier to understand by showing you what happens once the footage is desqueezed and how different aspect ratios sit inside that frame.

We’ve looked at a lot of anamorphic lenses over the years, including BLAZAR’s own recently released series, Beetle – a set of ultra-compact 1.33× full-frame lenses with a 90° rotation, or the lightweight Mantis series. But even though new and interesting lenses keep appearing from every direction, they’re not always straightforward to work with. That’s where BLAZAR’s online reference calculator comes in handy!

A quick note on squeeze factors

Anamorphic lenses widen your field of view by compressing the image horizontally. The squeeze factor, for example, 1.33×, 1.5×, or 2×, describes how strong that compression is. When you bring the footage into your editor, you stretch it back to its intended proportions.

In July, Johnnie filmed with the BLAZAR Mantis on a Sony FX2 while he was in Japan, which you can watch here to get an idea of the look.

If you really want to get into understanding anamorphic lenses and how they work, take a look at our MZed course, Behind the Cinematic Look of Anamorphic Lenses – A Short Guide for Beginners.

How does the calculator work

You enter your recording aspect ratio, or recorded resolution, next to the squeeze factor of your anamorphic lens, and the calculator shows the resulting image dimensions after desqueeze. Of course, one can test different aspect ratios and see how much cropping each one would need. The preview is visual, so you can immediately see how each ratio sits inside your recorded frame. It’s a practical way to judge whether a particular squeeze factor matches the frame you have in mind. It’s also helpful when you need to deliver in different aspect ratios. Speaking of which, a similar free calculating tool from Tito Ferradans has been on the market for a while, but it will be interesting to see if the new BALAZAR calculator is even easier to use.

Price and availability

The calculator from BLAZAR is free and available online. If you’re thinking about buying an anamorphic lens and want to get a sense of how each squeeze factor will affect your final frame, this tool is a simple way to sort that out before you decide. You can try it out here.

If you shoot anamorphic regularly, what helps you decide which lens to bring? Are you working with multiple aspect ratios right now, or sticking to one format? Let us know in the comments!