Anamorphic Spot

The Anamorphic Spot is the ghost reflection produced by anamorphic glass instead of the round Spherical Spot: The cylindrical elements compress the aperture's image horizontally, leaving a small, vertical ellipse. In flare datasheets, it forms a conceptual pair with the Spherical Spot — the same reflection physics, but the lens design determines the shape of the reflection.

Distinction from Oval Flare

Both are elliptical, but not the same: The Oval Flare is large-area and soft, often appearing as a streak across the image. The Anamorphic Spot is compact and defined — a single, clearly outlined light patch that shows the compressed aperture shape. In series with a front anamorphic element, the compression is more pronounced than with rear anamorphic calculations, whose spots can remain almost round — a quick design test against the light.

On-Set Usage

As with its spherical counterpart, the axis rule applies: The spot lies on the line between the light source and the image center and moves in opposition to the pan. During desqueeze in post-production, it is stretched horizontally along with the image — what looks narrow and elliptical on set can appear rounder in the finished picture. Therefore, always judge the effect in the de-squeezed monitor image, not in the compressed viewfinder image.

Practical Tips

• Compare spots in the compressed and de-squeezed image — the effect differs by the squeeze factor.
• In mixed spherical/anamorphic operation, the spot shape reveals every take: round versus elliptical does not cut together unnoticed.
• Adapter solutions (anamorphic in front of spherical optics) often produce double spot sets — a round one from the base lens, a compressed one from the adapter.