I bought the Blazar Cato 2x anamorphic lenses… and I returned them a week later. In this video I break down why I chose the Blazar Mantis 1.33x anamorphic kit instead, after putting them on a cinematic fashion film. I’m walking through both the creative results and the technical stuff that actually matters on set—because anamorphic is fun, but it also has to be usable when you’re shooting real projects. I used the 35mm, 50mm, and 75mm Mantis on my Canon R5C with a PL to RF adapter, and I paired it with my DJI RS2 gimbal so I could stay mobile. The 1.33x squeeze gives me that gentle horizontal stretch without warping the frame too much, and the true oval aperture design gives me classic oval bokeh—without the crazy barrel distortion and edge smearing you can get on more extreme setups. The 50mm quickly became my favorite (I always love a good 50), and overall the kit gave me a vintage, cinematic vibe that looked perfect for fashion. I also cover things like close focus distance (way better than the Cato 2x for my needs), minimal focus breathing, clickless aperture, controlled flares, and why a matte box helps a lot. And if you’re using PL adapters with built-in ND, I share a real-world issue I ran into: the PL mount sticks out enough that it can hit certain ND filter adapters.