How to accurately simulate an anamorphic lens

Question

I am aware of the aperture ratio slider in the camera properties. However, I am wondering if there is a way to actually render squished in Blender, and stretch it out in the compositor later. I honestly don't fully understand anamorphic lenses, so I might be asking the wrong question.

Answer 1

There is a way to anamorphize the rendered image by controling the aspect ratio values

The values depend on the proportions of the container.

For a 1.33 image the anamorphic pixel ratio should be 2:1 meaning that the image should be squeezed 2 times horizontally (X axis)

The unsqueezed image would have a format of 2.35:1

For a 16X9 image the anamorphic pixel ratio should be 1.33

Answer 2

i'm late to the party here but this will do what your looking for https://www.blendermarket.com/products/jackimorphic-camera-pack-v1

This an optics sort of question, the aperture slider only stretches the shape of aperture to fake the effect to the bokeh, such as ‘Anamorfake’ lens search on google will show the photography equivelent. This addon listing is a blender file that provides precise geometry of t the actual optics of anamorphic lenses to achieve the characteristics you are looking for, especially the compression of depth.

Flares would happen with this method if a wavelength dependant coating could be simulated in a fast way that didnt require so many more bounced light paths

-jack