Sirui Anamorphic Desqueeze Guide

The complete guide to desqueezing footage from every Sirui anamorphic lens. All use 1.33x, but there are details worth knowing.

The Sirui Anamorphic Lens Lineup

Sirui makes four anamorphic lenses for mobile and mirrorless cameras. Every single one uses the same squeeze ratio: 1.33x.

This is good news. Unlike mixing lenses from different manufacturers, if you shoot exclusively with Sirui anamorphics, you will always desqueeze at the same ratio. No guessing, no per-clip adjustments.

What 1.33x Actually Means

A 1.33x squeeze ratio means the lens compresses the horizontal field of view by a factor of 1.33. Your sensor captures 33% more width than a spherical lens would, but that extra width is squeezed into the same pixel dimensions.

To restore the correct proportions, you need to stretch the image horizontally by 1.33 times. On a standard 16:9 sensor, this produces a final aspect ratio of approximately 2.37:1, which is close to the cinematic 2.39:1 standard used in Hollywood.

This is why Sirui lenses are popular among filmmakers who want the anamorphic look without the extreme width of a 2x squeeze. The 1.33x ratio gives you widescreen cinema without losing too much vertical resolution.

Common Problems Sirui Users Face

1. Camera roll looks wrong

This is the most common frustration. You shoot a beautiful scene with your Sirui anamorphic, but when you check your camera roll, everyone looks tall and thin. Your phone cannot desqueeze natively. The raw file is squeezed, and iOS and Android just show it as-is.

This makes it impossible to review your footage in the field. You cannot tell if the composition is right, if the subject is centered, or if the shot is usable until you get to your editing software.

2. Wrong ratio in editing software

Some editing apps default to a 2x desqueeze or do not offer 1.33x as a preset. If you apply a 2x stretch to 1.33x footage, everything looks unnaturally wide. People look short and fat. It is a subtle but immediately wrong look.

Sirui lenses are 1.33x, not 1.5x, not 2x. Make sure you are applying exactly 1.33x.

3. Batch processing nightmares

Sirui lenses are popular for photo walks, travel, and run-and-gun video. These shooting styles produce a lot of files. Coming home from a trip with 300 photos and 50 video clips, all needing individual desqueezing in your editor, is demoralizing.

4. Mixing Sirui with other lenses

If you use a Sirui alongside, say, a Moment 1.33x or an Atlas Mercury 1.5x, your batch now contains mixed squeeze ratios. Manual workflows require you to sort files by lens and process each group separately.

How Desqueezed Handles Sirui Lenses

Desqueezed reads the EXIF metadata embedded in every file your camera creates. When you shoot with a Sirui anamorphic, the lens information is recorded in the file. Desqueezed uses this to automatically identify the lens as Sirui and apply the correct 1.33x ratio.

No manual selection. No ratio picker. No mistakes.

The workflow

1. Open Desqueezed on your iPhone, Android, Mac, or Windows.
2. Select your Sirui footage. Pick individual files, an entire folder, or a photo album.
3. Tap or click Desqueeze.
4. Done. Videos are corrected via metadata (zero re-encoding). Photos are resampled at full quality.

You can batch process hundreds of files in seconds. No clip-by-clip adjustments.

Sirui on iPhone vs. Mirrorless

Sirui makes anamorphic lenses for both smartphones and mirrorless cameras. The desqueeze process is identical for both -- the ratio is 1.33x regardless of which camera body you use.

The difference is in the metadata. iPhone footage from Sirui's phone lens adapter includes lens information in the EXIF data, which Desqueezed reads automatically. Mirrorless footage (Sony, Canon, Fuji, etc.) may or may not include lens data depending on the adapter, but Desqueezed also uses other heuristics to detect the squeeze ratio.

For a detailed iPhone workflow, see the iPhone anamorphic desqueeze guide.

Sirui vs. Other 1.33x Lenses

Sirui is not the only 1.33x option. Moment, Smallrig, and Ulanzi also make 1.33x anamorphic lenses. The desqueeze process is identical -- 1.33x is 1.33x regardless of manufacturer.

The differences are in flare character, sharpness, and build quality. But from a desqueezing perspective, all 1.33x lenses are interchangeable. Desqueezed treats them all the same way.

For a full comparison of squeeze ratios across manufacturers, see the anamorphic squeeze ratio chart.

Stop Wasting Time on Manual Desqueezing

Sirui makes great lenses. The footage they produce deserves better than being squeezed in your camera roll, manually adjusted clip-by-clip in your NLE, and occasionally stretched to the wrong ratio because you picked 1.5x instead of 1.33x.

Desqueezed fixes all of it automatically. If you own a Sirui anamorphic, it should be the second app you install after your camera app.