Jump to content

follow focus on cameras without teeth


Adam Tyler

Recommended Posts

  • Premium Members

Add on gears are the way to go for almost all such cameras. The only except is some of Canons HDV cameras. They have an autofocus sensor which is unfortunately in the way of where the gear would go. There is a manual follow focus made specifically for these cameras that uses a large soft rubber wheel instead of gears that works relatively well. I managed to use one of these to attach my follow focus motor by having its gear push into the soft rubber wheel much in the same way it was pushing against the lens. Worked surprisingly well. Should be possible to attatch some sort of similar rubber directly the the motors gear to have the same effect but I don't think anyone has done it.

 

~Jess

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Members

My Preston completely shredded a cheap plastic add-on lens gear during calibration on a job where we were using a Letus adapter and Nikkor lenses.

 

The fix was two of those big fat rubber bands they had in Crafty that come on the heads of broccoli, one around the lens barrel, one around the gear on on the Preston, then I used a Bongo-tie from the opposing side rod to keep the motor pulled tight against the lens. It wasn't pretty but it worked well enough to get us through so now I keep a couple of broco-bands in the kit.

 

The "Broco-Matic Elastic Motor to Lens Mount System" coming to a produce department near you...

 

Robert

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

May not sound/look too sexy, but rubber bands were a staple in your kit in the days of the Seitz and horizontal Heden motors. Trying to get those motors to stick to the old Zeiss lenses (or the fine pitched video ENG lenses) was a chore. We have it SO good now (in terms of gear) its not funny!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...