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pro-mk2 focus unit


Milos Kodemo

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John,

 

Don't know how it looks, I do not have it. I was just considering it since it offers nice specs for the price (on the web site).

That is why I asked here if anyone has any experience with it.

Did you see it, tried it?

They will have new (slimmer) motor soon as I was told.

 

thanks

Kodemo

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Personally when it comes to buying any piece of equipment, especially the specialist stuff that we as operators use, I think it is incredibly important to consider the level of support and customer service surrounding the equipment, the company that make it and/or the companies that supply/maintain/repair it for you.

Bartech have a great reputation in this area, as do Preston, as do Hocus Focus.

Before I owned my own wireless FF I used to rent Preston 2 channel units pretty regularly and sometimes I would use a bartech/m-one combo. Both do the job and work well, however what swung me towards the Preston single channel in the end, despite the significant price difference was the sheer convenience of being a short car drive or public transport journey away from the main Preston Dealers in my country.

Also having dealt with them many times before, knowing that I could get the same level of great customer service, I had already come to expect with my rig and accessories, gave me that extra feeling of security that I was giving my money to the right people.

I guess it also helps it is just a really simple to use very high quality piece of kit, I am very happy with my purchase.

 

James

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Hi everyone,

 

I just purchased an RTMotion MK2 wireless follow focus system.

I have it only for a couple of weeks so I have done only 4-5 shootings with it.

 

The pictures that Toma's link show have nothing to do with the device that I have.The device looks exactly like the ones in their web site.Really compact,strong and lightweight.

 

A small personal review:

 

The design and materials are more than great.I have used a Bartech device many times in the past as steadicam assistant and the quality of the RT is very similar.

The motor is totally quiet!The sound recordist never complained at any point.He mentioned the bugs on the 30 meter high trees but no motor from my rig even when he was right next to me!!

The motor calibrates simply by powering the receiver to the topstage dc input...in my case a 2pin lemo.You place it around in the middle of the lens and it tracks the start and the end of the lens.So far I have used it with Compact Primes in a Canon 5D II,with Cooke in a Canon 7D,with Canon L series and with standard 50mm Canon low quality lens with no begining or end and only few centimetres of dynamic...it worked perfectly with all of them!

The reciever is very compact and it hooks to the lower part of the rails - 15 or 19mm - or wherever you wish.It uses mini 4pin XLR inputs for every part(receiver,motor,transmitter).

The transmitter is like a Bartech only smaller in height.It uses a standard 9V battery that lasts many hours...I never changed a battery in the middle of a shooting day until now.It has a menu with many adjustments that are made through the led lights that are on the device...still haven't gone through all of them!!

 

About the customer support...Kris - the co-owner and engineer of the device - just answered a quite serious inquiry I just had...in Greece right now is 04:07(oh God...)...in London is 2 hours earlier=02:07!!!

I'm sure he could do it first thing tomorrow but he answered in 02:00 in the morning!!!!...I am SO satisfied with them!

 

In general...the device works excelant for me.You can go from really fast to extreamly slow movement of the motor,totally quiet,simple and easy auto-calibration with just one plug,in a wide range of super quality or lowest quallity lenses.The cost was 1350£ for the 1 motor kit that can be upgraded to a 3 motor set up in the same receiver.

 

I don't know what other people say about this but I'm quite happy that I took the risk of buying a not famous brand - I couldn't afford anything more expensive right now anyway!

 

Hope I helped a little bit Milos...

 

- Haris -

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  • 2 months later...
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Like Haris said, i am very happy with RTmotion too.

 

I just posted my thoughts about it in another post:

 

http://www.steadicamforum.com/index.php?showtopic=14646&st=0&p=69289&fromsearch=1entry69289

 

another pro i forgot:

u can calibrate lenses without hard stops manually! (without having to stop the motor by hand, like you have to do at older FFs)

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