Fujinon Cabrios--anyone use them with Preston, C-motion etc and internal motors?

[Alan Rencher]

I'm interested in learning more about it, none the less.

[MagnusBalte]

Hello guys,

 

The Carat will drive 1 x external motor (Heden or Preston). When connected to a Fujinon Cabrio and Fujinon S6 lens it will via a single bus cable on the receiver unit take control of the internal FIZ motors. You can pick a choose which motors that should be active remotely by the Carat or controlled locally on the servo unit or by the camera. For example you can oprate zoom on the rocker switch and control Focus and Iris remotely with Carat. The Carat can also let an external motor control focus, the internal do the iris and locally control zoom by the rocker switch. Lens mapping and knob mapping is possible with both external motor and the Fujinon motors or the combination.

You can switch between FIZ motors by pressing a button. It will store the knob position in memory when switching to a new axis. When returning to the axis that is stored you can be alerted by a delicate vibration in the hand unit when the knob picks it up again. Works very nice, this feature can be turned on or off.

The Carat is a pocket size hand unit (430grams).

It features a super smooth knob with adjustable drag and quick change scale rings. It will start/stop most cameras (built in 3,3V trigger for RED cameras). 1/4" thread for easy mounting.

 

The internal Fujinon motors are very good they are using 16-bit encoders. They are not as fast as external motors but they will certainly do the job in most situations.

 

 

We will ship out the first units in mid October. More information and pictures will be available soon on our website.

 

Magnus Balte

Heden Engineering Co.

[Charles Papert]

Thank you Magnus. My somewhat cheeky earlier comments were pointed at the fact that FIZ has become an adhoc generic term for a three channel, three controller system--it's just nomenclature but it was enough to confuse me.

 

Interesting idea and I would have to play with it to understand usage--as you indicated, when you change channels the unit remembers where you were previously, but if the knob is in a different place, how does it not jump? i.e. you have focus at 5 feet, then switch to iris and pull from a T4 to a T5.6--when you switch back to focus your knob is now at say 8 feet?

 

Incidentally all, I did chat to the folks at Preston and they do have an interface cable that works with the Cabrio lenses to provide full three channel control. However it does require the Cabrio to have a particular level or later of firmware (Alanna, what was it? H?).

[MagnusBalte]

Hi Charles,

 

If you have focus at 5 feet and switch to Iris and pull it from T4 -T5.6 and switch back to focus and as you wrote now the knob can be in a position of 8 feet. Here nothing will happen the knob is "dead" until you come back to the exact position you left it when you switched to iris.

You can be alerted by a vibration in the hand unit or you can mark up the disc where you left it. You will also be able to view it in our upcoming smartphone app that will act as advanced info display for the Carat.

The Fujinon Cabrio and S6 lenses are hot plug on the Carat which means that it immediately recognize the presence of these lenses when they are connected.

 

/Magnus

[Charles Papert]

Hmmmm...I would have to try that to fully grasp the ramifications, but at first glance it seems a bit dodgy of a maneuver for the typical set environment.

 

Please let us know when you have a demo video up showing the procedure.

[MagnusBalte]

I'll let you know when we have video showing this.

[Guest Alanna Berkson]

Version H or higher.

[Jameson Johnson]

I have had problems with my gimbal mounted zoom control. I use the bebob. It is slow and I have had problems with it not working on some of the 19-90's ( I have no idea why) My zoom control works fine on ENG lenses.

 

I've only flown the Cabrio once on a demo, but with my G-zoom I experienced the same issue - slow zoom speed for sure, but slower on the zoom out. I thought I had a problem with the controller, but like yours, it worked fine on other ENG lenses.

[James Davis]

I saw this happen on a job recently also, to the point where the zoom was basically unuseable "on shot".

It also became stuttery and would suddenly jump if you began to try and gradually increase zoom speed mid, it would stay slow for a moment then suddenly slam in tight.

 

I spoke to a technician/kit room manager from the rental house on the day and he said he questioned the durability of the servo motors in these lenses as he had already had 2-3 lenses go down that needed the motors replacing on these lenses.

 

Clearly this isn't an isolated incident....

[Tuomas Viitakoski]

I got a word from Fujinon saying that the ZK-lenses currently work with:
- Hedén Carat - as Magnus already told us
- Preston MDR-3
- C-motion cvolution camin
.. but ARRI is still working on with their wireless controls

[Kris R Bird]

Just a heads up-- we're producing a mini-receiver which supports the Cabrio lenses (plus other broadcast lenses) directly ... plus has a socket for up to 1 of our motors (which can be used simultaneously with the broadcast motors),

 

Q1 2014,

 

It will work with our standard MK3.1 hand-unit.

[Peter Hoare]

Yeah, you will soon be able to plug a cabrio straight into our receiver unit and control it too, no extra bits required, just a simple cable.

 

 

Pete.

[Michael Nelson]

How about controlling the cabrios with a Stanton? Has anyone done this yet?