Follow Focus Direction is driving me crazy

[filmguy123]

I have an Edelkrone FocusONE follow focus one attached to my Zeiss Milvus primes with Sean's Seamless Follow Focus gears.

This should be great.

The focus direction, though, is driving my brain crazy -- it's like trying to use a game controller without being able to invert the look direction. Right now, when I roll the gear away from me, the focus comes closer to me. When I roll it toward me, the focus goes further away. I am still struggling to get used to this... my brain wants to roll the focus away and have the lens focus further away.

Now, I could flip the follow focus around to reverse direction, but then you lose the marker disk and placement on the rod in relation to the camera body gets wonky.

Is this normal for all follow focuses? Any way to reverse the gearing or get around this issue?

I got the Canon EF mount because they focus "right" (vs the nikon) but now I realize with the Nikon + Follow Focus, it would focus the direction I wanted.

[Dan_ETP]

Hi Filmguy. My mental mantra when I first started focusing was that if someone is walking towards the lens, you’ve got to ‘go out to greet them’ with the focus and close the distance - so turning towards them. Just a silly something that helped me wrap my head around the direction.

Practice will solidify your muscle memory in no time and it will become second nature. Getting a friend to walk around in frame at a pace you can’t predict will help you react to spontaneous movement as well.

Good luck mate!

[Run&Gun]

My Arri can flip directions.

I just can't get used to a follow focus. I've spent my entire career with my hand on the actual lens/focus barrel, since I'm an ENG guy at heart, and the FF is just not intuitive to me.

[morgan_moore]

My Arri can flip directions.

I just can't get used to a follow focus. I've spent my entire career with my hand on the actual lens/focus barrel, since I'm an ENG guy at heart, and the FF is just not intuitive to me.

You should see me holding a remote focus.. I point the wheel forward so it is positioned like a lens

[deltoidjohn]

I normally use an Arri FF when I'm AC'ing and it can be setup plenty of different ways, so it's mostly just a limitation of your particular FF.

Having said that, the standard that I was taught was to point your fingertips parallel to the lens, turn your palm up and wrap it around the wheel. When you do that, the whole push/pull thing makes sense - you either push your hand away, or pull it towards yourself, and the focus follows suit.

[markfpv]

My Arri can flip directions.

I just can't get used to a follow focus. I've spent my entire career with my hand on the actual lens/focus barrel, since I'm an ENG guy at heart, and the FF is just not intuitive to me.

Understand completely.