A fantastic alternative to costly Zip gears

Hi Dennis,

The text on the web page says the photo shows the new gear fitted on a Canon lens, but the picture is just of the gear alone. Have you got any pictures of the gears fitted to a lens?

Cheers,
Peter
 
Pics of Cinevate's new focus gears fitted to the Canon 24-70 f2.8D lens.



On the Fujinon lens comment, yes they do have gears, but they are not film pitch (.8) and they are conventionally narrow. Fitting our gears to this lens is a very cost effective way of increasing your rigging options (where the FF sits on the rails) as well as makes it possible to use our FF on a side or top mount situation where you are using a cage. We'll have those SI-2K pics with our FF/gear and cage built up. Once a few folks actually test the engeagement "sweetness" of the combination, the reason for our thinking on this will become clear.

Cheers,
Dennis
 
I added the lens gear to the cart and while checking out, I cancelled the order due to the shipping being $27(!), which is almost as much as the lens gear itself... :(

The lens gear does look nice, though, Dennis.
 
Fedex Ground and Express have (to date) been our standard shipping methods. We dropped Canada Post nearly 3 years ago due to lost, stolen or damaged packages. That said, our typical order is larger, heavier typically high value so Fedex Express has been flawless for us. We do pass our shipping rates on to our customers, nearly half typical rates.

The problem is very small orders as the minimum shipping charge (for say an envelope) is in the $25 range which makes bundling orders much more cost effective. We may need to revisit the postal system, but only if they've resolved ship track issues along with the aforementioned woes.

That said, I've just adjusted the shipping table so a single ring should only cost $12 to ship.

Cheers,
Dennis.
 
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Dennis I notice the gear fits very snuggly on the large Canon zoom, but how does it fit with smaller lenses? I have several Zeiss Contax lenses like the 50mm 1.4 and 28mm 2.8 which have small diameters. Does each ring ship with long spokes? Aree these easily adustable/?

Thanks,
Peter
 
We have five different lengths of the "spokes" manufactured. You should see the options for these on Monday in order to specify what you need. For now we're sending full sets in the most common lengths with the gears.

This post shows the 1st generation gears but the concept is the same.



Cheers,
Dennis.
 
They should be at your door by Wednesday or so :-) Thanks as always for your support guys. In terms of economics, these rings are designed and manufactured in both the US and Canada (ike 95% of what we sell)...so given our economic stresses, you can feel pretty good about your investment.

Cheers,
Dennis.
 
I don't get the attraction with zip gears.. ok I do, they look nice. They're so thin though, can't be reused, and limit the circumference of the lens rotation making for a harder focus pull. The redrock or Cinevate gears are both reusable, wider, and have a larger circumference. I don't care what the lens looks like as long as the final shot is tight, and that's not an area I want to make compromises in.
 
Dennis Wood said:
They should be at your door by Wednesday or so :-) Thanks as always for your support guys. In terms of economics, these rings are designed and manufactured in both the US and Canada (ike 95% of what we sell)...so given our economic stresses, you can feel pretty good about your investment.

Cheers,
Dennis.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the fast service Dennis! Good stuff.
 
You're welcome Peter :-) The gears we've come up with are the best solution we could imagine, with no compromises.
 
Dennis,
Do these rings adapt to different size lenses? ( I assume they do) How does that work and how long does it take to change a ring from one lens to another?

Lenny Levy
 
Hey Lenny :-) You'd loosen the spokes, remove the ring from the lens and re-install, using the spoke lengths as appropriate. At the price we're selling them though we hope folks will decide to take the time to install them "perfectly" and leave them on the lens. We now have a fitment chart integrated into the online catalog entry. You could just use the longest spokes for every lens in your kit, but the fitment wouldn't look as clean with them protruding outside of the ring. We had meant to have a video online already but our studio here in Thunder Bay has been booked pretty much solid for the last two weeks.

Heez, we have as it turns out six lengths of spoke, the longer three being nylon tipped. In a short while all six lengths will be nylon tipped but it's taking longer to make the shorter versions.

Cheers,
Dennis.
 
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