Do it myself focus gears.

Greg_E said:
May I suggest that you upgrade to an m4x15mm cap head bolt to hold your FF gears on the FF? I gives you the full width of that thumbscrew back which I've already found invaluable.

It's cheap stuff, but fully functional, I do need to upgrade the FF to quick release and make a new sliding mount arm for it, way too much flex in there for me to allow. I think I'm also going to drill holes in the thumb screw so I can insert a metal rod to really tighten it, I can barely get my fingers on it now, and I don't want to raise the rods any higher off the tripod plate, center of gravity gets too high and does odd things with the tripod head during tilts.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good mod. I'll do it. Thanks.

Hey man, I didn't forget about sending you some Nikkor measurements - just got hung up with a bunch of crap.
I'll get to it asap.
 
No real hurry, no one else is interested out of the 600+ reads this thread has had. Got a few more of my own lenses to do, then need to move on to a proper cage for the gh2. The baseplate I have now is horrible cheap garbage which is only good for rough positioning and photos of the rig. Garbage poser stuff, good thing I only bought it for the 15mm clamp part. Still not sure if I'm just going to make a new riser, or if I'll do a full cage. Also want to make a device to clamp the lenses for antirotation.

Also need to make some shims for my lens adapters, the errors stack up pretty fast and get me infinity at like 10 feet on the marking.

Got some 4fps time lapse projects I want to try, couldn't get this with my other cameras.
 
1000 views now, sorry no update. I have three more blanks ready to get started, but too tired today to start them. Thinking about making a crappy video showing the steps I go through to machine these gears, not sure if I'll do it or not. My GH2 is out on loan to my lady, she is finishing a 4 year degree and taking a basic photography course as filler to be full time (gets financial aide this way). Can't bring myself to shoot it on my Fuji, moire would be everywhere with the subject matter, and I just can't do that!
 
Kind of stalled, found that several of my lenses needed to have the infinity stop tweaked, as well as the adapter fixed. Might try a better adapter to see if I can shorten the process. My Fd converted to EF lenses are fine, but not looking to buy more unless I have no choice because they all require a $100 conversion to EF to fit my speed booster.
 
Man - you guys are hard core! I just buy the chinese rings from eBay for $15!!! Though I like the look of a press-on ring, several of my main-squeeze nikkors do equal time for stills gigs. Do you, like, soak them in hot water, stick 'em on, and let them cool and shrink to fit? (Mine are all redrock style, with a small bolt).
 
You need to heat a bit more than that, but that's the process and they don't really come off afterwards without cutting.
 
Umm, maybe. I have two of them that need to have the rings removed for adjustments that I was too dumb to check before mounting the rings. I don't think I'll boil the lenses though, certainly won't bake them either. Probably end up cutting the gears and making new ones, but I haven't really attempted anything yet. Thinking about replacing them with a different mount style lens and making new gears.

Might make an electric heater that clamps to the gears to expand them and see what happens, need to look into this a bit more.
 
Almost a year later:

Not going to replace cutting gears for any decent lenses I might convert, but for the ordinary lenses these printed versions are functional. Printing on an XYZ Da Vinci Pro printer in PETG plastic. And yes I am thinking of ringing my lenses in the red plastic, should make them easy to spot if they get stolen.

Printing is a little cheaper, and considering that most of the time is spent with the printer going without needing supervision, less time costly.

For those that might want to try this one on their own, there are a few designs on Thingiverse.com (example http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1060283 ). Or you can download and use the free Fusion360 CAD application, go to add ins and select spur gear, then enter the values you need for these 0.8mod gears. You may also need Meshmixer which is also free.

Eventually I'm going to print a follow focus too, there is one on Thingiverse that I want to try for a second rig. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:565421
 
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Normally the Nikon lenses people put gears on will be the AIS or AI. If the focus ring tapers, it would be difficult to keep the gear attached without an adhesive. Some of that might be how much it tapers, a few degrees might be fine, but more than about 10 degrees and I doubt you'd be able to keep them in place with friction. Looks like some of them have two rows of rubber grip "dots", might be able to print with a ring that "snaps" between those two rows to hold them in place. Or might be able to pull the rubber off which will probably give you a nice flat surface. A split ring could then be put on the lens, and a gear slide onto the split ring. The gear would tighten the split ring so it can't spin on the lens. It would take a lot of measuring and refinement before it worked with the rubber grip in place, and most of us would prefer using the good old manual only lenses for this type of work. So I can only say that this may be a challenge that no one else has picked up, it should be possible if you work out the kinks.

I looked for some images of AF-D lenses, and one thing that looks like it would make these difficult for use with a mattebox is that many of these seem to have the focus ring all the way at the front of the lens, not much room between gear and mattebox which means probably no room between mattebox and follow focus.

Some pictures might help me to visualize the issue, I have never owned any Nikon gear.
 
Not sure if I like the bright red, here is my Canon new FD 50f1.2 lens with EF mount.



A darker red might work, have to see what I can find.
 
I've gotten a few requests for Nikon gears... I don't have any to measure so it's hard for me to do this, but I'm certainly not opposed. I therefore have asked the greater community for broken lenses, can't really go out and buy good lenses in the various lengths so I'm asking for damaged lenses that I can use for measurements. If you got 'em, I may want them:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...kon-manual-lenses&p=1986678652#post1986678652


In the very least I need a list of the most popular Nikon AI and AIS lenses so I can keep my eyes open in pawn shops and other places.
 
I think it could work, but it would take a lot of trial, error, adjust, and try again.

I should also mention that the red gear isn't as glaring once it's on the camera and behind the matte box.
 
Decided to keep the red gears, everything but my 15mm which is a machined gear. Missing is the 35mm because both of mine have very sloppy focus rings, a common problem that I'm still trying to fix.

15f2.8, 24f2.8, 85f1.8, 135f2, 200f2.8 and 50f1.2 mounted on the camera.

 
Can everyone else see the pictures? I paid Photobucket the smaller ransom that they just released so that I could once again hot link images from my account.
 
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