Good follow focus?

[xhridhar]

I am looking to buy a follow focus ideally priced below 1000 dollars.

When I went to Abel Cine I was shown FFs over 1300 (like Zacuto) .

Is it also important to have them work both sides of the camera?

Is my budget unrealistic for a professional caliber FF?.

Thanks

 

[Nate Weaver]

Yes, but you can still get a pretty good one. My fav under $1K is Red Rock

 

[Cinesin]

I feel like you will regret buying anything in that price range if you work often or do anything professional. I know an AC that refuses to even work with a red rock. I personally have owned a few and Arri or Chrz. are the only ones worth owning long term. The cheap ones are so unreliable and weakly built in comparison its amazing they work at all for more than a month.

 

[Lenilenapi]

The Shoot 35 FF (version 2) is very good and has gotten great reviews from AC's. I had it for a awhile and sold it because I need additional features ( reversing gear and hard stops) but it was very good with less play than my Arri MFF-1 . Only $600 or so. Look fro a review by Timur Civan.

 

[Cinesin]

Longevity is the problem. Arri will still work perfectly 3 years from now.

 

[killamill]

Take a look at cinevate's ff. It's priced around your budget and it's very nice.

 

[Olivier Biron]

iI just bought the genus superior FF
With out any tool you can reverse the gear box and or pur the gear on the camera side or lens side
pretty good for the price
after that i woud go for the oconnor FF

 

[Loren Simons]

Take a look at the Redrock FollowFocus Blue. It's part of their new pro line and will be shipping June 15th. I've had a chance to work with it and it is miles ahead of their previous version, and really up to par with other professional follow focus. It's going to retail $749.

 

[G.P.]

Take a look at the Redrock FollowFocus Blue. It's part of their new pro line and will be shipping June 15th. I've had a chance to work with it and it is miles ahead of their previous version, and really up to par with other professional follow focus. It's going to retail $749.

I really like that, cant wait to get my hands on one to try out

 

[iunknown]

Getting good reviews, search the board:
http://www.trusmt.com/en/product.asp?cp=279

 

[G.P.]

whats really interesting to me is this: http://www.trusmt.com/en/proview.asp?id=31&page=0

rip off of redrocks unit, but built in screen instead of iphone/ipod?

 

[Robert Ruffo]

Cinevate - easy to carry in a case, EXCELLENT fluid-damped motion that will blow your mind

 

[Hunter Hampton]

Getting good reviews, search the board:
http://www.trusmt.com/en/product.asp?cp=279

I grabbed one on a whim- really good for the price but more "geared" to dslr's with AF lenses.
Too much dampening in the gearbox for manual focus/cine lenses (in my taste anyways). I wont be using it on my f3- but keep it for dslr use. (I reviewed it here)

Shoot35 looks really nice...

 

[billygraydon]

I have also been looking around extensively. I have kind of settled on the Chorsziel studio rig. With a reverse gear for Zeiss ZF lenses it is about $1700. It is reliable, robust, and a standard in the industry.

Can anyone confirm if the Zeiss ZF focus the same manner as Cine lenses or opposite like nikon lenses?

 

[Hunter Hampton]

Infinity on the left side of the scale is backwards:

Cinematography lenses would have infinity on the right. (also Canon, Leica and a few others).

 

[Lenilenapi]

ZF's adhere to Nikon standards - i.e. reversed

 

[billygraydon]

Thank you for that bit of info!

From the zeiss website I was looking at the ZE's not the ZF's they all seem to have infinity by rotating clockwise (on the left).

So a reverse gear is necessary then in order to focus the same way as cine lenses correct?

 

[Lenilenapi]

yes. I have all nikon zooms and Zeiss ZF primes for consistency. Duclos makes an extra gear ($300) that attaches to a rail and will interface without resetting your basic follow focus if you need to just reverse it up for some lenses. I know on my Arri MFF-1 its a little time consuming to reverse the gear.

 

[TimurCivan]

The shoot35 is awesome, best cost/performance ratio I've used.

However, another possible option is that Oconnor is making an approximatly 1000$ follow focus now. It should be quite nice and last a lifetime. Though it may be a bit more than 1000. I saw it at NAB. Seemed beautifully made.

The shoot35 has some of the lowest play, and its internal gearing ratio is good for both SLR and cine lenses. Because cine lenses have very long lens throws, cine ff like ARRI FF4, Oconnor CFF1, etc have a "1:1" internal gearbox so it makes about 2 turns of the wheel to get from min, to infinity. Using a redrock, zacuto, etc... that are designed for slr lenses with a very short focus throw, they have a reduction gear to artificially legthen the apparent throw on the wheel. Using one of these ff on a cine lens means three turns to reach infinity. The shoot 35 is somewhere around 2:5 turns. The cinevate durus is geared like a cine ff. Short on a slr lens, but normal on a cine lens.

Patryk Rebisz and I did a test a few months ago. Check his blog, I think its up there.

Hope it helps.

 

[Nate Weaver]

However, another possible option is that Oconnor is making an approximatly 1000$ follow focus now. It should be quite nice and last a lifetime. Though it may be a bit more than 1000. I saw it at NAB. Seemed beautifully made.
.

It's called the Ofocus, and it's gonna be $2K. Not ready for another little bit....couple months.