Home made remote follow focus

hoarp001

hoarp001

Veteran
hi,

Im steadicamming on a low budget film at the moment, using the SGpro adapter. The production didn't see the importance of hiring a remote follow focus so we have been struggling with a very out of focus image on the steadicam. We tried doing marks on the focus wheel and gently changing it but it screws up the steadicam ballence instantly. I got home from the shoot last night, and within half an hour, had made this, and Im pretty pleased with it.

Its an RC servo attached to a 0.8mod gear. It is actualy the spur gear from a traxxas Tmaxx nitro RC monster truck. This is attached to a servo tester I made years ago, it was actualy made to control the throttle on the engine of a wind machine that I built.

It only moves the lens about 90degrees, but thats enough to get it from infinity to 4 feet, which is more than what we need. The plan is to do the focus marks on the follow focus wheel, then move the lens to those marks using the knob on the box, so the focus puller will stand next to me as I oerate and move the focus that way.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_ImlfgySmIg
 
Nicely done! Not bad at all, considering the circumstances under which it was made. Obviously this can't be a permanent solution, but for your problem, it will definitely help.

What surprises me is that productions sometimes don't realize the cost of renting the proper equipment to do the job far outweighs the cost of reshooting or ending up with sub-par footage. In a few weeks or months, when they're cutting the footage together, they'll be looking through all the out of focus stuff saying to themselves, "You mean we could've spent an additional $100 and it would've solved this problem? Why didn't we???!!!"
 
Afton,

Have you tried or worked with the Varizoom I/F remote? It is a single-channel 900MHz like the Preston, but I don't see things like auto-calibrate features in the product literature.

Mine would be a back-up to the Preston and for jib work where the full Preston is overkill / inoperable by a single jib operator.

vzwff_receiver_large.jpg


e
 
The cost of hiring the remote FF was minimal anyway, a fellow steadicam operator in LA offered to lend me a 3ch system (although we would only use the focus) and the receiver and motor for free, we just had to cover te cost of shipping which was £200 in total for the four weeks. For £200 you could hire a bartech for two days and they turned it down for the three weeks :Drogar-Love(DBG):
 
Erik Olson said:
Afton,
Have you tried or worked with the Varizoom I/F remote? It is a single-channel 900MHz like the Preston, but I don't see things like auto-calibrate features in the product literature.

Mine would be a back-up to the Preston and for jib work where the full Preston is overkill / inoperable by a single jib operator.
Click to expand...

That Varizoom controller was developed by Jim Bartell - owner of Bartech Engineering, and maker of the Bartech devices. The Varizoom is essentially a Bartech with a different nameplate. I own two Bartechs, so in a sense, yes, I have used the Varizoom. Opinions about the Bartech are well documented. It has been an industry standard for many years now, and continues to be an extremely simple, reliable piece of equipment.

Also, just to clarify, the Preston is not a single-channel, 900MHz system. It's a 30 channel, 2.4GHz system.
 
Ah, thanks! Is the 900MHz the spec I read on the Bartech then... I guess that makes more sense. So, if that is effectively a rebadged Bartech, do you know how it compares from a pricepoint? Equal? 30% less?

I'm familiar with Preston's pricesheet, but can't seem to find Bartech's. One phone call would resolve that, I suppose...

:)


e
 
Nice one Hoarp001
I have almost same setup with Varizoom (MC100 Remote Head) Motor.
 
hoarp, may I ask what´s inside that controller box?

Thank´s, Frank

Edit: forget it, just scored a servo tester on Ebay.

Thank´s anyways, Frank
 
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AftonGrant said:
They're about equal. Both around $4000 for single channel and motor (Bartech does not make motors).
Click to expand...

The Bartech site indicates that this particular model is modular and could be expanded. I suppose that the same goes for the rebadged model?

e
 
Yes, they are both modular. This simply means you can have as many or as few channels of control as you wish. For each desired channel, you need to have an additional kit, but they are built to work together seamlessly - and they do.
 
I recently received an update from RedRock Micro regarding my three reservations for this item. Effectively, it isn't happening anytime in the near future. That was the tone of the note.

Ah well, there's always the $8k options!

e
 
car3o, yes it should, that is a basic servo tester which should give you pretty close to a 1:1 turn of the servo. you'll need a batt pack, or just pick up the wires at servo city, or parallax.com and hack in a 6v ac to dc power suply.
 
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