How to follow focus on the Sony 18-200 power zoom lens?

T

The Irish TRex

Well-known member
So I have the Sony 18-200mm power zoom lens and it's great. Really nice smooth zoom with great speed control. I had the 18-105mm pz lens and found it nice but difficult to achieve a slow zoom because it's zoom lever was SO sensitive. Granted, when you do hit that slow zoom on the 18-105mm it's almost twice as slow which was great. And using the Sony Remote Contoller it makes zooming slow easy on both lenses. It also gives you and additional 1/3 slower zoom on the 18-200 than it would when manually zooming on it's lowest setting. But focus-wise...when it comes to the 18-200mm power zoom lens, my question is...is there a way to add a follow focus somehow to this lens? The problem I see is that the focus ring goes into the bottom portion of the lens so I don't see how you could add a little gear to the lens because it wouldn't go all the way around. Are there any options out there or is it impossible to use a follow focus with this lens?

18-200.jpg

Thanks!!!
 
As the SELP18-200 is a focus-by-wire lens, it doens't make much sense either to use a follow focus.
It's just not possible to repeat distance settings with it. I have the "normal" SEL18-200, which has the
same optical formula - it's okay for run'n gun situations, but I use it rarely as it is not only by-wire but
also too slow to support the S35 look I want.
 
From what i know, it is hard to attach focus ring on it. But although you able to use follow focus on it, it also unable to operate normally. Cause when i try turning the focus with different speed, the focus point is different! Faster turning can end up be focus more far distance in just short turn, turning the focus slowly will be end up turning a lot round to complete from one point to another point.
 
Try using the auto focus. It surprisingly good in some situations. The lens also has face recognition focusing that you might want to try.
 
Yes, I've noticed the autofocus works pretty nicely. Here's my main concern. When I used videocameras I would often put it on AF and then also adjust the focus to "teach" or guide the focus to move with the subject at live events (even when in AF mode you can still adjust the focus manually with pro video cameras) where people are moving to and from the camera. This isn't real shallow stuff. This isn't necessarily precise focus. I just don't want to have it focused on the background as people walk down the aisle at a wedding for example. Again, I can always put it in MF while I zoom back and do it that way, but I just wondered if there's a better way. Face recognition does seem to work well, but I'm just exploring all my options at this point using this lens specifically (because of the nice, smooth power zoom).
 
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