It's here...

Whoa! I just got an idea. Buy two and mount them to each side and voila - a dual sided follow focus for 1800.00. And it still may end up lighter then anyone elses with no center bracket. Denis, can you show us if this can be done. It would look mad cool.
 
I tried this with two SG follow focus's. It mostly worked but the tightening block on the gear ring fouled up against one of the follow focus gears when you turned the lens. Of course the cinevate ring may work differntly, but its likely to have part of the gear ring that has no teeth, and this will cause problems if you are using two follow focus's at once....
 
Actually Tim, we've demo'd the dual FF setups. It does look pretty cool..and works the charm. Our FF ring is fully geared so there are no issues there. I link we've shown in this clip that you can safely use them as handles too :-)

Hoarp, respectfully, this is a thread that I've posted to present our FF design ...I'd appreciate it if you started another thread to discuss your work.
 
I said it over at cinevate but I'll say it again here. What impresses me about this test video isn't the non-slip monorail clamp, it's the fact that the stem from which the FF knob is attached is strong enough to support that entire rig without bending/snapping.

This is common problem with the sub 1k followfocus units from what i've experienced and from what other users have experienced. And I guarantee you that none of us were spinning our rigs around by the FF knob.

And lifetime warranty! That evens out that one plus that zacuto always has on everyone else.
 
Mike, it's true..the internal assembly is heavily over-engineered to guarantee that 5 years from now it performs just as well as when new. This is one of the major benefits of designing and manufacturing every single piece ourselves. The crew doing the assembly are intimately aware of our expectations, and aside from the apprentices, they're all trade machinists, including the engineer doing our 3D CAD work.
 
Dennis, just out of curiosity. Your ff is meant to work at a certain level. If I were to order (and I am not saying your product is bad at all, I havent seen it, and I do believe you would deliver a quality product), but lets say it doesnt meet my expectation. Can I return immediately for a full refund? I am not trying to dog you here in any way shape or form, hell Id like to wander in a shop and test it before buying, but I cant. What say ye?
 
Noel, we only do this by prior arrangement. In other words, if you discuss it with us before ordering. We've had problems in the past with folks "renting" the adapter and returing it beat up for a refund. Typically we charge 4 to 5 percent in terms of restocking fees which cover our costs in and outbound.

One of the reasons we built a studio and shoot so many videos is specifically so folks go in eyes wide open. In terms of the FF, even are beta units (which we'd consider rejects) are getting some high praise: http://cinevate.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4

Cheers,
Dennis.
 
Dennis,

I've asked this before but never heard from you, how feasible would an "open jaw" clamp be? it would make switching sides very convenient. I've seen open jaws on Arri and Zacuto equipment and this feature when designed right gets a mighty grip.

Other than that, I think the simplicity of your FF is a work of art. Also, should over time some play between the gears occur from wear and tear, can they be replaced or adjusted?

I know your an adaptor maker at heart but if this FF eventually comes in 19mm with perhaps a few pro features, you could make huge waves in the RED market. As a new RED owner, I'm always on the hunt for anything that works well but is smaller and lighter.
 
I went to the socal brevis meeting where we got to play with it. Even compared it to a arri follow focus which is three times more expensive. In all seriousness the differences between the two were small. Seriously well built.
 
Tim Naylor said:
Dennis,

I've asked this before but never heard from you, how feasible would an "open jaw" clamp be? it would make switching sides very convenient. I've seen open jaws on Arri and Zacuto equipment and this feature when designed right gets a mighty grip.

Other than that, I think the simplicity of your FF is a work of art. Also, should over time some play between the gears occur from wear and tear, can they be replaced or adjusted?

I know your an adaptor maker at heart but if this FF eventually comes in 19mm with perhaps a few pro features, you could make huge waves in the RED market. As a new RED owner, I'm always on the hunt for anything that works well but is smaller and lighter.
Click to expand...

You'll note that the ARRI and Zacuto open jaw is usually used on other pieces not the follow focuses. Zacuto's is a clamp mechanism on the z-focus system. The open jaw can only be used in the down position by the way, it really would lead to a lot more play in the system. Open jaw clamps are hard to keep in good solid condition.

I'd guess the gears can be replaced. I think there's a built in adjustment system. Cinevate has great support, so you'd be able to change out the gear box probably by sending it back to them for servicing and repair.

What pro features do you have in mind? You can already use this follow focus with 19mm using pieces like the Jeep from Zacuto. There's some other adapters out there and I wouldn't doubt that a 19mm clamp mount is in the works.
 
Tim, in order to see measurable wear, you'd need to connect a motor to this, under load, and run it for a very long time. To put it into perspective, the final drive in a car uses a similar system..and although our gear box isn't bathed in hypoid oil, the heat/load/rpm requirements of an FF are a tiny fraction of a car's load. Properly designed and lubricated these types of parts almost never fail, and even after 200 000 kms they're still fine. Used daily on shoots, it would be impossible for me to imagine measurable wear on the FF gear set showing up even after several decades. If there was ever an issue (like dropping a heavy rig down a flight of stairs and bending input/output shafts), the transmissions are swappable, and this is exactly how that issue would be dealt with.

Although a few would likely nod off to sleep on these tech details, we've quietly tweaked the internals even further by what I would call monolithic manufacturing. This has reduced the internal part count, increase accuracy again, and made assembly much more efficient. We're pretty much on schedule with the first order fulfillments, which should start heading out late next week. For those that have been patiently standing by for 3 weeks...thanks for your patience :-)

Our current hand grips are open jawed, and in physical analysis, we can exceed their clamping force with a closed design by a factor of at least 10. The current Proteus hand grips are wonderfully flexible, and they work great...but you need a key to tighten them sufficiently under heavy loads. With a closed design, we can increase clamping force while reducing the tension required on the adjuster. One of the reasons we patented the FF design is because a great deal of design work went into that one very important point. The single FF mount design would have been dropped entirely had we not been able to refine it to the point it is today. So on one side you loose the ability to just open-clamp on, and on the other you get a ton more stability ... but you need the slide the part on.

But whose to say you need to limit yourself to a set of rods under the camera? Our FF banner ad mentions upside down mounting..and we've got a new product launch next week. Those are two big clues as to what we've come up with :-)
 
This all sounds great. Love to see the 19mm adaptor or mount. Bought a RED recently.

When will you have closed clamp super grip proteus ready?
 
Give us 2 weeks or so. The first run of FF units is just about to head out, and we'll be incorporating the 19mm production next.
 
Part 1 of the Durus follow focus overview is up: http://www.cinevate.com/website/index.php/videouniversity/

An iPhone (H264@640x360) friendly encode is now a standard for us, in addition to the Flash web streaming version, so folks on the run can download the clip. Chris had a bit of fun with the editing. Enjoy :-)

A few weeks later than we hoped, the first of the units headed out today. Our apologies to those who waited so patiently, but rest assured you got the units at the reduced introductory pricing to help make the wait a bit more tolerable.

Cheers,
Dennis.
 
Want anymore what? I don't know what you mean.

edit: that was just a lie response to test my new sig.
 
The design engineer actually watched/listened/read every existing follow focus review we had identified before our first meeting on this design project. I"m sure we'll find ways to improve it yet (we always find ways to improve things) but it's safe to say the design parameters were based on a pretty wide base of customer wants and needs in the FF department :-)

Certainly, the decision to obtain a design patent was based on the effort we put into it.
 
Aram, no. We're about 2 weeks behind where we wanted to be so are concentrating on getting all the current orders fulfilled. We just started shipping the 15mm versions on Monday. The 19mm versions are in the pipe though so we should see these in early to mid January. The mounts are interchangeable meaning any of the 15mm versions can be converted to a 19mm version with a simple part swap, about 3 minutes.
 
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