FS7: zoom control for 18-110

L

LennyLevy

Veteran
I was frustrated by how jumpy the Zoom rocker is for the sony 18-110 when using on event presentations where you need to be live all the time, and finally called my friend Charlie Pickel at Serious Gear Company in Seattle. He's a broker for used cinema equipment and lenses and he set me up with an old film style J4 motor and Microforce controller that i can run off a D-Tap.

Wow what a difference! I can do smooth as butter moves now. Its an absolute pleasure to operate.

The set up is a little tricky because you need to add a standard 0.8 32 pitch gear to the zoom ring on the 18-110. I had an adjustable one from "shoot 35" that just fit the lens, but when I first tried mounting the motor to my 15mm rails with the adapter Charlie gave me, the motor was so long that it hit the camera body and couldn't get close enough to the lens to engage. (The more commonly used and somewhat more expensive "Heden " motors are supposed to be smaller but I don't know if they'd fit better.) So I turned the motor around, having the long end stick out in front of the lens. This just managed to engaged the zoom and just barely avoided being seen at 18mm but it was in the way of any kind of matte box or the standard lens shade. Nevertheless it was a proof of concept and works great.

Sean at Follow Focus Gears is now about to borrow a friends 18-110 lens to make up an extra wide gear (OD 120mm) so that it will allow me to turn the motor back towards the camera again but engage the gear. Once he does that he can just knock it out on a 3D printer for less than $50. I'll post pics when I finally get the rig properly set up.

I highly recommend this if you want a zoom controller that to me is even better than a traditional B4 2/3" Fuji type. Most of the parts I think these days are used so you need to hunt around yourself or go to someone like Charlie. I recommend the latter as he was able to fine tune my J4 motor and give me all the proper gear to power safely from a DTap . Because its all used gear also the price will vary with availability of parts. Generally it should cost in the $1500-$2000 range. Not cheap and frankly I don't know if I can convince clients to pay for it but it makes a world of difference to what they'll be getting.

http://www.seriousgear.com

https://followfocusgears.com

Lenny
 
Yes, I still have an old Microforce / Heden set that comes out on occasion, along with an adapter to power it from a 4 pin XLR. Probably bought it 25 years ago, and it still works when needed.

One thing to remember when making/using a larger diameter gear to mount on the motor is that it will have more teeth - and that means that you will be zooming faster for the same motor speed -- so make sure the motor is smooth when turning very slowly.
 
One thing to remember when making/using a larger diameter gear to mount on the motor is that it will have more teeth - and that means that you will be zooming faster for the same motor speed -- so make sure the motor is smooth when turning very slowly.

Wouldn't it be the other way around - zooming slower for the same motor speed?
 
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If anyone is looking for a cheaper quick solution for zoom control on the 18-110 I found the following to be quite useful. Not as nice as a good B4 zoom rocker but way easier and smoother to use than the 18-110 rocker. They are no longer manufactured but pop up on eBay quite frequently. It's the BeBob Engineering ZOE-DVL, a LANC controller. It appears that two versions of this were made. Both have speed adjustment control dials. The earlier ones didn't have a travel limit pin on the dial inside the casing. With the earlier unit I find I can achieve a very smooth zoom within speeds ranging from just on two seconds to ninety seconds from wide to tight. The later versions came out with a limiter pin embedded in the adjuster dial and deliver a speed range from two to thirty seconds. I've used both of them quite successfully on stage shows without any real dramas. I ignore all the unnecessary functions they come with and just use the rocker and record stop start. Bebob in Germany were able to supply replacement speed adjuster dials as one of the units I picked up had a broken dial. A lovely lady over at Bebob said "No problems Chris I will send you one no charge." In fact she sent me three of them no charge. A pleasant surprise these days to get that sort of service especially on out of production equipment.

Chris Young

PDF details here:

http://www.marcotec.ro/media/00000007357.pdf

Bebob ZOE-DVL.jpg
 
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LennyLevy said:
One thing to remember when making/using a larger diameter gear to mount on the motor is that it will have more teeth - and that means that you will be zooming faster for the same motor speed -- so make sure the motor is smooth when turning very slowly.

Wouldn't it be the other way around - zooming slower for the same motor speed?
Click to expand...

No. A motor gear with 5 teeth will advance the zoom ring 5 teeth per motor revolution. But a larger gear with 50 teeth will advance the zoom ring 50 teeth per motor revolution.
 
Ah... I guess I wasn't entirely clear. Sean at FFG is making a gear for the lens that will have a larger OD than he usually makes. I thought about putting a larger gear on the motor instead but was concerned about changing the torque. That's the plan for now anyway. When I get the gear I'll evaluate how well it works.
 
LennyLevy said:
So to connect this do you have to disconnect the regular FS7 handgrip and plug-in this instead ?
Click to expand...

Yes that's one way you could use it. I run a Manfrotto Remote Control Splitter Box Lanc - 521SB which is double-sided taped to the back of the camera handle below the rear shoe mount. I also uses a Vecro wrap around to hold the unit and cable tight when the remote cable is plugged into it. This unit remains on the camera the whole time with the short curly cable that comes with it plugged into the camera. The 521SB comes with two input and one output ports. This way I can leave the original handle and zoom rocker plugged into one port and plug in the BeBob remote to the second port when using the tripod. A colleague of mine has removed the original Sony grip and is using straight 15mm rod handles and is using the BeBob on the right handle. If you are going to use it this way the space between the two posts on the Bebob controller is just on 35mm.

Chris Young

Manfrotto LANC splitter.jpg
 
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