Notes:

1. I positioned the chest mount to nestle in the hollow of my left front shoulder, just below the collar bone.

2. I positioned the bottom hand grip so that it can be held in either left or right hand. This allows me to work with either hand free as needed.

3. I positioned the top hand grip for applying downward pressure with my right hand on both the right shoulder mount and the left chest mount. This enables me to rigidly brace the mount for maximum stability.

4. I put the follow focus on the right side of the lens to allow me to quickly switch my right hand between the top hand grip and the follow focus wheel.

5. The TrusMT Follow Focus comes with two identical gears which can mount simultaneously on both ends of the gear shaft. This makes rail positioning much more flexible.

6. The key to follow focus mechanical stability is the custom rail mount on the Nikon->M4/3 adapter. I fashioned this out of a tripod collar mount made for a Canon telephoto lens, with a hard rubber gasket to apply pressure evenly around the circumference of the adapter.

7. The rail-mounted Nikon->M4/3 adapter allows me to independently swap out both lenses and camera bodies without disassembling the shoulder mount. The camera is attached to the rig solely via the M4/3 lens mount.

8. The Tokina auto-focus zoom features a constant f2.8 aperture and a manual focus ring suitable for attaching a follow focus gear ring. The front lens barrel neither rotates nor extends when zooming or focusing, making it convenient to use with a separate lens hood.

9. The 16X9 wide angle adapter converts the Tokina 20-35mm into a 14-24mm f2.8 zoom lens. This wide angle adapter is heavier than the lens itself, but its image quality is well worth it.

10. The rail-mounted lens hood and its three flags can be easily adjusted or removed along with the front rail extensions.

11. Without the camera, lens, and counterweight, the rig weighs only 3kg.

Be interesting to compare the Tokina 20 - 35mm to my Canon FD 20 - 35 f3.5L. They are similar construction.

I prefer this handles:


http://cgi.ebay.com/Unviersal-Handle-Grip-Support-DSLR-5D2-60D-7D-GH1-GH2-/320723754362

I have ones with separate clamps.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev
I've been eyeballing those handles for a long time, they seem to be the best out there. Generally that company seems to make high quality stuff like their shoulder mount, v mount powering plate, FF, mattebox. Very good designs. I wish they had better kit bundles though. When my pockets have more cash in them I want to get these handles, their shoulder mount and mattebox, but that won't be anytime soon:)

@stefanos
I'll make review with time and also provide all info to similar designed handes.
About bundles. Normally guys you are dealing with are sellers that ask factories to put their brand (sometimes).
Sometimes they make custom producs that uses many standard parts.

Imagine holding a virtual rig with front handles. The angle of elbows would be no greater than 90 degree and no less than 45 degree. Draw a mid point between hands and shoulders. That's the comfort zone to position center of weight of a rig. The further away the center of weight, the lower the hands with the same angle. To keep the center of weight closer to my body, gotta keep the camera body close to my body. Either EVF eyecup or HDMI EVF can help that. For a fully equipped rig w/ matte box, FF, big lens, and wide angle converter, definitely high quality front handle like the universal grip will help a lot.

Make your own EVF eyecup... unless you have stash of cash for HDMI EVF. I need to save money for GH3 :)

@bslsmth
If you mean the Lumix 20mm f1.7 pancake, it's not going to work well with any follow focus unit. In addition to being too thin for the FF gears, the pancake's focus ring is a fly-by-wire design that is not mechanically coupled to the lens' internal focus mechanism. As a result, the position of the focus ring bears no stable relationship to the lens' focus setting and cannot be calibrated to a follow focus unit.

OT, but how's that 701 head working out for you?

I recently updated my Follow Focus rig with two new components:

TrusMT DSLR viewfinder (Aluminum):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trusmt-Dslr-LCD-Viewfinder-AL-/280722708651?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415c6098ab

Carbon Fiber version:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trusmt-Dslr-LCD-Viewfinder-carbon-fibre-/270799891209?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0cee6b09

TrusMT Shoulder Pad
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trusmt-4-holes-lock-DSLR-shoulder-pad-kit-/280724012351?pt=US_Camera_Camcorder_Accessory_Bundles&hash=item415c747d3f

The shoulder pad position can be adjusted along the rails to fit your shoulder. I also revised the lower grip mount to center it under the camera lens and added a small rail mount under the camera itself. This mount is not needed to support the camera's weight, it's there to brace the camera against the sloppy fit of the lens adapter.

The TrusMT DSLR viewfinder comes with a bottom mounting plate and an offset bracket that was not designed for the GH1 or GH2. To center the unit on the camera's LCD, I had to shift the offset bracket on the bottom plate, mounting it with just a single screw. The assembled unit is completely rigid, however, and holds the viewfinder firmly against the LCD. I was also motivated to hack off the protruding front and side of the mounting plate, to provide battery access and clearance for mounting the camera on a tripod-mounted lens adapter.

Pictured in the photos below is a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 HSM non-DG zoom lens in Nikon version, mounted on its own tripod collar. (I chose this particular version for its manual aperture ring.) While this is about as long a lens as I'd use on this rig, total weight is still only 5kg (11 lbs).

The focus ring on the Sigma is too far forward to use with the follow focus, and it rotates in the wrong direction anyway. I've instead mounted the follow focus gear on the lens zoom ring, which works quite well. Using this rig, I've discovered that adding a bit of zoom to a panning shot creates a more natural-looking move than either technique alone. In addition, the adjustable stops on the TrusMT follow focus allow me to preset the exact zoom range I want to use in the shot.

nice! I see we also have the same lens. Sorry if I'm butting in but here's my rig which also weighs about 6kg:

Love this configuration!
Paid 65 dollars for the shoulder mount and X-grip (2nd hand)
Lens is a 24mm 2.8 ML Yashica/Contax/Pentax PK plus the hot LA7200.

Takes forever to set it up. And it weighs a ton, with a full load (morn, 12v bat, follow focus et al) LOL. Tried on a few, and my take is, if you lug this carcass with you on set, you're better off going back to big HD cameras. The reason why I came over to DSLR is because things are supposed to be alot lighter!