http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wireless-Follow-Focus-Lens-Shutter-Control-SYSTEM-/170962747064

All seller items

http://www.ebay.com/sch/hcmpromotion23/m.html?item=170963683709&pt=Camera_Camcorder_Remotes

I ran into a problem. I marked the furthest and nearest focus points on the Fotga's white wheel. That way, I could focus based on the distance on the wheel marks. However, I tried racking the focus back and forth a bit, to get a feel for the thing... and the settings drifted. I'd rack the focus to the mark for the back of the stage... and it wasn't in focus. Same thing for the nearest point. I'd recalibrate, but the points would drift again.

Now, there's a bit of play with the Fotga follow-focus-- and I was using a small 12mm lever that added a little more play-- but I'm wondering if there's some issue with the lens or camera settings that may have contributed.

(One thing I did learn: as you rack focus during shooting, the GH2 displays a line on the screen, i.e., mountains versus flowers. I wound up making an estimate of focus based on the indicator on that point. Seems to me that I could apply cellophane tape to the screen, mark the points on that, and use the screen's focus indicator as my follow-focus marker.)

I thought the videos were good in the past. However, the lack of image stabilization, accurate Continuous Auto Focus, and a good wide aperture zoom lens were always mentioned as limitations with my videos.

Finally with the GH3 I think we are over that hurdle. The video below was shot entirely hand held(No tripod or monopod at all) by 1 person in continuous Auto Focus mode with the 35-100mm F2.8 lens. I also only used one battery and still had some juice left after more than 4 hours of filming.

I would say that the focus was spot on for pretty much every clip. Even the focus pull at the beginning from the guy’s Ipad to his son climbing worked perfectly. That was a one take shot. If I didn’t get it right I couldn’t ask the guy and the climber to go back and do it again.

I simply slid my finger from the Ipad to the climber on the camera’s LCD screen. I think it gave the video a very nice effect.

I had other lenses with me like the 25mm F1.4 and the 14mm F2.5. However, I never felt like I needed them. At F2.8 I was almost never above ISO 3200 even with the darker lighting they used for this round.

I think the IS was terrific in the 35-100mm lens as well. Yes I would rather have had the OMD’s 5 axis stabilization. However, I think this is the next best thing. Try holding a camera up for 4 hours straight with a 200mm 35mm equivalent focal length and see how shaky it is without good IS. I also like to take images while I record video and instantly upload them to the web so that spectators can follow along with the action with real-time pictures. With the GH3 I put it in the real time wireless upload mode and shot at 1080p @ 60 FPS in the stills mode. That way I could take stills during video and instantly upload them.

The only issue I had with that is that every time you press the shutter button to take a still it will initiate a focus adjustment. That actually made the focus go off more times than not. After noticing this I just decided to save images directly from the videos in playback mode(Press pause during video playback and then save an image). The camera will upload those images in real time as well.

I have tested the quality of images recorded during video recording and images saved during playback and they are indistinguishable in my opinion.

I also mount my GoPro 3 Black on top of the GH3 and shoot simultaneous wide angle 720p @ 120 FPS video. However, I scrapped all of the GoPro footage because it simply was not up to the caliber of the GH3 video. It is great for super slow motion but the 120 FPS mode indoors produces so much noise that it would not mesh well with the excellent video from the GH3.

I also was impressed with how well the youtube encoding turned out. I normally post to Vimeo as well because it is better for compression. However, in this case I thought the 1080p youtube encode looked great.

I didn’t alter the video at all. I did not do any color grading or post processing on it. I shot in scenery mode with -2 Contrast, +2 sharpness, Zero Color, and -5 Noise Reduction and simply pieced the videos together with a cheap($50) program called AVS Video Editor.

It was really nice to be able to produce the video with the footage as it was shot in camera and still get what I thought was a decent result.

There were plenty of other professional film crews there with much more sophisticated equipment. The little 11 year old girl in the last clip is probably the 2nd best female climber in the country(At 12 years old) and she has a film crew that follows her around everywhere she goes. I wonder how much better their footage looks?

So what do you think? Is the GH3 finally the camera that would make you put down the traditional video camera if you shoot both stills and video?

The rings i ordered works OK on Voigtländer 25mm ...

User reviews say "no slip & very easy to install and use"

http://www.adorama.com/ENFSHIFT.html

The item on ebay: http://www.ebay.ie/itm/261149828054

The price is: $299 USD, but you can try "Make offer" ...

Review: http://www.josephhorvath.com/blog/2012/03/gini-follow-focus/

Price: 220 euro + (25 euro postage) Ships from Sweden

The follow focus should also work with the Pana 7-14 and 14-42, Nikkor: 24 2,8; 35 2.0; 85 2.0; 180 2,8. I guess, with all these lenses there will be no problem - hopefully.

rod

Looks quite ok. Seems to be all metal with custom gearbox.
Includes lens gears.

Price: $91, includes shipping

http://www.aliexpress.com/fm-store/811281/211538640-569852250/D-B-black-and-red-DSLR-Follow-focus-for-15mm-rod-support-Universal-DSLR-RIG.html

I am selling this VERY VERY RARE great lens in excellent condition!

I am from Hungary, Europe.

I can receive money via Paypal.

Price: 799 USD + 29 USD shipping cost worldwide (as priority and registered mail with tracking code)

Worths to take a look about this rare lens:

http://camerajunky.wordpress.com/tag/carl-zeiss-jena-pancolar-80mm-f1-8/

If anybody is interested, please PM me! ;)

Have a nice weekend for everybody on this forum! ;)

But whenever the environment is not under control, a well-working continous auto focus can be really, really helpful.

Yet all the recent implementations of continous auto focus in cameras using contrast based focusing suck - they just don't work good enough to be useful. They are either to slow or do too much visible "focus hunting".

I understand that any focusing based on contrast only will require some sort of "hunting", because the direction in which to adjust the focus plane cannot be predicted based on contrast only.

But continous focusing is relevant mostly for video (not for still images), and the resolution of the sensors is usually much much higher than the resolution of the recorded video. So it seems like a very obvious idea to adjust the focus plane only by the smallest possible amount (according to the step motor of the lens), one step back, two steps forward, one step back, and if properly sized, these steps are small enough that the change of the focus plane is not perceivable in the (relatively low) resolution of the recorded video, while it is still big enough to yield a significantly different average contrast in the (relatively high) resolution of the sensor.

I am pretty convinced that my old Sanyo hybrid camera did precisely that: With just one sensor chip and no phase detection, it could only base focusing on contrast. While shooting video, you could hear a very faint noise that was indicating the lens was focusing back and forth just a little - not as much as to be visible in its 720p output file.

Now I wonder: Why don't they just implement this simple method in current cameras? Why do they follow this primitive approach of "accepting some variation in contrast without moving the focus plane at all, then suddenly hunt focus from scratch"?

1) Sankor Compact Anamorphic - A 2x lens, focus scale marked 5' to Infinity with about 270 degree rotation. Glass is pristine, body is in great shape minus a scratch in the paint, mechanics seem in good order, though there is a small bump when you first start rotating the focus ring, like a hiccup... pretty small, but still there, could just be a loose screw or something. Will likely need a clamp to mount, unless you feel like drilling holes through the overhang of the lens barrel. Asking $199 + shipping.

2) Delft (Delrama) Vistascope - A 1.5X focus through comprised of a pair of mirrored prisms. They were tarnished, so I just had them sent off and re-silvered, should now be a factory fresh image. This is the rarer and easier to work with 16mm version (Marked "16mm f=600cm"). Body is in decent shape for a lens of it's age, there's definitely some paint wear and scratches. Glass is clean and clear. Comes with a series VI to 49mm step up ring as well as a 49-52mm step up ring. Only one caveat, at the moment I can't find the four screws to reassemble the body. Shouldn't be hard taking it to any hardware or camera repair shop to find the match, but I probably won't get to it for awhile, so I'm dropping the price $50 to compensate. Asking $199 + shipping.

Included parts:

mattebox (the professional version of Wondlan´s matteboxes) --- follow focus + whip --- sholder pad --- baseplate --- hd monitor (type c) with resulution 1042x600 --- magic handgrip --- upper handle --- aluminum box --- power supply system --- front handles ---

The price here in Europe (including customs and taxes) is about 2000€ for this set. You can google it and convince yourself.

The reason for the sell is a malfunction of the front handles. They are not very stable, meaning you can´t tighten the screws as much as necessary. But this shouldn´t be a big problem, as you can replace them with other handles from the same or a different manufacturer. The rest of the Rig works fine and is absolutely sturdy!

Price: 640€

Best regards, Daniel

Just for fun to play with my new wide lens. No special grading.

Camera : Panasonic GH2 AVC-Intra (Driftwood VY Canis Majoris Day PM) Lens : Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX AF 11-16mm f2.8 Gear : Sachtler FSB-4 75 CF, Gini Rig Follow Focus, Lilliput field monitor Tools: FCPX

Locations: Paimpont forest, sometimes said to be the Arthurian Brocéliande, is in the French commune of Paimpont, near the city of Rennes in Brittany. As Brocéliande it had a reputation in the Medieval imagination as a place of magic and mystery. It is the setting of a number of adventures in Arthurian legend, notably Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, and locals[citation needed] claim the tree in which the Lady of the Lake supposedly imprisoned Merlin can still be seen today.

Mont Saint-Michel (Saint Michael's Mount) is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre (just over half a mile) off the country's north-western coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. The population of the island is 41, as of 2006. The Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

Thanks!

I am selling this great new monitor with battery and all the accessories!

You can easily pull focus with this monitor, and have HDMI input also!

I am from Hungary, Europe.

I can receive money via Paypal.

If anybody is interested, please PM me!

im selling some parts of my equipment on german ebay. Maybe someone is interested in a Hocus Focus Remote.

Check it out: http://www.ebay.de/itm/261070184677?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1413

Cheers, flatlinepirat

UK seller: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Follow-Focus-Finder-F3-15mm-Rod-Support-for-DSLR-Camera-Canon-60D-600D-5D2-7D-/261032103551?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3cc6b9ce7f

Got this today. As you can see its on the cheap (i took it from the UK seller to avoid customs/taxes for the total of 150 eur). I havent really tried any other follow focus systems, but the build quality for this one seems really solid.

Other gear I am selling: - Sekonic L758Cine lightmeter - Swit S2000 LED videolight with Anton Bauer Powertap

Get in touch with me about pricing.

I see my GH2 with a pancake lens, shooting away while sitting discreetly on a sock-full of rice, or attached to my belt. I've starting to read the manual and find I'm missing out on a lot of what the GH2 can do, automatically, to free me up to work faster and better - not to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but to become a more modern videographer.

So, within reason, I'd like to hear from fellow users like me.

[Edit] The stinger, "You don't buy a dog and then go around barking, chasing cars and pissing on trees" is an Australian variation on, You do not get a dog and bark yourself.

We also offer regularly Cinematics USB follow focus that is identical to Okii.