My follow focus arrived today, I got it from Alibaba. It's really nice and a steal for $150. Build quality quite good. And they give you a free lens air brush. The only other FF I've used is Red Rock, and this one compares to it.
So I forgive Vitaliy for forcing me to buy the GH1 eyecup that I hated and didn't work on my Gh2.
I got mine today. My first impressions are that it's OK and will be better in use than the Indifocus, etc.
The plastic parts are molded, not machined. I somehow expected everything to be machined, although it doesn't make much difference really. The blue area you see inside the knob is actually a soft plastic sticker. Not really sure what purpose it serves other than for looks.
A number of the descriptions mentioned "rubber" grip, but this seems to be "hard" rubber, like an LP record is made from, or it could simply be a plastic of some kind. Either way, it's molded and hollow, not solid and machined. Same for the white marking surface. It's a bit slick and my grease pencil doesn't really leave much of a mark on it. A dry erase marker is needed for this surface. Also, since the unit is hollow, any movement, touching, etc, makes that hollow plastic sound, which is a lot louder than you think on a quiet set..
The best part of the whole thing is the gearing. It's very precise. There is NO play in the gears, which are metal. The grease is a little thick and dampens the gears fairly heavily. It's not hard to turn but it's not easy either. The worst thing by far is the reversible gear setup. It's extremely loose and flops around. I had to bend the fingers of the shaft a little bit just to get it to stay inside the outer shaft. Even then, it has a huge amount of play, more so than the Huco gearbox of the Indifocus and it's cheap clones.
The rail mount assembly is very nicely machined and finished. It's not rough at all and the edges are rounded, unlike a number of the cheap-o follow focuses around.
So far, I'm impressed with the unit. It's not as grand as some of the reviews have led me to believe but it's a step ahead of what has been offered in it's price range before. If someone can address the floppiness of the shaft on the reversible gear assembly as well as the hollow noise that it makes, then this would make this the clear winner of all low priced follow focuses.
I have some thin self adhesive teflon so I might try to shim the shaft of the reversible gear to tighten it up. If this succeeds, I'll post the results here.
i have this Followfocus but the rotational direction doesn't fit my needs. Anyone know if it's possible to change this? an example: if i spin the wheel counter-clock-wise the focus point is coming to me, but i want that the focus point is going away from me. hope you understand :)
I have it on a Manfrotto 701HD head and it fits with no problems, tight. If you mount the handles very close to the rig, they might get in the way of some knobs or handles of your tripod, but normal setup should be good for any tripod(head).
That's great ed_lee83! For the rail rod system, I received mine today, first impression is good. You really have to tighten the knobs to have everything sturdy and solid after setting it up, but then it feels quite rugged. I was a bit worried about the clamps but they seem solid. The rig is not built for eternity, no highest quality stuff of course, but also far from being cheap. RJ follow focus fits great.
@chip et al. OK, so I just wrapped some blue tack (at least that's what we call it in UK/Ireland) around the crank to beef it up. Works great since blue track sticks as well. But yeah, so much for standardisation!!
So no standard size and no crank to fit it so far? Maybe they plan on selling their own but it's strange they haven't offered one already or at least tell an option?!
@chip and others I bought that crank I mentioned two posts above me and it *does not fit* - it needs a slightly bigger plug. Now I have no idea which size works because my previous arri/red rock crank was too big..
I ordered from Chinese ebay seller 'selina1900' on 22nd of June and it arrived today - I live in Germany, so that's super fast shipping! Packaging wasn't that good but the FF survived the journey without being harmed and it comes with two gears - so far it looks very good. I also ordered the rail rig, from another seller, but it has yet to come - I doubted that it is of good quality but am happy that you (Rambo) say it feels ok.
Got my FF finally, along with the Rail Rig and 2 gears, all up $250, bargain. Loving the Rail Rig, it allows me to arrange the handles so i can access all the top buttons on the Gh1 and with my left hand finger adjust the focus on my FD 50 1.4. All while still holding the 2 handles. Great stability. Only need the FF for tripod work.
Pics coming.
Yes the FF and Rig are both awesome quality for the $$