Geared Follow Focus
Description
here a geared one.
Swapping the lens is not as easy as it is with the gearless one and you need a lens-gear for every lens but you also need no pressure to create friction.
The follow focus and lens gear are compatible with industry standard 0.8 pitch follow focus equipment.
The axis use 608 bearings to reduce any noise of threaded rods on plastic that could be picked up by the microphone and to make this run as smooth as possible.
The mounting is for an industry standard 15mm rail support system such as
my 3d printed shoulder rig:
thingiverse.com/thing:7278
With a follow focus you have precise, manual control over the focus (or zoom) of your lens.
It is used for professional filming where precise control of the focus is required and where a pumping autofocus would simply ruin the take.
Commercial versions are sadly terribly expensive. :(
Photos:
picasaweb.google.com/Marcus.Wolschon/201105_201106_geared_follow_focus?feat=directlin
Blog post:
marcuswolschon.blogspot.com/2011/06/3d-printed-geared-follow-focus.html
Video (Part I)
youtube.com/watch?v=imy2UaUzNeY
Update: (2011-07-17)
Added lens_gear_version3 with a wider tap for the bolt.
Instructions
* Use the hand-wheel from litwan, it works better then mine. :)
* fit the gears with the bearings. Do not fit the bearings first then then try to insert the gears. It will not work and can be quite hard to remove the bearings to try again.
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This looks great, I've been toying around with DIY follow focus solutions, but this looks to take the cake!
I have a question -- is there any possibility you can add in a marker ring behind the dial to mark focus points? And along those lines, is there any chance of seeing this design with a couple of adjustable hard-stops? I don't know how complicated that would be, but it would be fantastic.
Goin
g to go ahead and try this out as-is at the moment!
You can cut a paper marker-ring for the handle-wheel. No problem.
I tried a marker-neede and it was not stable enough.
Didn't try hard stops.
Feel free to design hard stops yourself. You have the original, parametric CAD files to do so and the XPress edition of Alibre is free.
hey i can't seem to get the repariert file to open. just comes up blank :(
Marcus, your designs are often so interesting that it makes me want to get into photography! Seriously, seeing what I can do with my printer, and some steel rods inspires me to go beyond simply using my tripod.
I suggest aluminum instead of steel. ;)
Thank you!
Feedback like this is what keeps me going. :)
(In a few minutes I'll upload a new video tutorial to http://www.youtube.com/user/Ma... about redoing the wiring inside a chinese $24 microphone to get some really usable sound.)
License
More from MarcusWolschon
Does there happen to be a hardware list somewhere for this?
When I posted this, there was a BOM of all parts needed but aparently Makerbot Industries removed the entire BOM-feature from Thingiverse, when they did the new UI.