Support rods from adapter base
 

Hello all,

I was looking at some photos of the adapter and began wondering exactly how the support rods mount. I can see they extend from the rear of the base, but can they extend from the front too? If so, would you have to have another set of rods for the front? It looks like the camera itsself rests on the rods extending to the rear.

I am really wondering about mounting a matte box on 15mm rods from the adapter. It is possible or would I need another support plate? Most of the photos are with these big Cooke Primes and stuff mounted on Arri (I think) plates. I would be using Nikkor Primes.

Sorry for the long post... Thanks for any help.

-Matt

Matt,

If you take a look at the photo of the Min35 on our front page you'll see a striped down version of the unit.

The basic answer to your question is that the unit comes with integrated slots for 15mm rods, along with a set of rods at inital purchase i.e. we do provide you a set of rods but any length 15mm rods can be utilised. The nice thing about the rods that come with the unit is that they slide back into the unit support rods for easy storage.

The integrated 15mm rods are set to the same film standard as all LWS systems so any standard film accesory will work just as if it was a 16mm or 35mm camera. That being said there are some additional tweaks that need to be done if Nikons will be used e.g. you will have to purchase gear rings for the lenses so they will integrate properly with a follow focus and you might have to create your own neoprene or styrofoam light rings if the particular lens doesn't meet up with any of the standard mattebox step rings.

Mizell

Thanks Mizell. Helpful as always. Answers all my questions. I couldn't tell that the Rods slid into the camera support rods. It's all so much clearer now! Thanks!

-Matt

While we are on the subject, what sort of focus gear rings work with studio follow focus units? Will gears for underwater housings work (if it is made for the specific lens)? If not, could you point me towards some that will work? From the threads I have read, I may not be the only one wondering about this.

Thanks again!

-Matt

Matt -- sorry this is a bit off-topic, BUT -- it looks like you just made the 100,000th post here at DV Info Net. Send me your mailing address... I've got some shwag for ya! Congrats, and many thanks for number 100K.

Hurray!!!

Congrats to Matt and super congrats to Chris for such a wonderful site!!!!!!!!

Drinks for everyone....on Chris...just have your bartender send him the tab ;)

mizell

Matt:

OK, you ready?

The standard gear pitch is .80M, which is most PL mount lenses (Zeiss, Cooke, Angeniuex etc). Modern lenses use this same gearing for focus, iris and (where applicable) zoom, but you will occasionally see a smaller pitch for iris. The Panavision standard is 32 pitch for focus (which is essentially interchangeable with the metric measurement of .80M), 48 pitch for zoom and 64 pitch for iris.

Video lenses use a metric system also: Canons use a .50M, while Fujinons use a .60M for focus and zoom and a .40M for iris.

What this means realistically is that if you want to be covered for a follow focus, a 32 pitch gear will work for just about any cine lens, and you would also need a .50M gear to use with the manual lenses for the XL1, for instance.

Gears made for underwater housings will have the same pitch etc. as follow focus gears, but they may not mount the same.

Thanks Charles.

It seems like it would make everybody's life a little easier if there was just one standard gear pitch. Guess we should just be thankful there are geared lenses at all. How would all those "Vertigo" zoom/focus shots look without them? Not good, I'll bet.

Thanks!

-Matt

Probably worth mentioning that you may come across some older prime lenses that don't have gear racks on them, Matt...beware! They can be retrofitted, and any good rental house will have done so, but it's something to keep an eye on if you find them on eBay or whatever.