Affordable Follow Focus
 

I have stumbled on this guy's blog that uses an affordable follow focus for MK2, here's the link Kohan Photography: Canon 5D Mark II and Follow Focus.

The link where he bought it from DV CITY

Just want to share

Since none of the DV CITY equipment mentioned on their site included the 5D2, how did he know what to order?

(I added the question above to his blog).

a follow focus like that is not specific to any camera or lens since it comes with lens gears for a wide range of lens sizes. i would make sure the diameter of your lens is supported by one of the gears, but otherwise there a follow focus is a follow focus (in this case its a cheap knock off follow focus, but it works with pretty much any camera)

if you search ebay, though, the same equipment is sold in kits for the 5dmark2 by cinecity/dvaccessory (which i believe is just another name for the same indian vendor as dvcity)

I did a pretty extensive search of rental stores in LA, and none could put together a rig for me. There were many different fitting problems.

My only option was buying RedRock, although one guy offered to loan me a beta unit of the redrock, I didn't want to owe him any favors.

I haven't checked ebay yet.

I'm curious about this... I have a 1/2ass follow focus that isn't stiff enough to mark the disk. If anyone knows if this one works better, I'd be inclined to give it a shot.

I looked at cinecity on EBAYand it did seem like the same Indian outfit. They had no focus followers and had no mention of the 5D2.

Cine follow focus sunshade kit for D90 canon 5d mark II - eBay (item 350169218090 end time Feb-27-09 19:43:03 PST)

these are always on ebay and at least give you some assurance that this one would work with the 5d mark ii. It is a knock off based on redrock's followfocus so i imagine redrock's should work too. what were the fitting problems you had with other followfocus units? seems like it should be awfully simple to get it any follow focus to work with any camera/lens. the fit can certainly be a little tight with my rod system when using a lens that isnt very long, but it should work fine with the rod system in that ebay auction.

Main problem with renting was shimming it up high enough, fitting the end of the lens, etc.

Looks interesting. I'll have to compare it to the one in the blog and see if they are similar. I'll need to re-read the blog and see how he felt about it. At this price, why rent?

I recently bought the SGPro follow focus, rods, and 3 gears... with shipping the total price was $620.00 US dollars. Overall it's a very nice setup that I'm very pleased with. I've owned rods from RedRock and Letus in the past... these rods are lighter weight and higher quality IMO than either the RedRock or Letus ones, and cost less than half the price. This is the first follow focus unit I've owned, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I have no complaints about the unit, and again, it's about half the price of the RedRock unit. Another nice touch was that it came with a free hard carrying case for the rods and follow focus. My only complaints would be that the UPS guy charged me $40 when he delivered it to me... the item comes from Europe so I guess it was a customs charge? Also, you can manually adjust the stiffness level of the follow focus... it's very easy to do once you figure it out, but the directions that it comes with were a bit misleading and caused me some headaches early on.

So you were able to customize your purchase parts, leave out the sunshades, and still be confident it was all going to work on the 5D2? I had assumed you had to buy the "5d2 kit" to get everything to fit.

How do you hold filters? I already have a Cokin system. It would help if that could still work. Usually the bellows hold the filters at the back.

SGPro doesn't sell specific 5d2 kits to my knowledge... this was just their standard rods and standard follow focus units... both work perfectly on the 5d2 without any type of upgrade or major adjustments. It probably took me less than 10 minutes to set everything up the first time, so it was all pretty simple. As for filters I'm just using the screw on kinds.

plate and rails
 

I was wondering how this attaches to a tripod? I have a bogen 3066 head will this system work on it?


thanks Shawn

The EBAY title was "Cine follow focus sunshade kit for D90 canon 5d mark II". I assumed they had picked out the parts that fit a DSLR.

I just now noticed you got them from SGPRO. I went to their website, looks nice. Are they related to the Indian outfit we have been talking about.

No this is a totally different company. They are based out of England I believe. I haven't used the Cine stuff, but I would assume this stuff is much higher quality. Like I said, the rods are much better than the RedRock or Letus rods I've owned in the past, and the follow focus I've heard from others is as good or better than the RedRock as well. I can take a picture of my setup with this if you'd like?

It's easy for me to ask you for a picture. If it tells a better story than the website, then yes, I'd love a picture. Can you show an 5D2 mounted?