D|Focus System

Fall Flying

2011-11-28T20:15:00.001-08:00

US Hang Gliding Team member Dustin Martin and D|Focus contributor Ryan Voight got together over Thanksgiving for a little filming session at Point of the Mountain in Utah. After a few days of less-than-ideal conditions, we finally got a good day to get some shooting done.

We mounted a GH2 and 7-14 lens on Dustin's glider, and tried to get some air-to-air formation flying action. Here are a few frames from the video:

All photos by Ryan Voight

Panasonic GH2/NikonD300s Photo Comparison

2011-08-03T12:47:00.001-07:00

Words and imagery by Ryan Voight, D|Focus contributor
Nikon's D300s was their second DSLR to include video functionality (following the D90). The D300s walks the fine line between consumer and pro gear... it is (was?) Nikon's highest level DX format camera (IE not full-frame). It has a large, highly weather sealed magnesium body, and most functions have their own designated buttons- something most consumer cameras don't include. For the past year, the D300s has been my go-to photo AND video camera.

The Panasonic GH2 is best described as a mirror-less DSLR. Picture a DSLR operating in 'live view' mode, all the time. By removing the mirror, the camera is considerably smaller and lighter than a traditional SLR or DSLR. But can it measure up to a 'real' DSLR?

It's a small and light package, but it's feature-rich. It takes 16 MP photos (15MP when set to 3:2 aspect ratio, the standard for DSLRs), vs 12.2 MP for the D300s... but the big upgrade is the video capabilities! This little camera records beautiful full 1080 HD video at 24 frames/sec... or 720 HD at 60p- perfect for slow motion effects. GH2 video is captured using the AVCHD codec. The other really nice thing is that this camera allows full-manual control over video recording- something the Nikon lacks.

The more I play with the video, the more I am impressed. I've begun to think of this little camera as a film-like VIDEO camera, that also takes photos. Here's a quick sample of how sharp the video looks:

Wing-mounted GH2 shooting 1080 HD @ 24 fps

But for me, the question has remained... how good of a PHOTO camera is it? I had some spare time yeserday, so I headed up American Fork Canyon to see what I could find to take some test photos of. I noticed the river that follows the road (or does the road follow the river?) was still quite high- and I had my sticks in the car, so I thought some slow shutter speed water shots might be a good test.

Because it was very bright (direct sunlight in some cases), I had to stop down to F/22... this meant everything was in focus... which isn't my favorite effect. In some of these shots, particularly ones where I was lazy and zoomed in, rather than get closer, the foreground has very little separation from the background. I figure with was about the lens and shooting parameters much more than the camera... but I'll have to do more testing...

Click an image to see it larger

All of these photos were taken with the 14-140mm Panasonic 'kit' lens. I believe they were all at f/22, with shutter speeds around 1/6 sec, all at ISO 160.

Obviously, this little camera is capable of taking some nice images! I'm not convinced that it takes better images than my Nikon D300s- which I have absolutely loved everything about, except for it's video capabilities. The GH2 photos require a quite a bit more 'developing' to get the colors how I like them (or even how I remember it looking in real life). GH2 photos also tend to favor a cooler tone, versus the Nikon favored warmer photos- I prefer warmer, looks less 'digital'...

The Nikon D300s is only 12.2 MP, but the color reproduction seems much better, and much more true-to-life. I'm not really surprised by any of this, the D300s is a fairly pro-level camera, and the GH2 is clearly consumer oriented. I had originally planned on selling the Nikon... but now I'm torn... When I ordered the GH2 I was ready to trade some photo quality for vastly better video capabilities... but now I'm having a hard time biting that bullet....

Here are some Nikon D300s images for comparison (different location, different day)...

Also worth mentioning- I'm editing the GH2 images using Photoshop RAW... and I edit the Nikon images using Nikon's Capture NX2 software. I absolutely love photoshop (for some things)- but I have been very, very impressed with Nikon's software, and feel it is a better tool for developing digital photos. Unfortunately, although not that surprising, the Nikon software does not support the GH2's raw file format...

Switzerland

2011-07-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the start to the 2011 European tour that includes the Swiss Nationals and the World Championships.

Flew over to Zurich from LA with Jeff Shapiro on the 4th of July. Swiss Nic and Steve Blinkensop picked us up at the airport and we headed to Nic's home in Baden (originally a Roman town). Upon unpacking my glider in Zurich, I found a large dent in my leading edge tube.

Nic had a spare tube that need to a slight modification, so Blinky and Carole helped my get the tools to fix it. Dustin arrived later and we had some fantastic home-made green curry a la Blinky.

The next morning we were off to Fiesch with 4 gliders, 10 harnesses and 4 bodies crammed in Nic's sweet Mercedes. driving south past Interlaken we drove the car onto a train that took us through a tunnel deep through the Alps. In Fiesch we met up with Derreck and James to register and parade through town.

Weather looked pretty bad and there were doubts as to whether we would fly at all, but day one turned out great.

On Gear Ratios & Modules etc.

2011-01-17T12:01:00.000-08:00

A question about pitch, module and gear ratios came in today so I though I should share this info as it may be useful to others. First some gear nomenclature.

A round gear's Diametrical pitch is defined as its number of teeth divided by its pitch diameter.

Pitch Diameter is NOT the overall outer diameter of the gear, its the diameter of the gear to some point about half way up the gear teeth. Its a small difference from the over all diameter of the gear if we are talking relatively small teeth (like those used by follow focus units) so its not that important to differentiate.

A gears Module(mod) is just the mathematical inverse of the diametrical pitch.

The cine standard is 32 pitch (measured in number of teeth per inch) or 0.8 mod (measured in millimeters per number of teeth)

So, some math specific to the D|Focus:

Pitch = # teeth / Pitch diameter,

D|Gear is ~4" pitch diameter,

# teeth = Pitch * Pitch diameter = 32 teeth per inch * 4 inch = 128 teeth

Module is the inverse of pitch, so Mod = Pitch Diameter / # teeth

However, for whatever reason we measure module in millimeters, not inches. 4" = 101.6mm

# teeth = pitch diameter / Mod = 101.6 mm / 0.8 teeth per mm = 127 teeth

Discrepancy in # teeth in theses 2 calculations is due to inaccurate measurement of pitch diameter (I just measured it with a ruler, could get out my CAD drawings and get an exact measurement, or count # teeth but I'm lazy.)

The drive gear's pitch diameter = 1.5 inch so it has 48 teeth

128 / 48 = 2.667, so the D|Focus + D|Gear as a 2.667 to 1 ratio

So one full, 360 degree rotation of the D|Focus knob will give you a little more than 1/3rd (~135 degrees) the rotation on your lens' focus ring.

There are also some other modules (0.5, 0.6) used on Canon and Fuji broadcast, ENG, 2/3" style cameras.

Types of gears:
The D|Focus, uses 2 general types of gears. The Drive and lens gears are called Spur gears. Pretty much the simplest type of gear. The gearbox used Miter gears which are used to change the direction of motion. Some other follow focuses use helical gears to accomplish this.

Info On The D|Matte

2010-12-13T10:19:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone, this post is long over due.

I have been posting little bits of info on twitter (@dfocus) about the upcoming D|Matte Matte Box but have yet to post anything formal, so here we go.

The D|Matte, like the D|Focus, is an entry level product intended for amateur/hobbiest/student film makers on a budget. It has been designed from the ground up for use with HDSLR cameras.

List of features:

- Two 4x4 filter tray-less filter holders (one rotating.) No filter trays here, just slide the filter into the slot.
- Wide angle lens compatible. Will work with lenses as wide as 20-24mm (depending on the lens) on a full frame camera.
- Clip on design will fit pretty much any lens with filter threads up to 82mm. This includes all Canon L series lenses (except for the super telephoto) and Zeiss primes.
- Each D|Matte will come with an 82mm attachment ring. Use step-up rings to fit smaller lenses.
- Included top french flag.
- Made of injection molded plastic (probably ABS and polycarbonate, not 100% sure yet and won't be until the tools are finished.)

Future options:

- Height adjustable, swing away rail mount attachment. (This may be available at the same time as the D|Matte. If not, it should follow shortly.)
- Side Flags. These will follow the D|Matte by 2 - 3 months and will be an upgrade for purchase.
- Once everything is out there will likely be a combo deal including all accessories.

I'm pretty excited about the D|Matte. Its something I have been wanting for a while now myself and an area where I think there is room in the market. Many matte boxes are designed for Cine style lenses and as a result have to be quite large and heavy, not exactly ideal for HDSLR work.

The fact that it's going to be mostly injection molded means there will be much less production work for us to do which means that we should be able to get them out much faster and [hopefully] not experience that same delays we are constantly facing with the D|Focus.

The D|Matte, like the D|Focus will not be sold direct, but will be available through our dealers. This helps keep our overhead down so we can just concentrate on building products while letting someone else deal with the shipping (which is a ton more work than one might think.) The retail price is expected to be $299.99 for the basic snap-on version which includes the adapter ring and french flag. [Price & features subject to change]

I do not have any good pictures as the prototype looks somewhat rough, but these should help you get a basic idea:

EDIT - Forgot to mention, its looking like the D|Matte will be available mid-February +/- a couple weeks.

D|Focus Announces Sponsorship Deal With Zippy Zac Majors

2010-07-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last week, I spend a couple days up in beautiful Santa Barbara California to shoot a promotion video for "Zippy" Zac Majors, pro hang glider pilot, hang gliding instructor and all around cool guy. Zippy is one of the top pilots in the world but hang gliding is not a sport that attracts major sponsorship deals and the cost of international competition can be quite high.

Zippy:

I am very proud to announce that D|Focus is an official sponsor of Zippy in all his hang gliding efforts. In exchange for sponsorship funding Zippy will wear the D|Focus logo atop his glider and help take part in various film projects to help showcase D|Focus gear in action as well as get valuable field test time. I am happy to report that over 3 days of shooting the new D|Focus V3 worked very well in a variety of environments.

Here is Zippy doing his thing over the Beach:

Here Zippy does a fly over of me on my D|Focus branded glider:

Zippy being interviews by Jared Abrams about DSLRs and hang gliding for Cinema5d.com

In case you guys don't already know, hang gliding is my passion. Its my motivation for film making and building affordable film making accessories. There is a reason my Vimeo page is almost all hang gliding videos! So its pretty natural for me to channel some of the D|Focus profits back into the community (and hopefully get some valuable advertising and promotion out of it.)

Zippy leaves for Italy in a few days where he (along with 4 other pilots) will be representing the US in the "Pre-Worlds" hang gliding championships. We here at D|Focus wish him the best of luck!

I hope to have the promotional film up in a couple of days and will update this post when its ready!

-Dave

New Drive Gears Coming Soon(ish)

2010-01-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

UPDATE (1/23/10) - My timing on these couldn't have been much better. Earlier in the week I found out that I had depleted my supplier's stock of the current drive gear. I will only have another 50 or so before there is about a 2 month wait. That is obviously too long, so when the 50 are gone we will just be going with the new, custom drive gears.

Unfortunately my timing wasn't exactly perfect. Orders up to about January 9th will ship with the original gear. Orders after that may see an additional week or so delay while the mold for the new gears is getting built and tested.

If you have an order out and don't want to (or can't) wait for the new gears, I still have some of the older 2" diameter gears available (these are the ones pictured on the web site.) Email me (dfocusinfo *AT* gmailcom) if you would like to go this rout. Remember, the new custom gears will be very easy to install, just a single set screw so you can always upgrade later.

______

In an effort to reduce the time it takes to build a D|Focus, I have decided to have purpose built drive gears manufactured. Let me give you an idea of what goes into just the drive gear currently:

1. I order them from a gear supplier in New York. UPS ground shipping takes about a week to deliver them
2. I have to install a brass insert so a set screw can be tightened, without the insert the threads would strip very easily.
2.a) I order brass tubing in 1 foot lengths with a 1/4" outer diameter [OD] (same as the inner diameter [ID] of the drive gears, so the brass can be pressed in) and 3/16" ID. However the tubing comes over sized, meaning the ID is a bit smaller, so it has to be reamed out to fit the 3/16" shafts. We do this on the manual lathe.
b) The brass tubing has to be cut into 0.400" lengths. The only reliable way I have found to cut brass tubing is with a manual razor saw. The material is too soft to part it off on the lathe, it will just bend. This manual sawing is very time consuming, but it works and is reliable.
3. the inserts are pressed into the gears using a bench vise.
4. The gears are drilled and tapped for the set screw.

By having purpose made gears I can eliminate steps 1 and 2. The gears will have an ID the same as the brass collars included on each D|Focus. That way I can just press those collars into the new gears, drill and tap.

And since we are going to the effort to make gears, we are making them they way they should be, thicker. They will have the same face width as the lens gears, 0.400". This should make the overall experience easier to setup/align, make it smoother and allow for more focus ring "travel."

Here are the latest renders:

I can't yet say when exactly these will be ready. Tommy, my mold maker is a pro and works very fast, but injection molding is far from trivial. We have a couple of issues and it make take some experimenting to make sure the gears come out right. Expect at least 4 weeks.

Will this effect the overall price of the D|Focus? Probably not. It looks like these will cost much less than the current gears I am ordering, but the initial tooling cost is very high. For now, let me just reassure you all that I am committed to offer the affordable follow focus solution.

All current orders will ship with the current drive gears. However I will have a lot of these new gears made and will probably be able to make them available for a very low cost to existing customers.

A Few Pictures From the D|Focus "Factory"

2009-12-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

I took a few minutes out of the busy day today to snap some pictures of what we are working on. (It was also an excuse to use my new (used) Canon FD 24mm f/1.4L lens with my GH1.)

6 square feet of Delrin and 8 square feet of white acrylic ready to be transformed into D|Focuses.

Two batches of rail mounts cut. We can fit 24 of them on a 12 x 12 inch sheet of material. It takes about 2 hours to cut one sheet. The parts not need to be de-burred and drilled.

Here is the CNC Mill at work. We use a 3/16" end mill turning at 5000 rpm. It takes several passes to cut each part out.

Watching the green characters scroll on the screen reminds me of The Matrix.

NOT D|Focuses

Quit laughing and get back to work Tony!

Waiting on Drive Gears

Knobs get a brass insert glued in with JB Weld, then they are drilled, drilled again and tapped for the set screw.

We use a lot of acetone when building D|Focuses. Its perfect for removing any residual oils and sticky residue.

Got to have some tunes!

Here is one of the very first D|Focuses I sold (number 14 actually) in for an upgrade to the new V2.

A Couple of Tutorial Videos

2009-12-12T10:45:00.000-08:00

Instead of trying to type out instructions for the Lens Gears and DSLR Mount, I decided to just do a couple of quick tutorial videos instead.

I shot these with me GH1 in 1080 24p mode and am really pleased with the image quality!

Cameras and lenses provided by jag35.com

Holiday Orders

2009-12-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, just a quick word about Holiday orders from D|Focus System.

The response to the V2 and new Pro Lens Gears has been very strong (more on this later) and there is a current back-log of orders. I am doing my best to get these together and shipped out but it is looking unlikely that any new orders will be in the hands of customers before Christmas, especially for international customers. I apologize for any inconveniences this may cause.

If you need your order faster you may check with JAG35 (http://jag35.com/dfocus.html) As they will have limited stock through the month.

Shipping Prices Have Increased

2009-11-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

Since I started selling the D|Focus keeping the shipping and handling costs down have been a priority, especially international shipping. My solution was to use USPS Priority mail small flat rate boxes. They are provided for free from the USPS so all one has to do is print the label online and stick it to the box. These have the lowest international shipping rate I could find and they save me the time of having to fill out customs forms by hand.

Unfortunately the small flat rate boxes are, well, small. I just found out today, the hard way, that there is no way I'm going to fit a D|Focus V2, 3 Pro Lens Gears and a DSRL mount in that box. I have to use a larger box.

International shipping charges will now be $22 and $35 depending on what size box is required.

The D|Focus System is meant to be a low budget follow focus solution and keeping all costs down is a priority. I wish I was like BHPhoto or Newegg and could offer really cheap, or free shipping. Maybe someday...

A Few Words On The New Lens Gears

2009-11-26T16:15:00.000-08:00

I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of the thought and design process that went into the new Pro Lens Gears.

Since March of this year I have been experimenting with many designs for lens gears and searching for an "off-the-shelf" solution. There are a lot of large diameter gears available, but they are all usually quite expensive and have a very thin gear face width, 1/16".

My favorite lens gears were the ones made by Redrock micro and I frequently would refer customers there, instead of purchasing the DIYish solution I was using. RRM's gears are quick and easy to install, no worries about alignment like some other designs. They are also large in diameter which means less torque is required from the follow focuses gearbox to turn the lens (helpful for some "stiffer" lenses like Zeiss.) Unfortunately they are not cheap at $64 each and you would need a few sizes if you have a variety of lenses.

So the challenge with designing the new Pro Lens Gears was how to incorporate the large diameter and quick on-off feature of Redrock's lens gears, while also making them adjustable and cheap.

An early rendering

I am fortunate enough to have several connections in the local machining community and one day a couple of months ago Tommy from Redline Mold was at the shop. He sort of half-jokingly asked me if I was ready to build a mold (we had discussed this a while ago, but I was no where near ready for such a big commitment.) The answer was yes. The D|Focus really needed a more professional lens gearing system. So we set to work to come up with a design. Tommy suggested a few thing and we went back and forth a bit. Then it hit me, why not have one gear, with some kind of interchangeable "leg" system to adjust for the various size lenses? This has been done before, with screws, but the problem is that it takes a long time to get them setup and adjusted correctly. But having fixed length "Legs" with a pinching style of gear tensioning onto the lens, the length of the legs wouldn't have to be exact.

I set to work on a prototype, using an existing lens gear that I had left over from experiments, I super-glued some nylon screws to the inside and used a Dremel to cut them to length. I was not sure it was going to work but to my surprise, even with the hack-job dremeling the legs to length, the gear held remarkable secure to the camera lens!

First CAD drawing of the New Pro Lens Gear

I struck a deal with the JAG35 crew to help pay for the mold. They have been selling the D|Focus for several months now and have been in need of a lens gearing system to go with it. Then it was just a matter of getting the CAD drawing to Tommy and letting him go at it.

One side of the Mold. The T shaped inserts are what form the retaining slots for the legs.

The other side of the mold with the Mold Cavity.

Tommy is a freaking pro and had this thing together much faster than we were expecting.

Injection molding is not cheap. There is a large initial investment and a relatively large minimum number of parts the molder will make. But the benefit is that the cost per part is very cheap. So once the mold is paid for the whole process becomes a good investment (assuming one can manage to keep selling the parts!) Also, when its done by a pro like Tommy, your parts come out looking top notch!

I couldn't be more pleased with the final result! The lens gears work exactly as I imagined and look as professional as they can. Unfortunately they are more expensive than the cheap DIYish solution I was offering. Sorry about that, but I think they are still within most people's price range. Definitely not as hard to justify as Redrock's $64 solution.