New Redrock mattebox + remote follow focus

[Tonaci Tran]

More options for future RED owners seeking a nice starter kit to go along with the still lenses.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=83971&page=6

[Brook Willard]

$500 for a remote follow focus... if it holds its own it'll be great.

[CVB]

Is the $500 just for the remote unit... No motors etc?

[Don Woods]

If thats the whole set up put me down for 3

[Shawn Nelson]

I would assume it would be the whole deal, the gear and motors on the rails and remote control. This would be a big break through and one that was ripe for the taking (I mean, come on, it has to be much simpler than your average RC car!)

[Kyle Mallory]

I've had the chance to play with both the Redrock M2 and Follow-Focus. Needless to say, I wasn't terribly impressed. They both did as advertised, but you can tell the difference between their knock-off and the Real-Thing.

We ended up having to hire a contract machinist to modify the follow-focus to that it had the tolerances of the big-boys. An easy enough fix for the machinist... just a shame the Redrock boys didn't do this at the factory. By far, the worst problem with the follow focus was that it didn't adjust to different lenses. They provided these silly adapter rings that were supposed to clamp on around the lens's focus ring, and then adapt somehow to the gear on the follow-focus. But... the follow-focus drive gear is at a fixed position relative to the rails... so unless the adapter gear fit the right lens the right way... you're screwed. In the end, we ended up using the Real-Thing, and left the Redrock with the shop.

And for the M2... The lack of technical support (email only???) and minimal diagraming/instruction-- I was debating buying one, thought I'd rent first. Glad I did! Apparently the image plane in the adapter wasn't positioned in the factory properly, and we had to tear the thing apart to make the adjustments necessary to get the back-focus in check. Worse yet, there wasn't any mechanism to do this precisely-- trial and error. Ideally, you should only have to do this once, but in the off change you find yourself doing it again... you're back to one. The other thing I thought was annoying, was that there were no framing guides to know when you'd properly framed the projected image. A simple wire-frame guide would have been brilliant... zoom in your camera, achieve critical focus, zoom out till you see the wire frame guide, zoom back in until you can't see it anymore. Perfect framing.

Like I said, it worked as advertised (once all the kinks got worked out), and for the cost, I suppose I can't expect too much, but they certainly dropped the ball in a couple of obvious areas. I can only hope that the matte-box and remote follow-focus don't have the same short-comings.

Bringing this post on topic, I'm trusting (and so far have no real reason to suspect otherwise) that with Jannard behind this, that quality will be equally as important as form and function.

[Shawn Nelson]

Bringing this post on topic, I'm trusting (and so far have no real reason to suspect otherwise) that with Jannard behind this, that quality will be equally as important as form and function.

Woa, did I miss something? How is Jannard behind the Redrock wireless follow focus?

[Jaime Vallés]

Nice. If they can fix the follow focus precision issue, it would be a superb deal. However, I wonder how effective a$500 remote follow focus could really be...

That mattebox looks nice, too!

[Poi Boy]

The M2 is a pain in the ass to set up but once you do, it works very well. If you want to avoid some of the set up pain, you can buy the mini 35 at ten times the price with the same image quality.
Aloha
-A

[Dominic Jones]

Actually, the M2 has some advantages over the mini35 - speed and you can stop down further.

No image flip though.

Apparently FF play has been eliminated in the newer versions, fwiw...

[Ernest Kwok]

guys...check this out..
http://www.redrockmicro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2950

[Kyle Mallory]

Woa, did I miss something? How is Jannard behind the Redrock wireless follow focus?

Sorry Shawn,

I mean in regard to Red-One (and Red in general)... With Jannard behind Red (where I have chosen to invest my money), I trust that RED-ONE will hold its own with regard to quality.

Kyle

[Kyle Mallory]

Ernest,

Interesting thread/pics. From what I could see, the matte-box looks nice (except the white! isn't the point of a matte-box to shade the lense and reduce internal reflections of periphery light sources? How does a white matte-box accomplish this? ;-) ), but they really don't show the matte-box that well. Certainly the focal point of the photos is the remote focus rig.

As to the remote-focus... Once a gain, those stupid adapter rings, and a fixed -position drive gear. Come on! How hard is it to put this on a swing-pivot with a clamp/lockdown screw! Always the pessimist, I'll keep my $500.

[Nick Shaw]

It does say further down the page that the production version of the matte box will be black. That one is just a prototype.

[PaulClements]

I guess the RFF is one of those things that will need to be tested sufficiently to get a feel for whether it is good enough or not, honestly at the moment it looks little better than a DIY job, but i suppose the quality of the gearing and motor is what counts and not how it looks. Personally however, Curts stuff is looking more like a suitable partner for the RedOne still, perhaps a redrock as backup might be a nice idea... we'll have to wait and see as with everything :)

[Alexander Nikishin]

Nice. If they can fix the follow focus precision issue, it would be a superb deal. However, I wonder how effective a$500 remote follow focus could really be...

That mattebox looks nice, too!

Actually, the precision issue wasn't an issue at all. The wireless FF shown was only a dummy. The final version will have speed increment settings from slow to fast with 360* whip rack capability. The unit itself will be much more compact and have 3 servo ports to control iris, zoom and focus if needed. In addition to all that, it will have programmable focus points. This thing will be a big boy by the release date, no doubt.

[Alexander Nikishin]

It does say further down the page that the production version of the matte box will be black. That one is just a prototype.

It will be black and allow for and unlimited amount of stage trays to be screwed onto the front. Pretty damn nice feature. And from what I remember, the front end diameter was 115mm.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Actually, the precision issue wasn't an issue at all. The wireless FF shown was only a dummy. The final version will have speed increment settings from slow to fast with 360* whip rack capability. The unit itself will be much more compact and have 3 servo ports to control iris, zoom and focus if needed. In addition to all that, it will have programmable focus points. This thing will be a big boy by the release date, no doubt.

I hope you're right. Having briefly owned the Redrock FF with an M2 for my HVX200, I was not in the least bit impressed. The M2 was fine, it's probably the best 35mm adapter out there for the HVX (well, the Brevis looks very good too). But their FF was el-stinko!

Is Redrock still using the "adapter belts" to fit various size lenses?

[tj williams]

What this has to do with RED and why it is not posted in OFF TOPIC eludes me?

1. You can only hope the matte box follow focus is easier to use than the redrock which will cause you to curse the devil and all the angels before you have it in focus!

2. Why would they show a white one... so that means the black is paint? not molded into the plastic? Quality looks like the goofy one from china! Given the fun of focusing the redrock probably you need a screwdriver to lower th eyebrow?

3. Note that the follow focus cannot be moved in to accept the gears on a smaller lens. So your geared early super speeds are out? As many cheap follow focuses as there are out there which look work better than this: JB? PEtroff etc. etc. why do they want to intro this anyway.

4. I especially like the shrink wrap or whatever it is ahead of the gear???

[Brian Valente]

Hi Folks

Sorry for my late entrance, but a few comments:

the microRemote $500 base package includes the wireless remote transmitter, base station (which supports up to 3 motors) and one motor. you can find out more here: www.redrockmicro.com/microRemote.html

the microFollowFocus has been shipping with an upgraded gearbox for quite some time. I have heard users report it is comparable to chrosziel, etc. Kyle sounds like you had an earlier version, for which we do provide an upgrade.

Regarding a simple wireframe guide, that would be great as well, but unfortunately there is a lot of variation in individual cameras (so we and our customers have found), so instead we have recommended guidelines for each camera (zoom/focus settings). We also now ship a hardmount kit to eliminate some of the variables.

Hope that helps provide some more details

Cheers

Brian

[C.H.Haskell]

Hi all

TO be honest I am satisfied with my Redrock FF (the new upgraded one)...the adaptor rings are easy to apply to my Nikons and I find the action is smooth and responsive. This is a great low budget solution and I dont know of the remote unit but I think its worth looking into if your going the NIkon route. I dont know how it will hold up with a RED 18-55 for an example but we shall see.
Good luck.