Aaton Xtera

[Gary Lemson]

Hello,

 

The Aaton Xtera has a rod that is clamped adjacent to the top right of the camera. Similarly, there are two shorter rods protruding back from the view finder assembly. Just curious?What is the purpose of these?

 

Thanks.

[Nathan Milford]

Hello,

 

The Aaton Xtera has a rod that is clamped adjacent to the top right of the camera. Similarly, there are two shorter rods protruding back from the view finder assembly. Just curious?What is the purpose of these?

 

Thanks.

 

They're the handle.

[Rory Hanrahan]

Many of Aaton's cameras feature the "two rod" handle, rather than the one-piece molded metal one I suppose many people are familiar with. The rod handle doubles as a holder for small Aaton tools used to change the shutter angle and pitch.

 

The extra rod in the upper right is intended to hold either a follow focus or (more likely) a zoom controller. There is reference to this on Aaton's website.

[Mitch Gross]

The extra rod in the upper right is intended to hold either a follow focus or (more likely) a zoom controller. There is reference to this on Aaton's website.

More specifically, it is there to hold motors for a zoom control or a remote focus or iris control. There are frontrods underneath the lens mount as well, but these can become very crowded with handgrips, followfocus & mattebox. There was also the tendency for them to rotate when used with a remote motor which generally only mount to a single rod. The new rod mount up above gets the motor out of the way and uses a very hardy clamping mechanism to keep the rod from rotating.