JBKCINE

David Auner aac · February 24, 2008

Hi folks,

just curious how well are these things made? Do they perform decently? I'm looking at buying a FF for my NPR and possibly the Brevis DOF adapter and was looking at good bang for the buck options. Any specific model you can recommend?

I searched the forums but found nothing specific. Any other FF makers you can recommend, aside from the obvious expensive Arri and Chrosziel FFs?

Thanks, Dave

Pete Von Tews · February 25, 2008

Dave, good thing you did some searching about JBKCINE.

I bought his follow focus in 2006 and was very disappointed.

The quality is sub par, its made out of plastic called "delrin" the unit looked like it was made by an amateur. Tons of play in the unit. To add insult to injury, it was not the item in the pictures you see on the website, looked like it was a demo, all beat up. After calling him, he did not want to refund my money, even hung the phone on me. Also tried to charge me $100 for "restocking"

Finally it took my good credit company to get all my money back.

The JBKCINE follow focus is not professional grade, it should sell for $200 not $700. In the case of a follow focus unit, its essential to get a professional unit to get good results, unfortunately the real deal follow focus units are expensive. For alternatives I would try a Redrock follow focus or a Petroff.

-p

Rohan Dadswell · February 25, 2008

The unit I got (model 201 - I believe they make a 202 which is ment to be better & more expensive) looked fine but the amount of play in the gearbox and the belt drive made it pointless having a marking disc. Have tried to use several times but have always ended up throwing it back in the box and turning the barrel by hand.

David Auner aac · March 7, 2008

Hi folks,

has anyone of you ever used one of these?

http://www.follow-focus.de/Willkommen.html

They seem to be built rather well.

Regards, Dave

Tim Carroll · March 7, 2008

I've heard horrible things about the JBKCINE follow focus, which seems to mirror what the folks are saying above.

A few other units to maybe look at, the Petroff MFF-01, which is supposedly for DV cameras, but might work for your needs and sells for $1084.95 at B&H Photo:

And a unit I thought about buying a couple of years ago to use with my Arriflex 16SR, made by Chrosziel, they make a number of different models of this, the one I looked at (again, this was a couple of years ago) was for cine lenses and ran somewhere around $1500:

Best,

-Tim