Pull focus with this!

Patrick Neary · December 16, 2008

When the dog chews up your fiberglass tape and the 2nd drops the cinetape into the honeybucket...

http://www.tomchuk.com/rf_hfd/index.php

Chris Keth · December 16, 2008

That's pretty neat. I bet it's plenty accurate once you get the hang of switching eyes back and forth a few times to prevent moving between lining up and reading the distance.

Patrick Neary · December 17, 2008

I use a little printout with my Rollei-35 for fun, it's incredibly accurate.

Might be a bit challenging for grabbing focus marks on the fly though. Plus it would look a little strange on set. :)

Chris Keth · December 17, 2008

I use a little printout with my Rollei-35 for fun, it's incredibly accurate.

Might be a bit challenging for grabbing focus marks on the fly though. Plus it would look a little strange on set. :)

Those rolleis are pretty cool little cameras. Emphasis on little. I wish they would have come out with a slightly taller version with a rangefinder though.

David Auner aac · December 17, 2008

Those rolleis are pretty cool little cameras. Emphasis on little. I wish they would have come out with a slightly taller version with a rangefinder though.

Hi Chris,

have you looked at the Voigtlaender Bessa? Some might say it's a Leica rip, but these are neat little cameras too. And they do have rangefinder. And there is a really nice 21mm lens available!

Cheers, Dave

jake harris · December 22, 2008

Voigtlaender Bessa?

nice with the wide, not really any focusing issues with that. On the distance calculating have you guys come across 'Optics & Focus for cam assts'? Some good trig style methods in there using eyelevel etc...worth a look perhaps, very Zen.

Patrick Neary · December 23, 2008

Hi Chris,
have you looked at the Voigtlaender Bessa? Some might say it's a Leica rip, but these are neat little cameras too. And they do have rangefinder. And there is a really nice 21mm lens available!

Cheers, Dave

Voigtlander/Cosina does have some nice lenses, it's unfortunate that they've fallen (wisely, from a marketing standpoint) into the commemorative "50 Jahre" this and "100-Jahre" that nonsense for their cameras. Apparently collectors with their bottomless bags of cash are a better market than actual photographers. May as well just get a Leica!

James Martin · January 8, 2009

Well, with a title like "Pull focus with this!" I expected this to be an announcement regarding the RED EPIC 617 camera.

Is it me being stupid or is that going to be hard focusing on anything that moves? Or trying to get enough light indoors for it?

Dan Diaconu M · January 8, 2009

Is it me being stupid or is that going to be hard focusing on anything that moves?

Pisacake. Once you shoot something, it doesn't move no mo so you can focus all you like.

Tom Mitchell · April 11, 2010

Well, with a title like "Pull focus with this!" I expected this to be an announcement regarding the RED EPIC 617 camera.

Is it me being stupid or is that going to be hard focusing on anything that moves? Or trying to get enough light indoors for it?

Though your right it could be a problem, I think that it is already being solved. There are alot more tools on the market for Focus pulling where a human is still needed to make a choice where a machine can't but you can get some pritty good touch screen point and focus touch screens and laser range finders for fast cars etc (i saw some great tools at the BSC show this year). where you have extreme shallow DOF this would be useful or a necessary. Though the question becomes how shallow is too shallow?