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Pulling remotely on slant focus


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Ended up pulling on Panavision's 45mm slant focus lens the other day. So much fun, but I had to ditch my FIZ and the mattebox (sadly no clip on retainer ring for that lens) and pull off the barrel while the op controlled the slant. It worked for the shot, but was a little messy.

 

Has anyone had any success hooking up a motor to a slant focus? This is such an oddly specific scenario, but I'm sure I might run into it again with this DP. I was thinking you might be able mount a focus motor in the same manner you would a zoom control- directly onto the lens so it shifts as the lens swings without losing contact.

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would it be possible to do an adjustable slant rod adapter using a cheese plate and couple of 19mm bolt-on rod clamps? Then you could mount the rods to the same angle than the lens is, at least if the slant is only horizontal. maybe something rosette mounted could work for the vertical slant

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I think you're overthinking it. The easiest way is to screw in a threaded iris-rods or small baby pin onto a spacer ring for a clip on. this way the motors are riding on the lens.

 

 

So much fun, but I had to ditch my FIZ and the mattebox (sadly no clip on retainer ring for that lens) and pull off the barrel while the op controlled the slant. It worked for the shot, but was a little messy.

This lens has the same front diameter as regular Primos so it should have worked with any clip on.

 

In order to use FiZ motors though, you need to jump to the larger Panavision clip-on to do this with the E-sieres back. Its an ECMB or MBSP then you can have the room to have the pins fixed to the ring.

 

I have only seen this used once so it is really a specialty item and most people wouldn't know what it was for if they saw it.

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Thanks Rob. I just meant I didn't have the retainer ring on that shoot. We weren't working with Primos (had the uncoated SPs which were a blast btw) and the 45mm was a last minute add on.

 

I'll ask next time I'm at Panavision. Have you used it or just seen it there?

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