So… this just adds an arm to the focus ring? Could be useful i guess, but from the name I expecting some kind of crazy focal effect. Pretty underwhelming tbh.

Still looks kind of chinsey to me, and not being a photography buff I don’t really understand the value-add here, just looks like a way to make your DSLR more fragile (ex, when you drop it (even on a soft surface) extra pressure is applied to the body via the clamp handle…) Why can’t you just use your hand to focus anyway?

Having experience with cannon camera’s and lens, there’s two problems here.

1. The biggest problem with modern manual focus rings is not the ring, but the lack of a proper viewfinder. Older cameras had a focusing circle on the view finder. It was split in half and if the picture wasn’t in focus, half of the circle would be blurry. When the picture was in focus the circle was clear. You can get some prism attachments that come close to this, but it’s still lacking compared to the past.

2. The focus rings on Canon EOS lens are very lose. That much counter weight on the ring will cause the ring to move, period. The picture won’t stay in focus because once you remove your hand the ring will move.

@Eloquent:
Spellcheck has no way of knowing if you misspelled a word by replacing it with another valid word.

It does make me wish I had an edit button in my feed reader, though.

is this specifically to address a lack of autofocus while shooting video?

Anyone doing (too much) these modern “cool” effects like blurring, fast camera moving, flashing lights and so on make my head hurt. I will not be paying for any poop filmed like that and I hope soon everyone hates that style. Call me stupid or whatever, but look older film making books and you will find that any of the above is explicitly forbidden.

Sad thing is that there are many interesting series and documentaries I simply cannot watch because of this.

it’s all about angular movement kids

Since my last comment didn’t add too much and was kind of harsh, I’ll give my two cents: you can epoxy a bolt to a wide removable cable tie and use this to mount a (preferably small, plastic) removable handle, giving the best of both worlds (ie, not having a huge cabinet handle semi-permanently mounted to an expensive lens, but fulfilling the same use).

Plus IMO it will have the chic look of something functional, homemade and understated, rather than homemade, clumsy and huge ;)

I guess the point is that the original contributor or Mike forgot to mention that this is mainly a hack for the new DSLR generation which is capable to record HD or Full-HD videos.

You have now a Video-camera which has a decent depth of view and superior lenses. However, due to the shape of the camera body and lens. It is rather tricky to record a movie and adjusting the focus points correctly. You would have to hold the camera (or use a tripod) look to the live-view picture, try to grep the tiny focus ring on the other side of the camera body, and turn in instantly to the position you like to focus without any visual control rather then this tiny blurry LCD life view picture.

This hacks helps people recording and switch between different focus points quickly without any hassle.

This is referred to as a “Rack Focus” in film and video. I don’t see an application for still photography.

I install and repair camera robotics for television, one commenter mentioned that this could be done via a stepper or microcontrolled dc servo. Yep, it’s how it’s done for the broadcast robotics. Some home camcorders (high end) have a remote control with the functionality too, but no location indicator without a hack on those.

asdf-
Pat, I’d like to buy a vowel. An ‘A’ please. There are three A’s. I’d like to solve the puzzle now – “Sazacazys”.

The lego focus is cool but doesn’t look as easy to use. Would be a good thing to use with mindstorms stuff perhaps.

hmm its $5.87 for 4. 2.. 2 for 24-70mm, 2 for 70-300mm..

Did you ever get divorced? Can you tell me about it?

Just fashioned together a couple of handcranks per your video above — works very well as you can see in the clip when you doubleclick on my name.

Doing a short video on a flower garden with my Canon 7D and a variety of lenses and peripherals. Can’t afford a true follow focus just yet, but this little hack will fill the bill for now.