Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:10 am
Justin, the mechanics are pretty good. The maker, Vincent, calls it a light rehousing and this is accurate. It's solidly made from good quality aluminium, anodised black with markings, but weighs only 1.1kg, the original being 0.8Kg and of course made of plastic.
The focus ring has just enough friction to make it smooth without being loose.
The focus has hard stops which makes it easy for my wireless follow focus to automatically calibrate itself for this lens. There does seem to be a minute amount of play in the focus ring when changing directions but I don't think it will be a problem for me.
The main drawback for me seems to be the small 60 degree throw. Mapping the focus to a full 360 degrees on my WFF seems to get around this to an extent, but it is not the same as a lens with a 300 degree throw. I'm not sure I'll need to ride the focus with this lens though, being a wide. And there is no way I can afford to buy a rehoused version like the GL Optics for 3 x the price to get that extra throw distance.
Coming from broadcast and run & gun background, cinema shooting is new to me. I did some live studio camera operation for a while with Sony 1" CCD zooms and full size Vinten pedestals with focus and zoom at my fingertips. I used to own the same Canon broadcast focus and zoom servo controllers with a B4 zoom which were super easy to ride, better I'm sure than these cine WWF's. Accurate repeatable markings however, were not a feature of broadcast focus controllers.