EF MOUNT vs PL MOUNT WITH FOLLOW FOCUS

[Carl Epstein]

Any advice on rotational or flex issues with the EF mount while using a follow focus? When changing direction with the follow focus is there a slight rotational movement? If I am on 15 mm rods supporting the camera and lens does it even matter? I have no glass yet and was looking for advice on PL or EF since I am starting from scratch. I will be doing a mix of indoor studio and outdoor wildlife video with short and possible some long lenses.

Thanks Carl

 

[Zachary Abitz]

I can only speak for my own experiences but I have had zero "movement" from the mount when using a follow focus or my hand. Especially when on rails. These mounts aren't like the metabones/third party adapters you get for DSLRs.

 

[Björn Benckert]

The mount is not the whole problem or solution. It´s the build of still lenses. A lot of them are not rigid. Like if you use CP2 ef lenses you will have no problem at all if you use Canon L series then well you will have an image shift pretty much as soon as you lay your hand on the lens. For those also the focus swing is to short.

I got FD lenses they are built far beter then the Canon EF lenses and if I drive focus buy hand it´s not much of a problem and I got gears on them and drive them with a focus motor. but when doing moco stuff I try to avoid them as the build of them does simply not keep things 100% sturdy.

But some old PL Cine lenses behave pretty much the same.. so good lenses do not have problems only the bad ones or the once not ment to pull focus. So when you start to add focus gears etc then you are kind of dealing with something that the lens is not built for.

And if you start to add front rings and clamp on filter trays and even mattbox then there is not many still lenses that take the pressure. But with EF lenses I find fool control or hand on lens to be far better option then FF or motors.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Red's positive locking EF mount has solved most, if not all, of the problems associated with the sturdiness of the EF mount.

Now it comes down to the quality of the lens to determine whether or not you will see image shifts during focusing.

I have a feeling you will see a lot more image shift on a L series lens then you will on an Angenuix optimo (that now comes in EF mount). Even when you mount them to the same camera.

 

[Mark Andersen]

The optitron 2 is by far the best way to focus EF glass, no gears or motors and fairly precise control.