New Ronford-Baker EVF Mount

[Ryan Glater]

Ronford-Baker has just finished its first batch of EVF Mounts.
For more info, please contact us @ info@ronfordbaker.co.uk or please visit www.ronfordbaker.co.uk.
Please note, we will be closed for the Christams and New Year Period from Friday 19th December until 05th January 2009.
Thanks

 

[ericyoung]

Looks lovely. Is it cheaper than Element Technica's?

It appears to have no adjustment for vertical height though.

Available in black?

 

[Ryan Glater]

Yes, it is available in Black and it does have vertical height adjustment.

 

[Curran Giddens]

design looks alot like et's. how bout a pic of it in black?

 

[Jarred Land]

Wholly crap... I hope Ronford has some good lawyers... This is pretty much a perfect lift off the ET design.

I am actually a little dissapointed.. I had alot of respect for Ronford Baker until this morning.

 

[Evin Grant]

Yea, that's, umm, an uncanny resemblance. Maybe they licensed the design?
Benefit of the doubt?
Yea, that's not right.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

The pictures to compare those mounts:

ET EVF Mount

Ronford-Baker EVF Mount

ET EVF Mount

Ronford-Baker EVF Mount

 

[Stephen Webb]

I hope Ronford has some good lawyers...

Assuming of course that ET have a UK applicable patent.

 

[NateWeaver]

I was under the impression that the ET design was inspired by the Genesis Accuscene mount.

 

[Dominic Jones]

Err... maybe I'm missing something here, but that's a pretty obvious "design" for an EVF mount. SIM video's is fairly similar too (more variation than these, to be fair, but basically the same concept), and both of these are very similar (in operation rather than looks) to pretty much any video EVF, and a lot of film cameras OVFs.

For my money, the quality of the ET mount is not it's design, but the engineering. How else would you realistically want to mount your EVF?

To put it another way, how many companies hand-grips are significantly different in design from each other? The products stand out by their execution, not their design genius.

I think cries of "rip off" are a little sensationalist myself, but that's just my 0.02...

I'm gonna make with some white flag waving now and duck behind something!
Dom.

 

[Alexis Hanawalt]

Isn't ET's design based on traditional Arri viewfinder mounts? If the point of an EVF mount is to have an attachment to the camera and a pivoting/sliding adjustment for the EVF, anything that accomplishes this is going to look pretty familiar... the Ronford doesn't look THAT similar anyway.

 

[Matt Uhry]

It looks like a 100% Rip-Off of Elements Design. Lost a great deal of respect for Ronford today. If we want innovation, we need to reward the innovators.

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com

 

[NateWeaver]

Isn't ET's design based on traditional Arri viewfinder mounts?

Not really. Arri finders are always articulating optical tubes with prisms inside to keep the image upright. A completely different animal.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Assuming of course that ET have a UK applicable patent.

Even if they don't they could still block Ronford's design from being legally sold within the USA, assuming ET has been awarded a patent. Many countries will honor patents filed in other countries if there are global market considerations and there is legitimacy to any patent or IP infringement claims.

I'm not sure what I'm more disappointed in here... That the Ronford mount is a direct rip-off of ET's design, or that it took them over 9 months to do it.

 

[ericyoung]

Well, let's not jump to conclusions here. Have to agree that any mount which allows adjustments as we would want is going to likely converge on one or two design styles at most. It's basically clamps. sliders, dovetails, friction discs, bolts - not exactly innovative components. If it used more tubes would we complain it was ripping off Zacuto?

And if there's no patent, then why complain if copies do come out? Pretty sure Ronford Baker aren't going to knowingly post on this very public site something which breaks any laws. Of course if they have, then ET has protection which they can invoke.

As a user facing deteriorating exchange rate, it's good to have local choices too (assuming Ronford charge a reasonable or even cheaper amount - the usual gripe that UK stuff cost the same numerical amount in £ or $ even when it was $2 to £1!).

 

[Thomas Hencz]

Ronford goes ET!

Ronford goes ET!

This is definitely a copy of ET's design. It shows that ET's mount is the best on the market as other companies copy their design. In the end of the day all accessories from ET beat all of the third party companies that make Red camera accessories. I think ET has become the standard for Red Camera Accessories for the professionals, just like Arri is for film camera accessories. Keep up the good work ET.

 

[Jannard]

This hits a bit close to home as we gave ET "a hand" with the ID. As for patents in the UK, not a very elegant defense for a rip-off. This is a small community and word gets around. Why not take that talent and design something fresh? Just curious...

Jim

 

[Obin Olson]

wow that hurts, and I am not the one getting ripped off
!!

 

[Daniel Reichenbach]

Hi guys, stay cool, if I remember well, I have a wonderfull DOVEtail at home, which looks VERY similar to an ARRI dovetail but was made by ET. A copy? Don't care, it works great and was the right choice.

 

[Ernesto Lomeli]

Can anyone say mattebox?
I think there is also a difference in function and looks.
Patents for our type of equipment are all about
functional details... such as how things lock, or create friction.

Id hold judgment until someone actually plays with a real product and not just
a render.

Jim i would be careful casting stones, few companies make anything truly original. Hell look at the new Epic and Scarlet "head", they look like they are blatant SI 2k Mini rip offs, but no-one said anything, because we know they function differently and or are an evolution off of a borrowed idea.