14May Cinematics Lens Gear Rings For Follow Focus
Lens Gear Rings are a necessity with your Follow Focus, but it’s been an issue for me when i’m loaning or renting out my FFs. I like the low profile zip tie gears because they can stay on your lens and take up minimal space, but if someone wants to borrow your Follow Focus, you really can’t just reuse those zip gears. Another problem with low profile zip gears is when your follow focus can’t reach the lens (small lens or battery grip attached).
That’s where the style of these Cinematics Lens Gear Rings come in handy. With 6 different fixed sizes, these gear rings should cover just about any lens in a shooter’s kit, and for smaller lenses it will increase the diameter to reach your follow focus.
There’s a number of companies making the same style in cheaper materials, but Cinematics has great quality in their products. They are standard 0.8 Mod to fit just about every common DSLR follow focus system on the market, and have these available in Black, Red, and Blue. Can be purchased in a bundle or purchased individually for about $11 dollars each shipped. Check them out following the link to eBay (click here).
Cinematics Lens Gear Rings for Follow Focus Systems
Here’s an alternative seller who carries some of these Lens Gears, but (at the time of writing) does not have all the colors available (click here).
Cinematics Lens Gears for Follow Focus
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May 14th, 2012 at 8:28 am
Interesting that this should show up when it did…I just bid on a set of the ring gears on Ebay – the starting bid was 99 cents, with no reserve. I won the auction, then curiously enough, the auction was cancelled – the message I received from Ebay said “item not available”.
Now I don’t know whether they think I just fell off the turnip truck, but the same sets of rings are still available for $59.99 in several listings (including the one you just linked to). My guess is that they decided not to honor either of the two auctions which started and ended at 99 cents (they cancelled two), and go for the gold ($59.99). This is not only dishonest, but my guess is that it’s illegal within the bounds of Ebay’s rules.
I sent a complaint to Ebay, and a message to the seller (roking2008). I haven’t received a reply on either front, but that was just before the weekend, so I expect something soon. It’s not that I’m such a cheapskate that $59.99 isn’t a great price for the full set, but that I was thrown a malicious curve by a seller who is obviously not honest. I won the auction for 99 cents, and they ripped me off by cancelling at the last second. I’ll be updating this as things proceed.
May 14th, 2012 at 8:50 am
@Joseph W. Bourke – Good call. I would have done the same. They need to honor the price they listed it as, unless they set a ‘reserve’ price. All the auctions end in a few days, I just went for the BuyItNow price and picked up a few. I’ll post more when they arrive.
May 14th, 2012 at 9:21 am
I went ahead and bid $5 bucks on a single ring 70-80mm.
I am interested to see how the lens grip works, as they claim it in their listing it should be less intrusive to your lens barrel.
Since I now own a $2400 Canonlens (70-200 2.8 II), lens preservation is suddenly important lol …
May 14th, 2012 at 10:28 am
.99 cents is much better that $99 for zacuto rings. Does you know if these are compatible with Zacuto ?
May 14th, 2012 at 10:58 am
@steve – Yes, and compatible with Gini, Cinevate, cheap RJ, Fotga, etc.
May 14th, 2012 at 11:05 am
I had the same issue with these guys. First I bid 99 cents on an individual gear and won it, and it has since been shipped. However I also placed a 99 cent bid on a set of 6 only to have the auction cancelled. I also messeged them and never heard back.
May 14th, 2012 at 11:16 am
@Darius – Complain to eBay about that practice. They can easily review their history and give them a slap on the wrist, if not suspend their account.
May 14th, 2012 at 11:22 am
@Everyone – Just updated the article with another seller who carries the same product but only has Black and Blue available. I’m partial to the RED, but it could be a better purchase experience.
May 14th, 2012 at 11:40 am
I too had the same problem with roking2008 about three times thus far where I bid .99 cents and one was up to about $6 but all three were canceled before the auction ended.
Granted, I was able to get two rings for a dollar or so under the $11 price, and they shipped at a reasonable speed (coming from china). I will be filing a complaint to eBay as well about these, especially since others have had the same issue.
As a quick review of the rings, they work on any standard follow focus and do a good job at increasing the circumference of lens barrel for more accurate and longer focus pulls, but I would probably use my other Trusmt gears. Although these may be made with thicker and stronger plastics (not that there were problems before), sometimes they might be a little too stiff in the case that you might need the ring to be a little smaller or larger than its intended barrel range. I like the ‘L’ design of the other gears more vs the ‘T’ in the Cinematics ring. I have overlapped the ‘L’ brackets trying to overly fit odd diameter lenses and it has worked fine. It’s just not as feesable with Cinematics.
On the flip side, the Cinematics screw is beefier and you are given (2) screws, both medium and long as well as a key wrench to tighten the screw. There is a square bolt that helps tighten the two ends via screw that rests against the plastic ring, but sometimes it turns as you tighten the ring. The other brand uses the moon-shaped piece to screw into, which I like better.
I’d rather go with Trusmt’s gear rings (although you only get 4 sizes) than Cinematics’ (6 set), but that’s just my personal opinion. Hope it helps you guys decide weather to spring on these cheap gear rings. I bet they’ll be copying zip-tie lens rings soon …
May 14th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
I have a few of these and they work pretty well. Better than the cheap rubber gears I’ve been using. They do seems pretty well made but they can be a tight fit. The 77mm version unscrews out pretty far.
May 14th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Thanks for updating your post with the new seller, Emm!
May 14th, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Shady… reporting helps. I had the same experience before with these tactics. If they dont like the winning bid they cancell and say its not available now. Try later. o_O
May 15th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Well…I just pulled the trigger on Emm’s secondary seller, DigitalFilm2012 on Ebay. It’s the identical gear to the ones being sold by Roking2008, but I have a feeling I’ll actually get some service this time. I have had no reply from Roking2008, and based on the other people who’ve weighed in here with the same crooked deal experience, I won’t hear anything. Ebay hasn’t responded yet either, which is odd – but of course since the deal was cancelled, I couldn’t go the usual route of filing with the Resolution Center. I’m going to keep at it, though and keep flagging their auctions – these guys should not be allowed to sell on Ebay at all.
May 15th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
OK…I just got off the phone with Ebay Customer Support – they informed me that while it is within the rights of the seller to cancel an item, when they cancel an item for their own financial benefit, it is “detrimental to the buyer experience” as the support person put it.
They are going to take action and reprimand Roking2008. I would suggest that others which were burned this same way make the 800 call and “Report a Seller”. I only had to hold for about 1 minute. They take this seriously. As a matter of fact, the phone rep had to excuse herself because she was “very agitated” about the matter. Guess she takes this stuff seriously – it’s nice to see.
May 15th, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Good news JWB – I’ll definitely do the same. Hopefully he/she will learn a valuable lesson.
May 17th, 2012 at 5:52 am
I ordered 6 pack red color,
will review when i get them.
(buy it now)
May 18th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
These look great but I’m a bit confused about one thing. The Smallest offering seems to be 60-70mm which I’m assuming is the same as the filter size for the lens. I have a few primes that are 52mm are there no option for smaller lenses?
May 18th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
@Ram – It’s actually not the same as the filter size, but there are some other types available to fit smaller lenses. Maybe not from this company.
May 18th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
@Emm thanks for that info so how do I find out the correct size of my lenses, I currently have indisnap gears and and some cheap adjustable gears off ebay. These look better than both of the types I have.
May 18th, 2012 at 11:30 pm
@Ram – You would measure the focus ring on your lens, which would be a different size than the filter. These Cinematic ones come with two different bolts, so they don’t have to be exact. They have a bit of adjustment if the diameter is a bit larger.
May 22nd, 2012 at 6:38 am
To expand on Emm’s explanation, here’s what I did, after being confused for a while:
I took my wife’s sewing tape (cloth with Inches on one side, Centimeters on the other), and wrapped it around the lens barrel where the focus ring is. I then went to:
http://math.about.com/library/blcirclecalculator.htm
This is an online calculator where you plug in the circumferance and it calculates the diameter (or whatever measurement you need related to a circle). Make sure you have your Centimeters and Millimeters straight. Not an elegant process, but it worked for me. Now I’m waiting for my gear to arrive from Emm’s alternate pick.
June 23rd, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Bought 3 of them from the first seller, great product. I googled the diameter of my old nikon ais glass and ordered the appropriate product.
August 15th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
digitalfilmtools is the SAME SELLER as roking2008. They pull the same crap. I have reported 3 times now and I get told the same thing “they are well within their rights.” I have now been banned from bidding on any of either of their stuff. Buy good stuff on amazon. Screw ebay!