08Aug Gini New Aluminim Follow Focus
Anyone catch the new Follow Focus from Gini? Single rod mount and just swings into position. It’s made mostly of aluminum with an unfinished appearance (not a fan of that). I think if he offered this in black anodizing, it would get much more attention. Although the design overall looks good, the gearbox looks pretty similar to most basic Follow focus systems. Very similar to a Huco gearbox (could be?). Nevertheless those gearboxes have been fairly reliable in most of those FFs.
Price is outside of this world for Buy It Now, but that’s always been Gini’s approach. Usually he has these same high quality items in some type of inexpensive auction along with a rig. In fact there’s a few auctions going on right now starting at just $1.00 US dollar, following the link (click here).
Gini Rig New Aluminum Follow Focus
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August 8th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
No thanks. Doesn’t seem to have a marking point either.. Looks cool, but some things just shouldn’t be CNC’d.
August 8th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Gini has a great reputation for quality, but the picture doesn’t even show a marking disk. The listing also explicitly says “no extra parts are sold here.” Isn’t a marking disk kind of important to a follow focus unit?
August 8th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Gini rigs are excellent quality. I really like mine. But this FF seems a bit strange. No marker disc, no indicator?
Looks very solid in a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 kind of way though.
August 8th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Yes this is most definitely a Huco gear box. I have one sitting here and it hast the exact same labels screws and overall appearance.
That said it is the most ridiculously priced FF ever.
I doubt the single rod support to be stiff enough to hold onto the lens.
It looks like a prototype to me and I think it’s kinda odd to put that on the market and charge $700+
- Sebastian
August 8th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Looks like this seller has now set reserve prices to each of its items. Seems like the end of affordable Gini stuff…
August 8th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Dammit, and I just bought an RJ follow focus
LOL but this is not quite ready IMO.
While it looks looks pretty good, there is still no marking disc, lens gears, and I would NEVER buy it in polished aluminum, so if he releases a black anodized version I will defiantly snap one up if he has the price point under say $200 (due to the crappy Huco gearboxes usually with tons of play/backlash, yeah I’ve owned quite a few of them already).
If he ups the gearbox to a better design like shoot35’s R2 follow focus uses, he could get $300-$400 easily I’m sure, at least from me he would. I still prefer the shoot35 R2 follow focus over anything else (including zacuto and redrockmicro) but the $700-$800 (shipped) price tag will turn most people from this blog away, worth every penny IMO and even after over a year of production they still can’t meet demand, with weekly production selling out in less than 24 hours every single week.
Still, this is very exciting and I already have thousands of dollars of Gini gear which I ordered from Korea and am happy with every last bit of it, it has really superb quality components, and on the surface this looks to be no different (besides the awful finish and crappy gearbox, which again is not something HE made).
August 8th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
@Mickey Jones – Seeing that it’s a light colored polished aluminum, a Dry erase marker would work on the surface as if it were a marking disc. But still no Pointer.
August 8th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
@Rob – Seeing that it’s a light colored polished aluminum, a Dry erase marker would work on the surface as if it were a marking disc. But still no Pointer.
August 8th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
I have a gini rig on the way, but does anyone notice how high the shipping costs are from gini? And they tend to vary quite a bit I noticed, sometimes even with the same product. I mean seriously, $105 to ship a FF to europe?
August 8th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
@ Tim
Gini prices are all over the place. Sometimes quite reasonable and sometimes insanely high. I got my Gini rig at auction for $260 shipped for $19. Given the quality, quite reasonable. Not sure why so high to Europe.
I’m glad they’re developing new products but they have some stiff competition from the RJ and Fotga FF.
I just got the Fotga FF but it was missing a screw. I will post a review when I receive the promised missing part.
August 8th, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Now that you mention it, what is up with there “buy it now” stratosphere pricing?
August 8th, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Thanks for the response, Emm. Maybe this is a little off-topic, but does anyone know what the Trusmt Follow Focus uses for a gear box? I’m reading on this forum that the Huco gear box is okay, but not great.
Emm–It’d be really cool if you could have a follow focus shoot out. There are so many choices out there at so many price points. Hard to know what to choose. Perhaps a review of gear boxes and a listing of which manufacturer uses which gear box.
August 8th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
cool design but very mainstream price
August 8th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
@ Steve – Their extremely high “buy it now” tactic has been their m.o. for awhile.
I think the reserve price is usually around half of their buy it now price … at least, that was the outcome when I bought a rig listed at an $800 “buy it now” price — which I got for $400 and free shipping.
But, maybe others have had different experiences.
August 8th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Other than this stuff obviously looks like a Zacuto ripoff, with a similar price strategy, it appears to be very well made. I just don’t get why most of this DSLR stuff is so over priced. Which, is why I love this site, seeing people’s ingenuity.
August 9th, 2011 at 6:27 am
Yeah his shipping has gone thru the roof. $65? I paid $19 the last time I ordered something.
August 9th, 2011 at 8:36 am
If you think a silver marking disk is bad – what about a black one? And a very glossy black it is – Lolz
Check out this link:
http://www.nlook.net/genjiaoqi.html
August 9th, 2011 at 11:35 am
The Huco Gearbox, is $33, unless you buy 100 of them, then you get to around $25 each. I am meeting with a CAD designer to see if we can come up with an open worm gear. Pros is it might be easy to swap out worn gears.. bad is an open design means dust and crud can get in it. I would like to design it to actually not have disks, but rather swappable cards.. like slip in an round index card or something you can put in and take out with markings on it. Most likely it will be a resin or plastic to keep costs down.. but I am hoping to have a prototype soon! Send me any ideas and I will put them to use! -Tom (thegraphicguy@live.com) from Tompter.com
August 9th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Talk about a rip off. These prices are ridiculous. I bought my original rig for 240 +free shipping. I would never pay those prices. On top of it I can’t even buy parts to build onto my rig. Very disappointing.
August 10th, 2011 at 5:50 am
Ebay/Paypal take 10%, or about $75 off the top.
Leaving $675. Then, there is probably $35 in aluminum, plus $40 (shipped) in the gearbox, getting you down to $600.
I work closely with a metalsmith who fabricates my sled teleprompters, and he charges a very low $25/hr. I would bet there is probably 20-30 hours in to building one of those.. between the lathe, the drilling, etc. So, based on a one-off, $700 is probably about right. As far as design.. well.. it is what it is.
August 11th, 2011 at 12:31 am
And then there was… Mini! LOL
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250872447702&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_1858wt_112
August 11th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
“I think if he offered this in black anodizing, it would get much more attention.”
He’s listening! http://cgi.ebay.com/DSLR-RIG-FOLLOW-FOCUS-/250872857059?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a693001e3
Still no pointer though…
August 16th, 2011 at 7:38 am
Hi there,
Im in the UK. Does any know how much would charge the customs for importing a Gini rig, if you bought for around $500.oo?
Thanks
September 9th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
I just got this today. And it’s great. Problem is, it does not have a reversible gear. ANybody know of a solution on how to mount this to work with the Canon 50mm 1.8? The mount for the follow focus hits the mount for the baseplate so it won’t line up.
September 30th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
yes great, Im all over it. where can i get one?