You know that cool effect in Hollywood movies where they shift the focus from something in the foreground to something in the background (or vice versa)? Trying to achieve that on your own can be quite the challenge, because autofocus doesn’t give you adequate control and regular manual focus can be finicky to do on the fly.

If you want an easier way to achieve that follow focus effect, you’ll probably want to have a look at this FocusMaker rig. It’s so brilliant in its simplicity. Basically, it’s a giant halo ring that latches onto the manual focus ring on your DSLR lens. There’s a big handle on the outside to give you greater precision and control, and then you can put little markers for your set focus points.

What this means is that when you are actually shooting your video, you can quickly (or slowly and smoothly) jump between the focus points that you’ve already set. Those focus markers can be active or passive. The active mode gets them to protrude, stopping the sight when they hit, whereas passive mode allows for free motion.

More information can be found on focusmaker.com. It retails online for $90.

The post Cheap and Easy Follow Focus with FocusMaker for DSLRs appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Follow Focus’ flagship feature is the focus puller, which uses a dial on the control pad and the autofocus motor built into Canon lenses to adjust focus in any live-view mode – including while recording video. What’s more, the device allows for saving and jumping between up to four points of focus without the response and feel of mechanical focus pullers.

The nine other buttons around the knob control the shutter, start/stop recording, autofocus, shutter speed, apature, ISO and various other camera adjustments.

At 7.6 cm in diameter and 142 g with the two AAA batteries, the highly portable controller plugs into the camera’s USB plug, leaving the HDMI out available for simultaneous use with an external monitor. It gets up to 30 hours on a pair of batteries, and can be used with a USB cord up to 10 metres in length.

Okii Systems is accepting preorders for the $400 Follow Focus, with the first shipments set to fly at the end of February.

[Oh Gizmo via Okii Systems]

The post USB Follow Focus For Canon EOS Cameras A Boon To Smooth Video appeared first on Mobile Magazine.