Focus gears can get kind of pricey depending on who you buy them from, so when I see one for , I’m a little skeptical of the quality. The basic idea of this little guy is that you can tighten the flexible gear on to your lens’s focus ring and your left with a one size fits most gear for your focus puller. It looks like the pitch on the gears is a standard .8 so this should work with most focus pullers out there. Not sure how well it grips the lens, but for $10.25 the is probably worth taking a look.
Currently all of my focus gears are made out of hard plastic and either Redrock micro or a . Redrock makes some great stuff, but the price for one focus gear is around $40, the is around $70 for 6 different sizes which works out to about the same price as the adjustable focus gear, but each gear is only designed to work with one size of lens.
I bought a FF that came with a flex gear similar to this. The flex gear worked, but not very well. Gears need to be rigid to work well because even a tiny change in the pitch from flexing or stretching will cause the teeth not to mesh properly and will cause friction.
Get a set of Redrock Micro style gears from China. Three gears that will fit most DSLR lenses (except large diameter lenses) are about $50 shipped. They are quick to install and remove and operate much more smoothly than the flex gears.
That’s good to know. I bought my focus gears a few years back when there weren’t a lot of options on the market and haven’t ended up needing anything else.
I second Micky’s comments. I too have the gears and FF pictured above and although they work for lenses that have little to no focus ring resistance… the gear (and FF for that matter) will slip if there is too much tension. Definitely a, “get what you pay for” scenario in this situation.
I can totally respect that, and I agree. What I find appealing about the gears is that they can easily slip in my overly crowded gear bag, and I don’t have to worry about having the correct size of gear (and/or modify my jag 35 gear) to toss on a specialty lens for an obscure shot.
On a side note, I love the phrase “Get What You Pay For”. In this industry, do we ever really get what we pay for? If we did, every rail, adapter, doo hicky, and thingamabobber would be gold encrusted and come with its own genetically modified 1/3 human scale minion to hold it while its not in use;) I don’t know about you, but when I find myself paying $70+ for a pair of 6″ rails which contain maybe $5 worth of materials, I get a little bitter some times:)
September 24th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
My advise is don’t bother.
I bought a FF that came with a flex gear similar to this. The flex gear worked, but not very well. Gears need to be rigid to work well because even a tiny change in the pitch from flexing or stretching will cause the teeth not to mesh properly and will cause friction.
Get a set of Redrock Micro style gears from China. Three gears that will fit most DSLR lenses (except large diameter lenses) are about $50 shipped. They are quick to install and remove and operate much more smoothly than the flex gears.
September 24th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
That’s good to know. I bought my focus gears a few years back when there weren’t a lot of options on the market and haven’t ended up needing anything else.
September 25th, 2011 at 10:57 am
I second Micky’s comments. I too have the gears and FF pictured above and although they work for lenses that have little to no focus ring resistance… the gear (and FF for that matter) will slip if there is too much tension. Definitely a, “get what you pay for” scenario in this situation.
September 25th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
I can totally respect that, and I agree. What I find appealing about the gears is that they can easily slip in my overly crowded gear bag, and I don’t have to worry about having the correct size of gear (and/or modify my jag 35 gear) to toss on a specialty lens for an obscure shot.
On a side note, I love the phrase “Get What You Pay For”. In this industry, do we ever really get what we pay for? If we did, every rail, adapter, doo hicky, and thingamabobber would be gold encrusted and come with its own genetically modified 1/3 human scale minion to hold it while its not in use;) I don’t know about you, but when I find myself paying $70+ for a pair of 6″ rails which contain maybe $5 worth of materials, I get a little bitter some times:)