The new lens motor the folks over at Hocus Products have been working on for awhile has finally been officially announced. This is something I'm really excited about. I've had a prototype for a month or so and have put it through its paces. I was impressed from the moment I took it out of the box. It's strong and sleek and a marvel of engineering. The first shoot I used it on was a flashy commercial piece where we shot on the Movi from the bed of a truck, as well as some indoor stuff. We were shooting on Kowa anamorphics and it handled the lenses excellently. The next several shoots I shot with some Summicrons, some Celeres, and for some test shooting I used CN-E's and a GL-Optics 70-200, and even some cheap Rokinon Cine DS's, and a Canon L-Series 17-35. It handled the stiff lenses with ease, and the more fragile ones with delicacy. The throw on the L-series lens is very small (maybe 15 degrees?) and it pulled with the astounding precision that I've come to expect from the Axis 1 system. I know this sounds like a commercial, but I really am excited about this motor. As I continue the testing, I look forward to finding more abusive testing environments to see if I can break this thing . My guess is I may be up for a challenge. More info here: http://eepurl.com/bNRBib
Hey Austin, Thanks for sharing! I got a chance to work with the Reflex motor also but found it to be a little loud. Did you find your motor to be loud also (louder than the average wireless follow focus motor)?
Hey Kurt! Do you know which motor this was? Either by serial number or by who it belonged to? There are literally only a handful of these in the wild right now, and I'll check in with the guys at Hocus to figure out what's going on.
It was for a blog I signed an NDA to work on it so I don't know if I can give you specifics. One of the people on the shoot spoke with Hocus. The Hocus contact said the motor was loud because of the specs we requested. I was just curious if the Reflex motor you were testing was noisy also or if the specs they requested (I don't know they asked for specifically) was what caused the motor to be loud. Thanks Austin!