Movie oriented grips

[DuLt]

Hi, I was wondering, after this idea was slightly bumped around in another thread somewhere on this forum, that canon, in their mighty audiovisual technological department, could launch, or atleast tryout, some movie oriented grips, with xlr inputs, better mic amplifier, better video battery (dunno how that would work), maybe some sort of focus pull system, etc...

What do you think of this idea, and why couldn't it be implemented?

 

[Admin US West]

There are lots of such devices on the market made by manufacturers who have made them for many years and understand the needs of the cinematographer. I think Canon is smart at keeping away from making something like this, particularly, since they do not work well with EF lenses.

As far as focus pullers, EF lenses have a slip clutch that is required as part of the autofocus with full time manual focus that we see in most of the "L" lenses. This makes a focus puller of very limited usefullness on a EF lens. You can make it work, but be very careful not to let that slip clutch slip.

Try it, focus on a object 10 ft away, and mark the focus ring of your "L" lens with a sliver of tape on the focus ring and on the body so they line up. Then turn the focus ring to the minimum or maximum distance, and turn it a additional 1/4 of a turn. Then turn it back so the sliver of tape is in the original position. The lens will not be in focus, but will be 1/4 turn off. The position of the focus ring is not going to always match the focus setting!

Cinema lenses are manual focus and hard geared, so they are very repeatable and can be set within a inch or two, maybe less, of actual focus depending on the distance. A focus puller works great with them.

 

[DuLt]

I understand that "limitation" on a FTM lens.

But in the areas of sound input, some dslr's could use such adaptors.

Yes we can use an external recorded, or be like a studio and have a sound guy, and mic holder dude, etc, but all that isn't a solution. Canon seems to be "missing" on an area they could improve: making the hdslr better at audiovisuals, not just video.

 

[Cornershot]

Anyone that's serious enough to demand an XLR input isn't going to use onboard camera sound. They're going to have a dedicated sound guy with a recorder, mic, boom and with headphones on all the time to monitor the sound. Onboard sound is just something they have for everybody else. You can't really get high quality sound from camera. The mic has to be closer to the speaker via lapel mic or a boom. Directional mics are okay for very stationary close-in use. A speaker standing in the same place and not moving. Sucks for on the go since every time you or the subject moves, the sound levels change.