Hoodman Loop

I use follow focus for manual focusing with Canon 5D Mark 2 video mode. Quite a many times I noticed that focus was off the target. LCD screen is good but not big enough for me to be sure when I am focusing correct. On the other hand dof is thin and my eyes are old. Something was to be done either bigger screen or better eyes. Better eyes I couldn't get and bigger screen was too expensive and will need also more batteries to the field to carry with. I saw somebody was using Hoodman Loop 3" and I decided to buy one. I bought also one LCD Hood & Cap for 40D.
I did cut upper section off from LCD Hood & Cap and glued that to hold Hoodman Loop 3" in a correct position. Now I can press Hooman Loop against my eye corner to hold camera steady when shooting video. At the same time hood is covering screen and bright sun light is not disturbing visibility.

Canon 5D Mark II and Follow Focus

I bought Canon 5D Mark II just before Christmas when it come available. It did have a new feature for a shooting HD video.
The next step was finding a fluent manual focusing system for 5D Mark II. I did find an Indian manufacturer DV City for video equipments.

They had all I needed with fairly good price. I did order Matte Box, Follow Focus system and extra gear set. Everything arrive by UPS in about a week.

This is how it looked.
This complete system is too big for my traveling stuff. I did modify follow focus smaller and lighter.








Matte Box

Matte box is protecting direct light hitting front lens and filters. Direct light will cause unwanted reflections and flare in optics. This do have big flags...

There was also a set of "donuts", sealing around optics and an opening in matte box. It has place for two filters one is rotating. Filter size is 100 x 100 mm (4" x 4"). I use a set of Sinar ND filters to cut light down when I want to use wide open.



Video head and tripod

I needed a new video head light one for traveling. Gitzo's G2180 looked fine to me. Under the head I placed Arcatech level base. Gitzo's G2180 has own standard clamp and I needed to clamp video size width 55 mm and my Arca swiss style stuff with same clamp. Gitzo has a quick release adapter G1387B. Gitzo's light tripod GT1531 is strong enough to hold all this.



Microphone

I use microphone Sennheiser MKE 400 and wind-muff is also from Sennheiser.


Unfortunately MKE 400 has a disturbance spike around 18 kHz.




End of the story

I am not planing to do any bigger art with video but it will be a good option and possibility to add video clips for up coming actions when you are photographing wild animals.

This one is not so wild...

Mindi