Why You Should Consider Follow Focus Puller

If you are a professional cameraman or a filmmaker, then it's important to consider purchasing a 'follow focus system' for your DSLR. Needless to say, a follow focus system is important and that the reason behind is DSLR cameras aren't capable enough. And this is where the question arises.....Why do you need a follow focus system? 

The need for a Follow Focus Puller  

There is no denying the fact that mathematics of focus is quite complex. Using your hands to make adjustments will definitely degrade the value of your video quality. These things are alright if you are shooting a documentary film because there are limited people and can forgive such minimal technical errors.  

Talking about the feature-length films, you need to measure out each scene and a good-quality follow focus help ensure that each shot should be of top quality.

Nothing ruins a video much more than a soft focus and that's the reason follow focus system is there to help you achieve the best results.  

What is the role of a Follow Focus   

With respect to exceptions, almost all follow focuses nearly on a huge number of gears, which are manipulated by a circular knob.  

All the professional camera lenses are outfitted with a gear on the focus barrel that helps to match the pitch size of the gear. If you are working with lenses that are still, then you should use gears that can attach to your lenses and guess what, they can do the same thing.  

When you line up the gears on the follow focus, you just have to turn the knob on the follow focus. The main advantage of using a follow focus has to do with accuracy and that's what we all want. The series of gears helps to give you more fine control over focus, which would ultimately help to decrease your likelihood of completely missing your focus pulls.  

Tips for Follow Focusing  

Once you've set up a follow focus, now all you need is to start to follow focusing. And at the same time, you should follow tips as well.  

1.Creates Marks:
If you clearly see, there is an outer circle of white plastic around the knob itself which is usually for setting focus marks, which is a general practice on narrative sets. Make sure you get your hands on some dry-erase markers because now you have to create marks. If you’re working on a project where rehearsals are possible, you can even dry-erase markers in order to set focus marks for a given shot. 

2.Practice:
No matter how you’re interacting with your follow focus, always bear in mind you should try to practice your pull a few times. In addition, get your hand and wrist used to where close-focus and infinity are. Pulling focus is a skill and the more practice you do, the more successful you’re going to be. 

3.Don't Fidget:
If you watch movies carefully, you’d be surprised how many times you see a shot that’s either slightly, or sometimes get out of focus. However, it doesn't mean that you should not follow the action, but if you are regularly fidgeting the action, you will end up looking like an amateur.