Blake and Bryan back again with another installment of the Budget Cinema Series from Blueforest Studios. In this video, they are walking through the installation process of the follow focus for the Zhiyun Crane 2. We’ve had the Crane 2 for a while now, but we recently added the follow focus. And it opens up a lot more options for great shots. We love it! (Despite Blake’s feeling of hatred to Bryan…)

Right out of the box!

When you open up the box for the Zhiyun Crane Follow Focus you will see the motor, a power cable to power the motor from the Zhiyun crane, two follow focus gear rings that will go onto the focus ring of the lens, components for the rod which mounts the motor to the gimbal, and a small Allen wrench.

Step 1

Mounting the rod to the gimbal. There is a threaded hole where the mount for the rod will be placed on the left facing side of the camera will be mounted. This then allowed the rod to be tightened into the gimbal. You will need to use the small Allen wrench to tighten the mount onto the gimbal.

Step 2

Next, you can thread the rod into the mount. Make sure to tighten down the mount and rod as tight as you can so that when tightening the motor onto the rod nothing becomes lose or slips. We used the Allen wrench to tighten the rod as much as we could onto the mount.

Step 3

Add the follow focus cable onto the focus ring of the lens you will be using with the gimbal. Make sure it is nice and snug and grips the focus ring well. There are little teeth on the cable that will fit into the clamp on the one end of the cable. It helps if the camera is already mounted onto the gimbal.

Step 4

Time to mount the motor onto the rod. Loosen the clamp of the motor to enable it to slide easily onto the motor. Heads up if you loosen the clamp too much the whole clamp could come off and you don’t want to lose or break that. Slide the motor on and line the teeth of the motor with the teeth of the follow focus cable. You can test if the teeth are gripping by putting the lens in manual focus mode and twisting the lens by hand and watching the interlocking teeth move simultaneously.

Step 5

Last step. Giving the motor power. You will see a small hole where you will connect the power cable from the Zhiyun Crane 2 to the base of the motor. There is another connection where you can connect the motor to the camera. We find this way the easiest method. Make sure to rebalance the gimbal so that the added weight of the motor does not throw off the calibration of the Zhiyun Crane 2. The follow focus should start working immediately.

Diggity Done!

Congratulations you have successfully installed the follow focus to the Zhiyun Crane 2. You can now pull focus from below the camera on the dial of the Zhiyun Crane 2. If you enjoyed this video give us alike. If you have a Zhiyun Crane comment below what you like to film and if you found this blog post helpful. Check out more of the Budget Cinema Series and see some of the work we film on our fun toys!

Blueforest Studios is a Raleigh, North Carolina Video Production company.