TEchnical Walkthrough

The Lens Cuff is recognised as the best solution for mounting follow focus motors.

Check out the video to find out more!

Product Announcement

The Lens Cuff was revealed by the inventor Gregory Karydis on a live session with Scott Balkum and joined by Jarred Land & Phil Holland.

Check out the video to find out more!

Single Lens Cuff

The Lens Cuff – Set 1

The Lens Cuff – Set 2

The concept of The Lens Cuff

As a thought experiment, ThE LEns Cuff began around late 2018…
The idea was to move the mounting point of the Follow Focus motors from the base or somewhere around the camera body, to the lens itself and make a closed system that is no longer affected by external forces and in turn does not affect any external forces to the camera or the surrounding system. And after a few chunky 3D printed prototypes the idea was shelved.
Due to other obligations, scheduled shoots, unexpected VFX jobs, etc, development was pushed back. Until the 2020 pandemic when we were forced to stay at home with my expectant wife staring at my new 3D printer wondering what to do… And in one evening, armed with patience and a lot of inspiration, I came up with the current shape and form. Based on the General Theory of Relativity, “The Relativity Mount” was born!
So, as a DP or 1st AC, you’d think that asking an assistant on set to “go fetch a Relativity Mount” would be a mouthful and you’d be right.
Looking back to the initial design where two halves were locked in place with a screw, it started to look more like a handcuff… and so ThE LEns Cuff became a thing!

Gregory Karydis

Gregory Karydis is a VFX artist and Cinematographer with over two decades of experience in productions of almost any scale, from indie short films to TV commercials and even Hollywood blockbusters.

Since the advent of remote Follow Focus Systems and more compact cinema cameras, he was often met with a rather odd request; to fix footage where a lens was jammed sideways due to a torquey Follow Focus motor. Something that can range from an easy fix, to requiring a complete digital reconstruction of a scene when a reshoot was impossible.
Sometimes the motor will skip a gear and you end up missing focus at the most critical moment.
All that can cost time and money to a production. Compound that to any potential damage to lens mounts on either the camera or the lens, or even both and you end up running a pretty high bill.
 
The Cinema industry, DPs, 1st ACs and Focus Pullers have come to accept that as a fact of life with no alternative other than to plan the scenes and the action around it.
 
It’s been over 3 decades now and to quote one of the greats “Everything in the world can and will be made better. The only question is, when and by whom?”* so, at last, the time has come to Torque Your Motors!
 
Long story short, it’s all relative and so – it turns out – is the mounting point of Follow Focus motors.