NEWS FLASH – Videographers want a bigger piece of cake and using DSLRs to shoot video is on the rise.  Call it Fusion, call it video, call it whatever you like but when I see these new cameras capable of superb low-light video capture it makes me excited and scared all at the same time. Excited for the capability and scared of where it might take our industry because many of us are not prepared. I truly believe that we are currently in a time akin to the early days of digital capture where our biggest worry was “Can I print an 8×10 from that?“.

I spent a bit of time at PhotoPlus Expo with the iDC Photography team (aka Bruce Dorn and Maura Dutra).  Bruce is known to tinker improve things when he sees a need arise. But his latest project, the iDC Follow Focus Run & Gun Kit, goes well beyond tinkering and was turning heads at the Javitts Center last week.

“Most Follow-Focus rigs are overkill for use with a tidy little camera like the 5D MK II. The gear-driven versions I’ve tried are generally cumbersome and far too complex. And expensive!
Gears need to be purchased and installed and alignment is a time-consuming process. These over-sized and overly-complex focusing systems might look butch but they effectively waste the stealthy advantages of a compact capture device like the Canon 5D MK II…
When I see a problem like this, I’m compelled to find an elegant solution and I feel that I have.” -Bruce

Most Follow-Focus rigs are overkill for use with a tidy little camera like the 5D MK II. The gear-driven versions I’ve tried are generally cumbersome and far too complex. And expensive!

Gears need to be purchased and installed and alignment is a time-consuming process. These over-sized and overly-complex focusing systems might look butch but they effectively waste the stealthy advantages of a compact capture device like the Canon 5D MK II…

When I see a problem like this, I’m compelled to find an elegant solution and I feel that I have. -Bruce

And with that in mind Bruce headed out to his workshop, dug into his Film and Television roots and created the iDC Run & Gun Kit.

idc run and gun kit 1

Like Bruce I have a background in Film and Video production. I’m fairly familiar with the uber expensive rigs out there that do just this for both video and film cameras and I must say when I picked it up and gave the little white wheel a twist the first thing into my mind was…

DAMN it’s so simple why didn’t I think of that first! – ME

Photographers take note! It works well and Maura tells me that the videography and film community is welcoming the new iDC rigs with open arms. Photographers read that as, somewhere out there in your big ole formerly exclusive client pond someone is preparing to use a DSLR to capture both still and video.

Film and Video Times (a blog geared towards the film and video production industry) awarded the rig their “Best of Show” and notes.

To see where motion picture production is headed, head over to the Javitts Center in New York for PhotoPlus Expo…

If you want to know a bit more about the man behind iDC you can read our exclusive featured interview with Bruce right here (one of our most read interviews to date). But be prepared to spend some time as that interview features almost 100 samples of his stunning work! One of these days I hope to interviewing Maura if she’ll oblige me. Her painter work is second to none.

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