_ There are  new FFs constantly appearing on the market. Different brands fight for business. It is certainly makes life difficult for brands, but us, customers certainly benefit from this competition.  These are great times for people on the budget.  I’ve been looking at what’s new on eBay and noticed a few new follow focuses with adjustable hard stops,  just like the ones originally found in Trusmt units. Looks like Trusmt FFs have some competition.

Then new ones I found are:

1: What looks like an RJ Follow Focus with adjustable stop, although in some other listings it is marked as Fotga, which usually is completely different design. The particular deal found is certainly makes it the cheapest “hard stop” follow focus out of the lot, but it also looks the most plasticky, so don’t expect an amazing build quality, however I used one without hard stops and it performed surprisingly well, very little play, like on most budget FFs most of which are more expensive. This FF comes with one lens ring, so I think it is a pretty cool deal if you are on the tightest budget.

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2: Lanparte “hard stop” model. Looks very similar to Trusmt units, but certainly not a complete rip-off , but their own design. Looks like a very good quality unit, however it is the most expensive out of the lot, even more than Trusmt. I heard the Lanparte are great FFs, but the price is a bit too high comparing to what else is available in budget category.

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3: COOLLCD Follow Focus, again with adjustable “hard stops”. Now this is something completely new to me.  Looks very similar to the Lanparte FF, but again it is a bit different, although the gearbox looks very similar, don’t know if it is the same though.  Comes with 2 lens rings. With shipping costs about the same as Trusmt NF2, so not an amazing bargain, but a decent price.

_ Conclusion: Any of these 3 FFs and the Trusmt one are great FFs that were not available a few years back. Anything of this quality would cost much more before the DSLR revolution gave the manufacturers a boots to start producing these affordable FFs that a lot of us now use. We take such units and prices for granted, but if you think about it, all of them are actually really good value deals, so I recommend all of them,  although the Lanpatre is a more than twice the price of the RJ, so I think it is not as great value for money, but if you like this particular brand, then it might be the best choice for you.  If you are on the tightest budget RJ is the one to go for. The CoolLcd and Trusmt sit somewhere in the middle. I used to have a Trusmt T2 (old gearbox) and it was a great unit, you can check out my review here.  I think the CoolLcd is probably also a very nice unit worth looking at, but the choice is yours. If you don’t actually care about the “hard stops”, then there are plenty of other deals out there. There has never been a better time to buy a Follow Focus.

I’ve been doing my usual research, seeing what my favourite sellers have available and came across the new Trusmt DSLR Kit.
Trusmt is one of my favorite budget brands. They produce some great value for money film-making equipment, a lot of really innovative stuff, including their own newly released EVF, so the company is really worth watching, especially that prices seem to be coming down even further.

So back to the DSLR kit, the word “luxury” used in eBay listing name sums the kit pretty well. This is a really high-end looking kit comprised of all the best individual Trusmt filmmaking equipment with some additional stuff that connects it all together.
What really caught my eye is how well this thing is designed/put together. I like how the shoulder pad can be moved back and forth without affecting any other rods and that it can be tucked in just above the lovely, large quick release plate, allowing it to stay on while camera is on tripod. With my current setup, I always have to take the shoulder pad of to be able to use the camera on tripod, it just sticks out too much at the back. Trusmt setup potentially eliminates the need to take off handles and shoulder pad every time you move between hand-held and tripod. Great time-saver and time is money.

The large V3 plate (usually used on larger/broadcast cameras) is a great way to spread out the weight and balance the camera against the weight at the back of the setup, so if the camera is too front heavy, the whole base plate can be moved back on the tripod to bring the weight back to the centre of tripod. A DSLR itself is a light camera, but when you rig it up with rods, follow focus, matte box, it can get really front heavy, which is very annoying to use on tripod, unless I hold the tripod handle or lock it down. I really like the potential the V3 can give. It is probably the nicest quick release plate currently available on eBay and while the price seem to be a bit steep, but as mentioned above, these base plate are primarily designed for high-end professional cameras and have more complicated/advanced design., so it can be expected to be quite a bit more expensive than the basic, DSLR base plates.

You you’re a DSLR user, like myself, I would recommend V3 Base Plate & Shoulder Pad with Extra Rods, with 5D/DSLR mount on the top. Virtually the same price, much more stuff for the money. Want to get want of them myself, so might review it soon.

Saying that, if you just started with your DSLR filmmaking and haven’t bought anything fro it yet,  buying the whole DSLR kit might actually work out quite a bit cheaper, considering that you get everything mentioned above, plus, Trusmt Follow Focus, Swing-away Matte Box, Cool Handles, Power Supply and loads of other bits which individually would cost a fortune to buy even from Trusmt, I’m not even gonna go into how much would such setup cost from likes of Zacuto or Redrock, way out of budget filmmaking bracket.

Very cool Follow Focus, with plenty of features. A lot of people are interested in exact amount of play on FFs and while my unit has some play (1-2mm), it's dampened rather than loose play you'll find in some other FFs, so it actually fills quite nice to operate. I'm sure Trusmt were not happy with this amount of play and T2 is no longer available for sale and has been upgraded to NF2, which is essentially the same FF, but with a new gearbox, which Trusmt claims has less than 0.5mm play, which would be a great improvement. I personally haven't tried the new one, but I have some of other Trusmt products (also reviewed on the website) and overall quality of products makes be believe that the new NF2 could be one of the best FFs around £250 mark. Definitely worth checking out.

This is one really cool matte box. I really don't think there is anything better value for money out there for under £300/$500. It's still not the same as high end MBs costing £1000 and more, but for the money you do get plenty of features, including a swing-away arm, 2 rotating 4x4 filter holders, carbon fiber flags, so really nice MB. Will soon do a round up of all best MBs availible on eBay, so will be able to tell how the price will fair up against the competitors.For now, I Highly Recommend it to anyone currently looking to buy a matte box.

Full Review of my Trusmt DSLR cage above. Made this review almost 2 moths ago and still stand by my words; this a really nice, solid, quality peace of kit, that I actually use quite a lot, especially when shooting with Cineroid EVF, (which unfortunately is not so good, review coming). One of the things I didn't mention in the review is the base plate on this cage. You probably know how annoying it is to change base plates when you switch rigs, let's say from a shoulder rig to a Steadicam or jib, everything tends to have different base plates and you end up having to swap them all the time. Good thing about the Trusmt base plate is that it has 3/8' and 1/4' holes at the bottom of it, allowing you can connect the base plate directly to another base plate or straight to another rig making the whole swap much quicker, at least one base plate always stays in place :) When done with your different setup you can quickly pop your DSLR back into the cage, love it.

Another thing I didn't talk about in the main review is the design of this cage. It really is very well designed with Canon 5D, 7D in mind (don't know how well other DSLRs will fit). There are openings on the top for access to top dials, buttons and display, side openings for card access and HDMI/Mic sockets; my favorite is the bottom access point for easy battery swap. It is such a time saver, comparing to the workflow on my Gini rig, where I have to slide the whole base plate out, disturbing the whole setup, especially the follow focus. So whenever I use the cage, it is pretty much all pleasure, except for occasional difficulty adjusting the top dials and buttons; while the openings are there, it is still pretty much covered on the top, so obviously access is not as straight forward as it is on bare camera. Saying that, the top plate can be taken off or moved back and forth on the top/side 15mm rods that can also be extended. That just the part of the flexibility offered by the care, not only the top plate can be removed, the side walls can be also take off, leaving you with a chunky base and your extension plate for your 15mm rods, which might be just what you need in certain situations, e.g. when you need your setup to be lighter.

Hope this helps. Any questions, feel free to ask.

Here is just a quick unboxing of my Trusmt DSLR cage. Full review can be found here.