SnapFocus from Midas Mount - First Impressions

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I just received my SnapFocus late last week. I had fulfillment number 40, if that info helps anyone else waiting.

First impressions are mixed. The build quality is good, not great. The rack and pinion housing seems well-built, but is mounted atop two ugly, unfinished stamped-metal pieces that form the slide for positioning the drive gear against your lens gear, and they’re held in place by a single ¼-20 screw that you adjust by hand (I’d recommend against really cranking on this one, as it will mar the pieces forming the slide). Other than the slide, all the components are nicely black anodized. The rail mount is from SmallRig, with their logo on the locking handles.

Mounting it up presents some challenges if your lens has larger-diameter sections near the focus gear (e.g. a Rokinon Cine 14mm). Raising the camera farther above the 15mm rods helps a lot.

The bicycle levers are pretty simple, and mounted up very easily on my Redrock Micro handles (by removing the grips and attaching the bicycle handles to the core rod). The drive gear is natural-colored plastic and looks to be 3D-printed.

The rack and pinion system is capable of about 4 inches of rack travel, but (and this is my biggest beef with the unit right now), the bicycle levers only allow about 1 inch of that travel – severely limiting the range of lens focus throw you can use. The drive gear rotates about 90 degrees maximum, which is WAY too short to use the full focus of most lenses.

Yes, I know drive gear rotation doesn’t correlate 1:1 to lens focus throw, but the bottom line is the same: The SnapFocus only uses a very short range of the focus throw of the lens. I have some cine lenses with 200 degrees of throw, and with the SnapFocus I can use very little of it.

The limitation is the short pull radius of the bicycle levers – it’s about 1 inch. As the lever travels, the net cable travel lessens even further as the cable stretches between two points of the arc – geometrically forming a segment rather than a sector (yes, I’m an engineer).

To me, this is a very significant shortcoming of the system, and I’m eager to hear from others who have received their units and had time to play with them. Short of completely changing the bicycle levers (to ones with more pull) or rigging a planetary gear, I’m puzzling over how to get the full linear travel of the rack to get the most focus pull range from the SnapFocus.

Why I'm Through with Digital Juice

I have spent thousands of dollars over the past several years with Digital Juice. My studio shelves are overflowing with DJ’s software products. I have gear bags and reflectors and lights and C-stands and flags and greenscreens and more from them, and I like and use this gear regularly. In fact HERE’S my list, copied from their site.

However, I think I’m done buying from Digital Juice. I’ve gone from being a strong advocate for them to recommending against them. The reasons are many, gradual and intertwined.

Point Number One: Devolving Content

Early on (c. 2006), Digital Juice offered wonderful tutorials and videos about filmmaking, with several great contributors, like Perry Jenkins, D. Eric Franks, Jeff Earley and Chuck Peters. (These great episodes are (as of this writing) still available at digitaljuice.com/djtv. You should check them out while they’re still available.) Even Rick Green was worth watching. Their videos since have shifted to tutorials for their products (nothing wrong with that) and purely promotional pieces. (And don’t get me started on Trevor Haugen.)

Point Number Two: The Juicer

A long-time beef of mine with Digital Juice has been over the Juicer. Nearly all their software products are designed to work through the Juicer, and some even require it (e.g. DJ Fonts). The Juicer has always been the weakest link in their offering. It’s slow, cumbersome and temperamental, with an outdated interface that doesn’t comply with convention. It could have been a wonderful, all-encompassing tool for managing digital content, but DJ didn’t develop it to that point. Instead, they kept it proprietary and limited. (I asked repeatedly for the ability to add my own keywords, to no avail.)

Point Number Three: Iffy Customer Relations

My experiences with DJ’s customer service have been outstandingly positive and questionable. There seems to be no middle ground. In one case, a Fresnel lens cracked on one of my DJ Helios lights. I inquired if the standard Arri sizes were a direct replacement. DJ replied without answering my question, but offered to replace the broken lens, and made good on that offer. In another case, a software product (on DVD) didn’t work due to obvious, visible defects in the DVD’s manufacture. DJ refused to help as it had been more than 30 days since the purchase date. Silly me for buying a multi-disc, post-production graphical software product that I didn’t use and fully test for functionality within 30 days.

Point Number Four: Pricing Practices

Twice, I’ve purchased Digital Juice products shortly after their introductions, at ‘early adopter’ pricing, only to find the prices reduced about a week later. This drove me to never buy a DJ product upon its first introduction. Though this one bit me twice  I will say that DJ stepped up and granted refunds for the difference each time. Only once I asked.

Point Number Five: Degrading Quality over Time

I bought four C-stands when they offered the chrome, solid version; they then changed it to black, with inferior hardware. I bought LED lights when they offered them from Prompter People; then they re-packaged it with a plastic housing (vs. aluminum). On the media content side, the early products from DJ (JuiceDrops, StackTraxx, etc.) were packaged in sturdy, rigid covers that continue to hold up well over time. They switched to very flimsy packaging originating in India (based on the little paper flags that fall on the floor when you open their products). I have continued to wonder where their products are developed and produced; in supporting Digital Juice, based in Florida, have I been sending my money overseas?

Point Number Six: I’m Stuck

DJ’s license agreement prohibits anyone from re-selling the media products purchased from them, even if it’s the original physical product. This is quite different than the music world, for example, where you can buy and sell used CDs, DVDs, etc. so long as you’re not selling illegal copies. DJ’s license agreement means I can’t sell the original packaged product I bought from them, despite it being of no use to me any more. They’re within their rights here, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it. Even if I have a duplicate, I can’t sell the duplicate.

Point Number Seven: Outright Thievery?

The latest product offering is “Drag & Drop,” and is very, very similar to products offered over the past few years by Rampant Design Tools. Scary similar. To make matters worse, when I (and others) posted politely and factually about this on DJ's forum, they deleted the posts. For a company to be so insecure that they can’t tolerate discussion of their competitors’ products is sad; for that company to delete legitimate, non-critical posts comparing their competitor’s products is community-destroying.

No one of the above points was enough to prompt me to action. Taken together, however, they are. I’m moving on. My Digital Juice buying days are over.