JimJeffBeam

haha .....both typing at the same time!!

I have a 7" lilliput monitor on mine also.. Hooked into hdmi, very reliable and i would say essential.. I have a loupe with a diopter for focusing, but the other 95% of the time, i'm using the lilliput. It does much better than that turd of an LCD attached to the Gh2 when you hit record.. (Doesn't go apeshit "blue-green" when you start recording, lol.) There is still the gamma shift issue, but nothing like the lcd.. i paid $220 for mine.

nope. The hack only needs to be on the card while the camera is loading it up. Afterwords, it can be deleted or you can just format the card. Don't format the card on your computer.

[edit]
LOL! Andy beat me to it!

You can buy a crank separately if you like but in its not really needed. It fits into the square hole on the center of the knob of the follow focus. Here's some videos on Youtube of some various follow focuses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSS8Axp46KM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1M0c96DH6w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtTMYQvvU3I

Sorry, I don't want to mislead you, It's not a stabilizer like as in a steadycam. It presses up against your body and give you a more stable grip on the camera. It's meant to give you the most points of contact with your body in order to give you more stability and reduce camera shake when doing hand held work. Really, they call this a DSLR shoulder rig but since it doesn't have a part that goes over your shoulder, some people call it a chest stabilizer.

The main reason I suggested the eye piece is that it's would add to increase the points of contact. So you'll have the camera touching your chest, hands, and head. The main function of the Eye piece though is essentially to magnify the back 3" display and make it into a viewfinder. So, it's not really a replacement for an external monitor. It's something that you would use when you were shooting with the camera close to your face like in this situation. In situations where the camera is father away from your face, like on a tripod or low slung while holding the top handle, a monitor is obviously more beneficial and the viewfinder wouldn't really do anything for you.

Yeah, that one is cheap but I don't think it's actually going to help you out much. If the issue is that when you touch the lens it causes the camera to bump and shake the footage, then what you need some way to stabilize the camera. If you get this, when you move the focus lever, it will cause the camera to roll (rotate on the Z axis) a little. Maybe even more then when just using you hand on the lens. This lever mechanism is a good invention for tripod use or when you have the camera mounted on a shoulder rig though. The follow focus is a better solution because when you turn the knob, you are only moving your wrist in the cameras X axis which is actually easer to counter with your right hand then the Z axis rotating. Another advantage is that you are turning your wrist so that when you want to focus on something closer, you turn your wrist towards you and away from you when you want to focus on something farther away. It's just more natural then rolling the lens back and forth. BUT, the big issue here is that since you are using a pancake lens, I don't know if you can actually get a follow focus on this. Maybe someone with a pancake can chime in on this?

Actually, What I think you need is a shoulder rig more then anything else. Just something that gives some more stability so that when you touch the camera it doesn't move and shake as much. The Camera will be more stable with more points of contact.

I have a little secret here:
[img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41WwELcrebL._SL500_SL130_.jpg[/img]

[url="http://www.amazon.com/Camera-Shoulder-Support-Handles-Standard/dp/B008MTRGJY/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_t_1"]http://www.amazon.co...pd_rhf_se_p_t_1[/url]
It's ridiculously cheap and pretty good quality to boot. And best of all, it comes with a freaking follow focus! This thing is an amazing value. Just the follow focus alone is a $100.

But the question is still whether any follow focus works with a pancake lens.

[color=#222222][font='Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif][size=4][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]

Another thing I just thought of is that with the 20mm pancake, the focus is by wire with no hard stops and not necessarily repeatable. Because of this there's no way to guaranty that the lever of the lever type focus is going to be on the right side of the lens for your hand. In fact, now that I think about it, you might not be able to use those adjustable belts with a follow focus either. Because at some point the clasp could get turned around the lens and jam up with the focus gear that hooks up with the lens gear. Hmmm. There's no easy way to explain this... I hope you are able to follow my train of thought... At any rate, it will take some careful planning and learning to get it right.

So, for the one I indicated above ([url="http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Compact-Follow-Support-Camcorder/dp/B008MU97MC/ref=sr_1_354?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1352332540&sr=1-354"]which is this one[/url]), it looks like the whole gear box can be rotated 180 degrees when you loosen it to move up and down on the vertical mount. This way the gear can be turned so it is closest to the lens instead of the gear box running into the camera body first. I don't know if that makes sense but I think it will work.[/background][/size][/font][/color]

Yeah and while we are on the subject of points of contact, this will help keep things stabilized too:

[url="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41wpV0XQa%2BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg"][img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41wpV0XQa%2BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg[/img][/url]

[url="http://www.amazon.com/CowboyStudio-CA0602-Viewfinder-Digital-Cameras/dp/B005EM6G7U/ref=pd_cp_p_2"]http://www.amazon.co...U/ref=pd_cp_p_2[/url]

Okay, no more after this I promis:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?222269-Panasonic-Pancake-Lens-Shoot35-Follow-Focus

A follow focus is designed to make the focus pull even smoother and more precise by adding more gears between your hand and the focus ring on the lens. Most follow focuses come with markable discs so that you (or your dedicated 1st AC/focus puller) can design and execute very precise focus pulls.

Actually, for your purposes, I agree with Andy as well. If you really get into video work, then you should look into a follow focus. But for now, this solution will work for you. The strap wraps around your lens gear ring and you focus by manipulating the handle. Because the tip of the handle is further away from the lens, you have to turn it more to achieve the same focus pull but this will also stabilize your focus pulls. It also takes the focusing action out of your fingertips, which can only move the focus ring so far, and puts it into your wrists and arms like this:

[center]http://youtu.be/OAo-ZF-nXF4[/center]

or... get one of these off ebay cheap and easy to use
I use these alot on hand held shots as I can pull focus easily with it run and gun style

[url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310430040229?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310430040229?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649[/url]

Get a follow focus and a monitor with a good peaking feature like the SmallHD DP4 or DP6. The focus assist feature will help you nail focus every time.