Pulling better focus with the right lenses

Pulling focus consistently and hitting the marks is important for programmed shots. Here's a couple things to know upfront about lenses. If you are having issues hitting your marks or getting smooth shots, knowing more about your lens is important. 

Starting Premise: I shoot amazing video footage with my Canon XXX L Series lens on my XXXX camera - super sharp, 4K footage. I will never need a cinema lens.

Our response: If you are a timelapse shooter or video shooter, you are now using focus as a tool and should think like a cinematographer. Pulling focus is hard and certain lenses are meant for it and others are not. If you want cinematic focus pulls, the best place to start is with a cinema lens!

Here are several categories ranked from easiest to hardest to get good focus pulls from:

• Best - Cinema Lens - these typically have gears built-in and the best lenses for pulling focus as they were designed for pleasant-looking focus changes.
  • long-throw (focus bezel turns 180 to 270 stop to stop)
  • most forgiving on getting sharp focus for a particular focus range
  • bezel mechanically tied to lens elements
  • witness marks for focal distance
  • Hard Stops
  • No Autofocus
  • DeClicked aperture
  • Focus gears by default
    
    
• Good - DSLR Lenses - Manual - these lenses were designed for manual SLR cameras from yesteryear typically.
  • medium to longer throw (45-225 degrees) of bezel throw to limits
  • Medium forgiveness on getting sharp focus - these lenses were designed for manual use for single pictures
  • witness marks for focal distance
  • Hard Stops
  • No Autofocus
  • Clicked Aperture
  • No focus gears by default
    
    
• Mixed to Bad - DSLR Lenses - Electronic Focus  - like most Canon Lenses
  • medium to short-throw (10-90 degrees) of bezel throw to limits
  • very sensitive focus at some ranges. 
  • bezel sometimes clutched to physical elements - no hard stops, AF doesn't drive a bezel movement, but does move witness marks if the lens has them.
  • internal windowed witness marks, or no marks at all
  • No hard stops.  Hitting the limits will just "clutch" or slip the mechanical focus ring.
  • AF/MF switch - typically bezel doesn't move with AF
  • Rarely have external aperture
  • Zooms tend to breath/change frame structure and feel.
  • Not parafocal (focal distance changes as you zoom)
  • No focus gears by default
    
    

• Unusable - DSLR and Mirrorless Lenses - Focus by Wire -  like many Sony's - This lens cannot reliably hit marks, because, there are no marks or positions of the focus ring that are repeatable.
• No known or set throw from stop to stop
• Slower focus when turning bezel slower, faster when turning faster (like a computer mouse's acceleration)
• bezel not connected to anything mechanical - just an encoder
• internal windowed witness marks, or no marks at all
• No hard stops
• AF/MF switch - nothing external moves with AF
• Rarely have external aperture
• No focus gears by default
• Here' an interesting article that we mostly agree with -  - https://petapixel.com/2017/09/15/focus-wire-systems-camera-lenses-suck/