Simmod SIMple Focus Gear & SIMTray Adaptor

November 27^th, 2020

Simmod SIMple Focus Gear & SIMTray Adaptor

by Tim FokNovember 27^th, 2020

Simmod Lens SIMple Fit Follow Focus Gears are all aluminium, seamless and easy to fit. The SIMTray allows cheaper screw-on filters to work with matteboxes.

Like many, Simmod Lens are offering a Black Friday deal, 25% off site wide non-services products, but that’s not why really we’re here, they have announced a couple of interesting new products that are worth checking out.

SIMple Fit Focus Gear with rubber inserts. Image source: Simmod

SIMple Fit Follow Focus Gears

There are many iterations of the focus gears for stills lenses. It’s usually a bit of a trade off of features – metal ones are expensive, adjustable variants are seldom seamless and more permanent ones can get a bit fiddly (oven baking plastic variants to soften them for a snug fit springs to mind).

Simmod Lens has looked to try and solve all those issues with the SIMple Fit Follow Focus Gears, a billed aluminium seamless design with a defined range of adjustability.

The SIMple Fit gears are available in 6 sizes (S to XXL) covering lens diameters from 58-83mm.

(This is the diameter of the focus barrel, not to be confused with a lens filter thread).

Single billed aluminium gear. Image source: Simmod

Each of the gears then ships with 4 compressible rubber inserts to ensure you get a snug fit with your lens.

Full installation steps found here, but essentially it’s just a gentle push and pull, very simple.

Further refinement can be made with the supplied shimming tape, allowing increments of 0.25mm adjustment if your lens falls between rubber insert sizes.

All gears are 10mm wide and feature with a 0.8 mod pitch.

Price scales slightly with sizing, currently $55-60.

Snug fit with rubber insert. Image source: Simmod

SIMTray Adapter

The Simmod SIMTray Adapter has been out a little longer, but is a useful tool for combining more cost effective found screw-on filters with more conventional matteboxes.

Many filmmakers will have investment in screw-on filters – it is a ubiquitous format in the stills photography market as well as a very affordable solution for filmmakers starting out when purchasing kit.

Upgrading to a mattebox is just the first step; you then must re-invest in a new filter format (4×5.65” PV sized filters, or square 4X4”).

SIMTrays available in 4X4 and 4X6.65″ (PV) sizes. Image source: Simmod

The SIMTray looks to bridge the gap. It’s the size of an industry-standard 4×4 and 4×5.65 filters, but acts as a holder for screw-in filters.

You can select which thread size is within the SIMTray, presumably you can then apply step–up threads if you have a variety of sized filters.

It’s certainly not the perfect solution, despite the SIMTray being the same width as a standard filter, you are at the mercy of the thickness of your round filter – if it has several elements like a variable ND, you may run the risk of fouling your filter with other stages in your mattebox.

Filters may protrude into other filter stage areas. Image source: Simmod

However you can now take advantages of the features of a mattebox (hard mattes, flags, further mounting points and later on, actual filters) but a product like this softens the blows in transition.

$49 makes it’s a very affordable product, and this week is applicable with the 25% Black Friday Deal.

What do you think about these products, are you using similar solutions already? Let us know in the comments below.