Breaking Down The Nucleus-N - Tilta Nucleus Nano Tutorial and Guide
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- The Nucleus-N (Nano) is an amazing wireless follow focus from Tilta. In this video, Garrett discusses what it is, how it works, and most importantly, how to set it up and use it.
GEAR in this episode:
Focus Gear Zip Tie: bhpho.to/36k2aBl
Flat Shoe Plate: bhpho.to/3aLnOkE
Portable Charger: amzn.to/2q8j2YD
Handle Grip: bhpho.to/2RUe2Ee
V-Lock Mounting Plate: bhpho.to/2GnkSwH
Anton Bauer Battery: bhpho.to/36s74Mf
Let's connect - / garrettsammons
The music I use fm.pxf.io/garrett
// #tilta #nucleus #nano //
*This video is not sponsored and all opinions are my own. Some of the links listed above are affiliate links that I earn a small percentage from qualifying purchases. Any affiliate links you use helps me create new content and costs nothing extra to you.
Welcome to Making Movies with Garrett! Learn tricks of the trade, discover new gear, stay up with filmmaking trends, dive into how I pull off cinematic looks, and so much more.
I need a better handle for the hand controller... Any suggestions?
nucleus M handlebars
Great video... never heard of this tilta device
And nice strap teeth on the lens, flat plate flash mount, and rotary knob handle.
Just one small question... does your husband know you're gay?
small rig wood handle rosette
@@TasteMyStinkholeAndLikeIt does yours know you are stupid?
I am Ivan Stan bit overkill 😂
Really, really, really... and I mean, REALLY good instructional video!!! No gimmicks, no "show", no acting, no tricks, no long intros, no nonsense about other things unrelated to the topic... nice edits to keep things tight, good lighting, (nice hairdo), clean look... and great demo on how this piece of gear really works... You DESERVE way more subscribers! You just got my subscription!!! #fan!
Appreciate it Clarke!
I absolutely agree. Found your post on reddit and this tutorial stands out completly from the rest. Thank you for this clear and nonsense-free explanation my friend!!!
I would agree with your comment if I would have seen practical examples of some shots, and how it behaves in a real situation.
I have not seen in any channel showing this product.
agree 100% and love the clean cut look, its hard keeping a beard/scruff looking cut/clean and not slip up where you gotta shave it all.
THIS GUY. Explaining things simply. Like an adult. Making it easy for my peabrain to understand. Bless you, sir. God is speaking through you. Amen. I hit that SUB button so quick.
Appreciate you Travis!
Love this style of guides. Usually you need to get trough all those shenanigans of wannabe comedian youtubers before you get to any information. This is quick, to the point, very informative. I like your solutions like the velcro mount. Keep up the good work:)
Hey man, this video it's a little bit long, but let me tell you, it's actually the best from the rest I have seen on the Nucleus N, thank you for sharing this!
Brilliant presentation, especially about the use with photo lenses. It answered all the questions and cleared all the doubts I had.
Thanks a lot
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for this explanation. I stumbled onto this hardware and was having problems understanding how it all worked until I saw your video. Great job! I'm a new subscriber now.
Watched several videos on how to use the unit...your video is the BEST!
its the perfect video - it should be a template for any of that out
Finally explained in a way I can follow...thanks!
Dude, the part where you explained the focus by wire setup done it for me. Just purchased mine. Thanks a lot!
Thank you for this, just bought this because I not long purchased the edelkrone eco system using two head one units and the slider. The one thing that was missing was the focus and this fits the bill, it takes it one step further that its not just limited to the system and I can lug it anywhere. Excellent work
Thanks Byron! Appreciate it.
Finally learnt a bit of Focus pulling watching this great video, thank you ll consider buying this soon
The turning wheel on the camera rod can that be used without constantly powering it from a power bank like shown in the video ?
It does not have internal power, so it must be powered from somewhere else. You don’t necessarily need a power bank, but you will need some form of USB power.
@@garrettsammons oh okay , thank you
Hi Garrett. Your video is not only concise, right on point and informative, the quality of the shot is so clean. Please come-up with a tutorial including the editing. If you have it already then please reply with the link; I'll be checking the rest of your videos as well. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Alex 🤙
Today is exactly 1 year after this was uploaded, and the "our impending doom is nigh" hit kinda hard.
Man, what I'd give to have 2019 back.
This was great!!! Man you also need to be IN your movies!! I can see you being an instruction designer from how to make your first affordable space ship to brain surgery and back on set as you as a character in Star Trek!!. This was amazing!!
Getting mine today! Finally! Thanks for the very comprehensive video! Subscribed!
Glad to have you on board Jon. Thanks!
Awesome stuff! Informative, entertaining, to the point.
Totally underrated channel! Very informative!
Thanks Jan!
Fantastic tutorial! I can’t believe it took me this long to stumble across you, and your content. Your overview was so concise your delivery so clear and energetic, consider me subscribed! I will now be going backwards and see what else you have done and if it’s anywhere as near as good as this you can color me grateful. Keep up the great work!
Really appreciate that Robert!
9.99k subscribers, damn we in for a treat. Great, great video!
Just crossed 10k!!! I’m floored 🤯
@@garrettsammons Haha, great to witness this, fingers crossed you pass 1m within the next year, there are never enough authentic youtubers.
Thanks for sharing - great video. considering buying it for my BMCC 6K pro Easy to understand this walk through. great job
What a great video. And thanks for the links to B&H for all of the accessories you show in the video.
This was awesome! Mine came with no instructions, so your video really helped. Thanks!
It’s such a cool device!
@@garrettsammons It really is. The ability to map a short focus throw of a photo lens to the entire wheel, is genius! Thanks again. (Subscribed).
Fantastic review/tutorial vid. Mine finally arrived after being on backorder for months and I'm excited. Found this vid after being less than jazzed about the barebones instructions. Gonna hop between my Ursa mini Pro cine-rig and my Gh5 on the Zhiyun Crane.
SUPER INFORMATIVE! Thank you sir.
Great video. Actually kept my attention
This video was an amazing instructional video. Thank you for going into so much detail! 😊
Happy to help Nicky!
Well, I'm sold!
I'd been worried about the short flange distance on my Olympus 12-40 f2.8, and also about the nucleus nano being like using a fly-by-wire focus system. Turns out I'd have nothing to worry about with either of those.
Fly by wire lenses generally don’t have windows that mark where you’re at in terms of focal distance. Also, they tend to shift when pulling focus quickly vs slowly. I can’t speak to the success of fly by wire lenses with this setup, as I use standard DLSR lenses with mine. Just a heads up!
Very informative and quick video. Thanks
Very thorough. Thanks
super nice video dude! You helped me a lot!!!
Thank youfor mentioning the cold shoe flat plate!
It took forever to find that odd of a piece of gear! I had no idea what to search for when I started looking.
@@garrettsammons i've been searching around and it looks like only that company make this solution and I would have to import it. it's quiet expensive for what it is! i've figured that buying a cheese plate will do the same thing at a lower cost :D
Totally get it dude
Good video! I was comparing this one with the Moza and I end up getting the Moza ifocus instead. Super happy with it so far. Built in battery: no cables, no additional batteries as well as faster and stronger motor. The best system in this range of prices in my opinion. That being said, I consider the Nucleus M the ultimate follow focus system for its price, even though it has some software flaws that hopefully will be solved in the future.
Nice break down. Just purchased a MOZA iFocus. It has a internal battery on the motor. I'm pretty confident I made the better choice.
Moza is doing some amazing things! The biggest difference I think in the motors comes down to torque power. The iFocus has a cap of 7.4V while the Nano can harness a range of 5V-18V. Not that you’d always need to have that much juice, but having the ability to scale up to bigger lenses and heavier payloads is helpful if you’re rigging out big cinema rigs.
@@garrettsammons That's a fair assessment. The Nano is a cool little unit, Tilta makes awesome stuff but the internal battery of the Moza iFocus sold me. I also really love that it's can be bluetooth connected with the Moza app too. There is not a lot of information on the abilities of the app, however I suspect it could be very powerful for setting focus markers and even saving calibrations of lens.
This is an incredible video! Thank you
You're so welcome!
I support creators, thanks for the content you earned a new subscriber!
Appreciate it Moe. Thanks!
Incredibly informative and detailed -- many thanks for sharing!
try amazon
using it on my ronin s2 and 6kpro. love it. really smooth. and the batteries in the handle are the same ones in a Tesla.. except they use 7 thousand of them.
A+++++ video. I like that you simplified the setup. Some other videos about this focusing tool start with insanely complex systems. IOW, you demonstrated great "focus". As of December, 2019, the "focus gear zip tie" link is dead. I found other potential substitutes by searching Amazon for the text instead of the product ID. Also the WorCord power pack isn't available. No recent reviews, so probably a dead product. Look-alikes are available on eBay and obviously Amazon has a jillion other power options. Thanks for all the information (and I'm planning to browse your other videos).
Thanks Joseph! Here's an updated link to the Zip Tie Focus Ring bhpho.to/36k2aBl
Great video-thorough and informative. I'm up and running so much faster with your help. Cheers!
I seen a video where when you use those power banks to power the motor system it has a slow laggy turn, but when i seen the video of the guy using the vmount battery it was turning super fast and responsive
That’s absolutely right. A v-mount battery can push 18v of power to the motor, while a USB battery can only push 5v of power. More is always better, but not everyone can afford a universal power solution.
The music was so good 😂
Dope video
Great video! Please update your zip tie gears link; that product search isn’t finding the right product anymore. Also, and I’m sure there isn’t or you’d have said it, but do you know if there’s a way to change how much rotation is needed for an A-B focus pull? By default it’s nearly a full 360˚ rotation and that’s a long way to go for a quick pull. Would love to be able to change that to a much shorter rotation!
Oh that’s a great question. I don’t know if you can change the degree length of an A-B pull. That’s something. I’ll look into. Here’s a link to the zip gears
wideopencamera.com/products/
are you not Jamie Adams from Tredegar?
Great video! Thanks for all the info and the tips.
Of course! Glad you found it helpful
Great video. It helped out A LOT. Thank you. I just liked and subscribed! 👍
Very very detailed information. You're awesome
Dude, you rock.
Good video, keep up the hard work
Super helpful thank you very much :)
What attachment did you use on the handle?
Really well put explanation!!!
Great video.
Thanks mate, was very helpful!
Nice! Good info. Thanks! :)
I fuqz w/ your energy. Great video
Heeeyyy, ok i bought the Nucleus and it looks all very worthy. The plate you use is not available on the european amazon. But the rest of it i found. It is really a super "cheap" focus. And we cant wait how it does its job on the Ronin-S. We use a GH5 with Walimex Cine lenses and it works really really good. Thx for your information. This is an real Video i think not payed^^. But it was responsible for buying that thing. Cool Dude great job… thx alot. Sry for my bad engl. Greetings from Germany
Appreciate that! Definitely not a paid video. I’m just a big fan of this piece of tech. In fact, I just uploaded a video last week about my thoughts on paid videos.
Can you please show a video and send me a list of the gear you got to make the handle for the wheel. Would love to see a video how that setup was built. Amazing video and can’t wait to receive mine
Good review, thanks a lot!
Happy to help!
great tutorial .. A+ Thanks
Happy to help!
great video, no teen show, no long stupid hysterichal phrases and body movements to draw attention; I have just susbribed, congrats
Few issues you didn't mention, the two don't communicate well if they are rigged too close, they need to be several inches apart which can spoil your rig handling. And the Control wheel batteries can get low and it stops communicating with the motor but still has its LED on. Its easy to think there's another problem because it all appears to be on.
It's a good unit when it's working though and incredible value.
I haven't run into the rigging too close issue. I mostly use the hand wheel as an off-camera system with a wireless transmitter. The hand wheel does loose power while the LED is still on, that is true. Also, the battery that came with my unit completely died randomly and I had to buy other batteries. I learned that after this video was already made.
Attach a power junkie to your mounting plate and you can power the motor, your camera, and even a field recorder from the plate with npf batteries, and what's better is you can swap the batteries as needed much faster without disconnecting a bunch of cables.
Very useful video
I'm curious about that low profile rail system you're using there? Can you link to that? Thanks!
Great video Garrett! I just bought a second hand Nucleaus Nano and the screw of the base plate is missing. I tried all screws from Smallrig 1713 and none worked out. Could you tell me what kind of screw i should buy to mount the plate under the camera? That would help me tons!!!!
Curious....if I have a Vmount set up, do I need a voltage converter cable to connect the motor to the power source? Excellent video champ.
It depends on the universal power setup you have. Some have USB ports, others don’t. If you have the right setup with the cabling, the universal power will definitely power the motor.
Making Movies Excellent. I wanted to make sure I don’t damage the Tilta motor with too much power. Actually, I went with your method on this video. SlimPack 10000 just arrived in the mail. Excited to connect the focus pull. Thanks for the vid and reply.
Good freakin video. Thank you. 🤙🏻
Glad you liked it Tommy!
Hi Garrett - I have a question that I can't seem to find the answer to in any forums. How do you change the hand wheel turn speed? Mine turns super slowly at the moment and I want to get a much more fluid / quick turn. Thanks and great video!
The rotation (as far as I know) is set. The only way to change the speed would be to use A-B points. That said, generally it will only slow the wheel, not speed it up. That’s one of the highest differences between this and the M.
Amazing videos man! What camera & lense are you using? basically if you don't mind the full list of setup:)
Check the description of my videos for a full list 😊
helpful! thank you
Can this be used to zoom a lens instead of focus? We do Livestreams and we have a front facing camera that we would like to be able to zoom in and zoom out of without having to be up the front, we mainly do funerals. The lens is a 24-105L canon
Absolutely! I’d recommend using a more powerful source of power than a standard USB-brick. I’d recommend using a USB to P-tap cable and plugging it in to a brick battery (v-mount or gold mount). amzn.to/2VjSarx
That’ll give you 14v or torque instead of 5v. MUCH more reliable especially if you’re using it with the zoom.
@@garrettsammons Thanks heaps, i brought that cable above too and i brought the DTAP splitter from Alvin too as I already use a DTAP battery to power my 5DMKIV. Thanks heaps for the reply!
One other question, the specs say a 300 foot range. Is that accurate? Like could I control zoom from one end of a church to the other? (standard church size).
Awesome video, thank you!
Of course Matsu!
Great video. 1 subscription EARNED. 👏🏻😊
Welcome aboard!
I subscribed simply because I enjoyed your demeanor and realistic perspective on the gear. Plus your not showing 50k worth of equipment like its easily accessible for the average Joe
Great video. Thank you.
amazing!!
Great video, Will a zoom lens be able to manual calibrated?
It would work the same as the focus ring, absolutely.
Thanks!
Nice tutorial and good English for non speaker ! Did you tested also for zoom ring ?
Glad you found it helpful! It will work the same way for the zoom ring as it does for focus. Generally the zoom ring requires more power to turn it, so a USB battery won’t be enough. You’d really need to plug it into something that gives you more voltage. Also, most lenses, when zoomed, change focal depth a bit.
Hello, infact it is what I did: I cut a micro usb cable and connect the red and black wire to a 12v lithium battery pack and it's a lot more powerfull! Perfect also for zoom ring on a EF 70-200 f:2.8 mounted on a crane. Be careful to tight well the rod and the motor!
What color did you paint that accent wall? Lookin' SHARP!
Thanks Lyndon! It’s a matte grey... I’m not sure if the name of it but it doesn’t look nearly this blue in person, the daylight light and color grade really makes it pop in a cool way. Most important thing is to use matte though. Don’t want any glare or shine from the lights.
@@garrettsammons Like a balding male with perspiration who refuses to wear "make-up," get that glossy sheen out of here!
I’m getting a hitter bump at the start of rack, how do you avoid that? Is that a symptom of a bigger problem?
I’ve never run into that, but that doesn’t sound great.
Hi Garrett! Thanks. How long does the Battery in the Focus last you on average?
Cheers
I usually get a few hours of constant use. It’s rated at “up to six” but I’m normally clocking about four hours. I ordered like 3 or 4 more batteries so I can change them out when needed.
@@garrettsammons ok that's helpful thanks.
Very nice job 👍🏾👍🏾
Those are standard 1860 form factor Li-Ion batteries used in pretty much everything (if you break open an NP-F camera battery brick, that’s what’s inside). Can easily find these low-cost on Alliexpress.
Great video! What happens if the focus wheel on a mirrorless camera (Lumix LX-100) is very close to the camera body? Would the Tilta Nano motor somehow fit in that space?
I've heard that you need to have a few inches of space between the two for them to work properly. I haven't tried it myself, as I use the hand wheel as an off camera focus pulling tool.
So keen on one of these. Is there any delay between the motor and controller?
Nothing noticeable! I use it all the time
Hi Garrett, your video is more In details than by Nick from tilta...can you suggest how to use run stop cable for Canon 5d Mark IV?
I only can found where 2.5 m goes, no idea where other end goes?
Can you guide me?
One end plugs direclty into the camera, while the other end plugs into the focus motor on the rail.
@@garrettsammons thanks Garrett.. bought this stuff... honestly they are not worth it if one have canon 5d Mark IV.. their run stop cable doesn't control recording from device..
Hi Garret! Thanks for the video! Quick question - is the mini rod which you mount the follow focus motor on 12mm or 15 mm?
15mm 😊
@@garrettsammons Sweet, thanks :)
Great video! Love the lighting and the look. What did you use to film it? One light setup? What focal length? My nano is supposed to be delivered today! Thanks for some great information.
I have an Aputure 300D at 45 degree angles on either side of me, both attached to beauty dishes. The camera is a GH5S with speed-booster and the Canon 16-35mm at about 22mm.
Do you have to recalibrate like it's the first time every time you change a lens or does it have a memory of previously used lenses?
You have to recalibrate every lens every time. That’s the only unfortunate thing about it.
Thanks man. It's the little things that keep the cost down I suppose.
thanks nice video , so what about those batteries , can we find them in amazon
Yah I just ordered a set of four on amazon for like $8. The batteries that came with the unit died on me pretty quick but these amazon ones are holding up alright.
Hello. Can you record from the nucleus wheel via the multi jack / usb cable from the nucleus to the a7iii? I have tried everything it does not work. We cannot control the recording of the camera from the wheel of the nucleus ....
Can you tell me exactly how you are attaching the wheel to the grip? Are you using the "quick release clamp" or the "Hand Wheel 15mm Rod Adapter" Also how do you get it on the side? Thank you!
This is awesome 😎
Hey, the thing you explained about calibrating photo lenses...could you also get it to work without this focus-distance-display like on your Canon lens?
My sigma lens unfortunately doesn't have this indicator, you can only see the distance on the camera screen....but not very accurate :(
Would it still work if the start and end point aren't set exactly correctly?
Unfortunately, if the lens is perfectly calibrated, the distance marking will also not be perfectly calibrated.
I have bought this beast following your recommendations and I love it. Thank you! I just have a problem and I don't know if it's from my unit or normal. When I use the controller wheel too close to the motor it doesn't work properly. As soon as I walk away it goes great. It also changes according to the orientation of the controller when I'm so close. It is normal?
Thank you very much!
I’ve heard this from a few people. Because this is a wireless system, there needs to be at least several inches of distance between the motor and the hand wheel. This is intended to be used as an off-camera follow focus.
@@garrettsammons Thanks you! I usually work alone and I was interested in it working as a manual follow but the advantages of wireless.
Hello!! Is there other way to power the motor direct to the panasonic gh5??
I don’t believe so. I think you need external power. That said, I haven’t tried powering from the USB-C port.