Cineroid EVF came! Initial thoughts with GH2.

Hunter Hampton

Hunter Hampton

Carbonite Member
My new cineroid evf showed up from hotrod cameras today! The feed coming from the gh2's hdmi is a perfect pair for this.

Image is great, sharp, contrasty- seems accurate.
lots of custom tweaks available in the menus
EVF is light
1:1 pixel zoom is amazing!

Ill do a full review soon as soon as I get the rest of the stuff I need to rig it for proper shoulder use (need a long noga or zacuto arm).

In short, based on playing with it for about 5 minutes.. Im loving it. Seems like a must have for any hdmi enabled camera- dslr or professional video camera.
 

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Sounds good....


.... although they really need to find a new name for it. Sounds like something you need to go to the drug store to relieve.
 
It hard for me to spend more money on a evf than the body costs. The stock lcd and evf is good already no?
 
The gh2 evf and lcd are great, but this changes the whole way you shoot- allowing you to put the evf anywhere you want (shoulder, studio, tripod) and use it on any camera with an hdmi that you want. Its actually insanely cheap for what it is, sony makes something similar for their cameras that costs about $8000.
 
Hmmm, since Im not going to buy a ki pro mini for the af100 anymore, this looks like something that I can add that will add value to my shots.
 
How accurate is color and contrast, and how does it handle anamorphic? Looks like it would be really useful especially with 1:1

EDIT: Looks like you could put a anamorphic loupe on it. The 1:1 and zebra function would be pretty essential to operating the gh2 while recording. My gh2 seems to meter manual lenses 1.5 stops too low, where the gh1 was only about .5 stops lower than it should be.
 
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Hunter! do you have had some more time to play around with your new toy? I am going to order one of that, but it depends on your experiences :-)
Benn
 
Played with it more yesterday, the colors seem accurate to what the files look like on a computer. But there is full rgb color adjustment in the cineroid's menu's so you could really dial it in. The hdmi in and out are both mini sized, so it comes with a mini to mini cable. I kind of wish there was full size on the viewfinder but I guess they wanted it to be as small as possible.

What I like the most so far:

Peaking:
You can set either red or white peaking, as well as dial in the threshold of the effect. Really works great it's easy to see focus. Also you toggle it with a little button of the side of the evf.

1:1 zoom.
This will really come in handy, if your doing a long take like an interview- you would be able to pop in while recording and double check focus. You can also set what button you want to do it as well as choose toggle or press and hold. Nice

Weight:
This thing is super light and pretty small. It would be great to use handheld on a red instead of the old big heavy evf.

Eyereleif:
The diopter is super comfortable on your eye and doesn't leave you feeling strained or having blurred vision.

What I'm not liking the most:

The battery doesn't seem to have a release making it hard to take off (maybe this is a somewhat good thing?)

When going in the menus, there isn't a fast way to get out- you have to scroll and click exit on every page

Resolution is good, but the magnification could have been backed off just a bit, you can start to see the pixel structure

Mini hdmi cable, I'm really hoping someone comes out with small coiled hdmi cables, with strait and stiff cables it seems more likely that you would break off a connector.


I still need to test battery life and I'm waiting on a new long noga arm to see how it works for an real shoulder rig set up. So far, there are some things I would have done differently, but as far as price and value- this thing is worth it.
 
Thanks Hunter that you took time to report your first impressions.
I have had the problem with the stiff HDMI cables with my totevision Monitor on my 5D MK II and it sucks, but after all you can get cables with mini HDMI up to 5 Meters. Small remote controlled HDMIs would be fine :-)
Probably they can change the handling of the menu with a firmware update?
Benn
 
plasmasmp said:
How accurate is color and contrast, and how does it handle anamorphic? Looks like it would be really useful especially with 1:1

EDIT: Looks like you could put a anamorphic loupe on it. The 1:1 and zebra function would be pretty essential to operating the gh2 while recording. My gh2 seems to meter manual lenses 1.5 stops too low, where the gh1 was only about .5 stops lower than it should be.
Click to expand...

Anamorphic loupe? link?
 
Just tried it out on a red today, not as sharp as the 1280x720 image on the red evf of course, but it does work and is super light compared to the red finder- possibly a decent alternative for certain applications. Now if I can just figure out a good way to mount this thing!
 
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