EVF/LCD Monitors - Delay an issue?

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deltoidjohn

Veteran
My FS700 should be arriving this week and I've been shopping around for parts and accessories.

One of the things I'm stuck on is an EVF/LCD Monitor, and in my search I keep hearing complaints about a delay with monitoring devices which is worse on the FS700 than on other cameras. This has me a little bit worried because I shoot a lot of surfing and prefer to shoot really tight (500mm often with a 2x so around 1500mm equivalent), especially if it's slow-mo which I'll be doing a lot of with the FS700 - so precision counts!

Is this delay something that is a problem in practical use? Or is it only something you notice when watching the EVF and on-board LCD simultaneously? I've read reports of as little as 2-3 frames delay up to half a second - has anybody quantified it accurately? Have there been any improvements via firmware at all? And what are the best practices to minimize it (ie HDMI vs SDI)? Also are there some EVF's or monitors that suffer worse than others or is it fairly universal across the board?

Also does anybody know of a loupe/really effective sunshade for a 5" or 7" monitor? I'd love to go for a larger monitor rather than an EVF, but don't want to deal with constant glare.
 
Yes, delay has always been an issue with the FS700 (SDI and HDMI).

I've tried many different monitors and EVFs (Alphatron, Zacuto, Marshall, Small HD, Odyssey 7Q) and I always had delay with the FS700

Recently, I did a test with my Fs700 and O7Q : I was fshooting my iPhone running on stopwatch, and I put the O7Q next to the FS700 monitor. Then I took a picture of both monitors with my DSLR (at shutter 1/100). With the clock running on the iPhone, I could now measure the exact delay.
It was about 20/100th of a sec.. So if you were to shoot at 24p, I guess the delay would be about 5-6 frames..

Sure, it's not easy to be super precise with a delay of 5-6 frames, but I guess I kind of got used to it... I try to anticipate the motion of the subject..
 
Thanks Minh. What frame rate did you test this with?

One thing that doesn't seem clear from everything I've read is whether the delay depends on your frame rate - some have said that it is worse in 24p than 60p (presumably because it is always offset by a certain number of frames, regardless of the refresh rate). Can anybody confirm if the delay appears to be a constant duration (ie 20/100th/s) or a constant number of frames (ie 5-6 frames) when changing frame rates?
 
deltoidjohn said:
Is this delay something that is a problem in practical use? Or is it only something you notice when watching the EVF and on-board LCD simultaneously? I've read reports of as little as 2-3 frames delay up to half a second - has anybody quantified it accurately? Have there been any improvements via firmware at all? And what are the best practices to minimize it (ie HDMI vs SDI)? Also are there some EVF's or monitors that suffer worse than others or is it fairly universal across the board?
Click to expand...

FS700 adds about 2-3 frames lag to SDI output and an additional 2-3 frames is added by HDMI. So make sure you get an EVF with an SDI input to avoid the HDMI output lag. Odyssey doesn't add any lag so you can reroute the EVF signal through that if you get the Odyssey. I tried the Kinotehnik EVF and that had really bad lag. I ended up buying the Cineroid EVF which has been ok and doesnt add any lag besides the 2-3 frames that FS700 has native.
 
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