Got my Zacuto EVF today. Some thoughts...

cheezweezl

cheezweezl

Veteran
So it finally arrived. I immediately took it out and cranked it up. Here's my take and reasons why I won't be keeping it.

I ordered the standard EVF snap to use with my 7D and FS100. Build quality seems ok. The LCD screen is mounted slightly crooked. Meaning the edges of the LCD aren't square with the housing. Might just be mine but it was kind of a turn off. Also, one of the buttons kept wanting to stick and would just fly thru menu options. Strike two.

I was really hoping that my existing lcdvf would fit but if not, I would just bite the bullet and buy a zacuto loupe. No go there. I could mount the LCDvf and still see in focus but due to the design of the frame, it would have cut the edges off... I can't blame zacuto for this one but it didn't help them in my decision to keep it or not.

Ok. I'll say something nice. The menus are straight up. I didn't crack the manual and I had it mastered in 3 minutes. Nice job guys. The false color is awesome and programmable zebras too. I don't see the need for bars on this as you would want bars from the camera but it has them... Blue only too although I doubt anyone will be judging critical color with this thing.

Ok back to the bad part. Peaking. The one feature I really wanted. The tool that makes or breaks you when trying to keep focus on a large chip cam with a fast lens. It is a useless feature on the evf. It just simply doesn't work. No choice of color. Just white. I was ok with this as I remember the dvx100 only having white but it worked. This is not peaking, guys. This is extra noise added to the entire image, including the out of focus areas. The white lines are always there no natter what and they get slightly brighter when focus is reached. I found myself hunting for it. No good. Go take a lesson from Sony. The peaking on the ex1 and the new fs100 is how it's done. That was the nail in the coffin for me.

But why stop there? It won't take a 1080p signal. I mean it will, but the video gets all weird and squashed. Also, the screen doesn't seem to be any higher Rez than the onboard LCD of the 7D. And compared to the LCD of the ex1 or the fs100, it falls short.

So I'll be sending this back to zacuto and ordering up a cineroid or waiting on redrock or lcdvf or something.

I ponied up the premium price for what I expected to be a premium product. I know zacuto makes solid gear. I just think they missed the mark with this one. To be clear, if this came from some guy's garage and was $300 cheaper, I wouldnt be bitching. But zacuto stuff is expensive and needs to live up to the hype/price. Not this time....
 
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your comment about the peaking or lack of has me concerned as i expressed in another thread here on DVXuser. another review here recently thought Zacuto's style of peaking was adequate but you clearly do not. so i guess its just comes down to a personal preference. i agree with you on the screaming red peaking on the Sony's though. there is no mistaking it even though it smothers you image i still use it all the time on my EX1. sometimes you just have to clearly know where your focus is an the Sony does that. interesting your point on percieved resolution vs your 7D. if you put your loupe up to your Sony's LCD, are you saying that the Sony is more detailed than the Zacuto's?

thanks
david
 
david_p said:
your comment about the peaking or lack of has me concerned as i expressed in another thread here on DVXuser. another review here recently thought Zacuto's style of peaking was adequate but you clearly do not. so i guess its just comes down to a personal preference. i agree with you on the screaming red peaking on the Sony's though. there is no mistaking it even though it smothers you image i still use it all the time on my EX1. sometimes you just have to clearly know where your focus is an the Sony does that. interesting your point on percieved resolution vs your 7D. if you put your loupe up to your Sony's LCD, are you saying that the Sony is more detailed than the Zacuto's?

thanks
david
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well the sony's lcd (fs100) has it's own loupe. the lcdvf is too small for the sony. the fs100 appears to have the same res. lcd as the ex1/ex3 and the zacuto doesn't stack up.

somebody needs to figure out an hdmi input for the iphone 4. best lcd out there!! that's kinda sad that a cellphone has trumped the pro video industry in small lcd resolution.

and again, i know the sony has "hyper-peaking" which i love. however, at the time, i thought the dvx100's white only peaking was adequate. the zacuto peaking should not even be there. it's more confusing than confidence building. this product was designed with large sensor cameras in mind. good peaking is essential for critical focus IMO.

OldCorpse said:
Maybe you had a defective unit?
Click to expand...

i believe you are right when it comes to the crooked screen and sticky button (i would hope so). i think the peaking and resolution are being judged appropriately.
 
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You might be interested in my review of the Zacuto EVF, just put it up:

No offense, but you are (1) affiliated with Zacuto, and (2) you reviewed a pre-production unit, and then (3) had zero complaints. I'm sure you are happy if people follow your link to your blog, but it's best to put your affiliation up front, so people don't waste time, and commercial activity should be indicated as such on dvxuser. As is, your review - with zero "cons" - lacks in the credibility department.
 
Definitely disagree on it being equal resolution to the LCD on the 7D. I noticed a huge difference between the two (with the EVF being much better). I don't own one, but I used it for a little and could definitely tell the difference. But I do agree that it would have been nice to have a better peaking system. Still I may pick one up before my next shoot.
 
I wasn't mad about the Zacuto at NAB either. I think the ergonomics are good, but I saw a fly-wire netting effect that I don't get with the F3 LCD and Hoodman Loupe. The answer seems to be to use the F3 LCD with a Hoodman EX1 loupe and a bracing arm of some sort.

+ EDIT: oops.....thought I was on the F3 forum. The Hoodman solution doesn't apply, but I still feel the same about the PQ of the Zacuto EVF.
 
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cheezweezl said:
So it finally arrived. I immediately took it out and cranked it up. Here's my take and reasons why I won't be keeping it.

I ordered the standard EVF snap to use with my 7D and FS100. Build quality seems ok. The LCD screen is mounted slightly crooked. Meaning the edges of the LCD aren't square with the housing. Might just be mine but it was kind of a turn off. Also, one of the buttons kept wanting to stick and would just fly thru menu options. Strike two.

I was really hoping that my existing lcdvf would fit but if not, I would just bite the bullet and buy a zacuto loupe. No go there. I could mount the LCDvf and still see in focus but due to the design of the frame, it would have cut the edges off... I can't blame zacuto for this one but it didn't help them in my decision to keep it or not.

Ok. I'll say something nice. The menus are straight up. I didn't crack the manual and I had it mastered in 3 minutes. Nice job guys. The false color is awesome and programmable zebras too. I don't see the need for bars on this as you would want bars from the camera but it has them... Blue only too although I doubt anyone will be judging critical color with this thing.

Ok back to the bad part. Peaking. The one feature I really wanted. The tool that makes or breaks you when trying to keep focus on a large chip cam with a fast lens. It is a useless feature on the evf. It just simply doesn't work. No choice of color. Just white. I was ok with this as I remember the dvx100 only having white but it worked. This is not peaking, guys. This is extra noise added to the entire image, including the out of focus areas. The white lines are always there no natter what and they get slightly brighter when focus is reached. I found myself hunting for it. No good. Go take a lesson from Sony. The peaking on the ex1 and the new fs100 is how it's done. That was the nail in the coffin for me.

But why stop there? It won't take a 1080p signal. I mean it will, but the video gets all weird and squashed. Also, the screen doesn't seem to be any higher Rez than the onboard LCD of the 7D. And compared to the LCD of the ex1 or the fs100, it falls short.

So I'll be sending this back to zacuto and ordering up a cineroid or waiting on redrock or lcdvf or something.

I ponied up the premium price for what I expected to be a premium product. I know zacuto makes solid gear. I just think they missed the mark with this one. To be clear, if this came from some guy's garage and was $300 cheaper, I wouldnt be bitching. But zacuto stuff is expensive and needs to live up to the hype/price. Not this time....
Click to expand...

Thanks for your review. Couple of things. The EVF was never meant to work with the LCDVF loop. They have a different mounting system then we have and it just won't work. Not sure what camera you were having issues with on the 1080p signal, please let me know because some cameras and devices that we have trouble with (usually a HDMI handshake problem) get solved as soon as we send them to our engineers to deal with directly and that can be changed in the next firmware update. Someone just gave me an Atimos Ninja tonight which I'm sending to our engineers to make that work. Plus we are constantly adding more cameras to our preset list. Every camera has slight anomalies with the HDMI and that's why it's best to make a preset for each camera. Your crooked screen baffles me because there is a frame that the panel goes into and that snaps into a groove, so that is something I will definitely look into when your unit is returned. As far as the sticky button, I will also look into that. Our QC process checklist is to check all buttons, screens, dust, fingerprints, menus's, video signal, loop out, dead pixels or dots, ect. I'm sorry about that. Now as far as the peaking. Some folks like the way we do edge sharpening and apparently some don't. So I'm going to take your advice have our programmers replicate the more traditional style of peaking and have two variations on peaking in the menu. We have many other software and feature sets we are currently working on that will also enhance the use of the EVF. We should be putting out a new firmware update in 3 or 4 weeks with some of these updates. Thanks, it's helpful to get feedback from the field and we are more then happy to make changes when justified and your's certainly seem like good ideas. So I will improve the QC process and implement some of the other changes you mentioned.
Thanks, Steve
 
thats really cool steve about the possible adding of the heavier red peaking. thats the only real hesitation i had (although slight) and having the option of both styles sound like a win win. love the firmware upgradability for obvious reasons.

david
 
david_p said:
thats really cool steve about the possible adding of the heavier red peaking.
Click to expand...

While I too hoped FIR could be added via firmware, I've since been told it's not practicable on this version.

Here's a link to another thread about Zacuto's EVF. So far there are two positive user reports, one being mine.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?251140-Zacuto-EVF-arrived

I was at CineGear yesterday, & peaked through Alexa's, the F35's, & the F65's, EVFs with an eye to how they compared with Zacuto's. It wasn't a side-by-side comparison, & I haven't spent enough time behind Zacuto's, but overall the image quality seemed comparable. I'll put Zacuto's in front of two ASC members later this week, & get their take.

Best,
Bern
 
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Bern Caughey said:
While I too hoped FIR could be added via firmware, I've since been told it's not practicable on this version.

Here's a link to another thread about Zacuto's EVF. So far there are two positive user reports there, one being mine.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread...ght=zacuto+evf

I was at CineGear yesterday, & peaked through Alexa's, the F35's, & the F65's, EVF's with an eye to how they compared with Zacuto's. It wasn't a side-by-side comparison, & I haven't spent enough time behind Zacuto's, but overall the image quality seemed comparable. I'll put Zacuto's in front of two ASC members later this week, & get their take too.

Best,
Bern
Click to expand...

Your link send us to a general forum page.

Also Zacuto today in this thread said they would implement focus in red via firmware. When did you hear is wasn't able to in this version. I await Zacuto to clarify because red is important. And I would like to put my vote in for the FS100 preset list.
 
mico said:
Also Zacuto today in this thread said they would implement focus in red via firmware.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the heads up on the bad link.

As for the impracticality of adding FIR to this EVF the information came directly from Zacuto. I think if you re-read Steve's post, at least in this thread, he never mentions implementing FIR on the current hardware.

Hope I'm wrong!

Best,
Bern
 
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Bern Caughey said:
Thanks for the heads up on the bad link.

As for the impracticality of adding FIR to this EVF the information came directly from Zacuto. I think if you re-read Steve's post, at least in this thread, he never mentions implementing FIR on the current hardware. As I understand it this is a processing limitation that would cause a latency issue.

Hope I'm wrong!



Best,
Bern
Click to expand...


Well seems to be a conflict or misunderstanding of sorts. I also understood his post in this thread to mean a future firmware upgrade on the current model.
 
zacuto said:
Thanks for your review. Couple of things. The EVF was never meant to work with the LCDVF loop. They have a different mounting system then we have and it just won't work. Not sure what camera you were having issues with on the 1080p signal, please let me know because some cameras and devices that we have trouble with (usually a HDMI handshake problem) get solved as soon as we send them to our engineers to deal with directly and that can be changed in the next firmware update. Someone just gave me an Atimos Ninja tonight which I'm sending to our engineers to make that work. Plus we are constantly adding more cameras to our preset list. Every camera has slight anomalies with the HDMI and that's why it's best to make a preset for each camera. Your crooked screen baffles me because there is a frame that the panel goes into and that snaps into a groove, so that is something I will definitely look into when your unit is returned. As far as the sticky button, I will also look into that. Our QC process checklist is to check all buttons, screens, dust, fingerprints, menus's, video signal, loop out, dead pixels or dots, ect. I'm sorry about that. Now as far as the peaking. Some folks like the way we do edge sharpening and apparently some don't. So I'm going to take your advice have our programmers replicate the more traditional style of peaking and have two variations on peaking in the menu. We have many other software and feature sets we are currently working on that will also enhance the use of the EVF. We should be putting out a new firmware update in 3 or 4 weeks with some of these updates. Thanks, it's helpful to get feedback from the field and we are more then happy to make changes when justified and your's certainly seem like good ideas. So I will improve the QC process and implement some of the other changes you mentioned.
Thanks, Steve
Click to expand...

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply. To answer your questions, I am using a Sony FS100. When sending a 1080p signal, the screen splits, a bunch of static happens, then the image snaps into place, but zoomed in and stretched vertically. I also have a 7D but it has no 1080p output obviously.

Like I said initially, I am not blaming zacuto for the lcdvf not working. I was never told that it would. I just kinda hoped. No biggie. I think if I had bought the flip instead of the snap, I could have made it work by removing the flip part and just going straight on with the lcdvf.

I was thinking of buying a ninja. Are you saying that at this point, the hdmi loop on the evf, doesn't play nice with the ninja? Please clarify.

My unit will be on it's way back to you this week. I understand the crooked LCD and sticky button are just defects. They happen.

If the peaking can be fixed to show definitive focus (preferably in red, yellow, or blue) with a firmware update, then I think I would like the unit.

When I said that I didn't see and resolution advantage over my 7d LCD, I didn't mean that as a bad thing necessarily. I am actually very happy with the 7d LCD except that it is stuck on the back of the camera and doesn't have peaking.

Bottom line is that I am bummed that the evf didn't do it for me. I REALLY wanted this to be awesome. If the peaking issue can be fixed quickly, I would really not complain about anything else.
 
cheezweezl said:
Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply. To answer your questions, I am using a Sony FS100. When sending a 1080p signal, the screen splits, a bunch of static happens, then the image snaps into place, but zoomed in and stretched vertically. I also have a 7D but it has no 1080p output obviously.

Like I said initially, I am not blaming zacuto for the lcdvf not working. I was never told that it would. I just kinda hoped. No biggie. I think if I had bought the flip instead of the snap, I could have made it work by removing the flip part and just going straight on with the lcdvf.

I was thinking of buying a ninja. Are you saying that at this point, the hdmi loop on the evf, doesn't play nice with the ninja? Please clarify.

My unit will be on it's way back to you this week. I understand the crooked LCD and sticky button are just defects. They happen.

If the peaking can be fixed to show definitive focus (preferably in red, yellow, or blue) with a firmware update, then I think I would like the unit.

When I said that I didn't see and resolution advantage over my 7d LCD, I didn't mean that as a bad thing necessarily. I am actually very happy with the 7d LCD except that it is stuck on the back of the camera and doesn't have peaking.

Bottom line is that I am bummed that the evf didn't do it for me. I REALLY wanted this to be awesome. If the peaking issue can be fixed quickly, I would really not complain about anything else.
Click to expand...

I was referring to the traditional edge line peaking in my other post. I think people need to realize that although you keep referring to the Zacuto EVF as an expensive EVF and comparing it to the Alexa/RED which some say it stacks up in resolution. It is 1/5th the cost of those. It fact it is really a very affordable EVF and at it's price point there is nothing that compares in features, durability, color rendition and picture quality. Even the Marshall with 1/2 the features is still much more then our Monitor. That being said, all of these features are much harder to do in a tiny panel and smaller size. The moment you go to a larger screen things become much easier and cheaper to do because you have more space, the panels are more readily available and you can have bigger processors but you really lose the ability to keep it small enough to call it an EVF and get it right next to the camera in a position to match you eye when shoulder mounting it. Plus, the weight is heavier and in many instances you lose the upgradability. So we made choices between all of these factors to come out with the best feature set we could. I can add the Red line feature and have 3 versions of peaking but it will add some lag, I'm estimating one or two frames of lag. I'm in the process of shaving a frame of lag right now so maybe that won't be an issue. I'll be talking to my engineers today and seeing what they think and be back when I have an answer.
 
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