V iewfinders circa fall 2012

D

Dermot

Well-known member
please compare and contrast;

Alphatron @ $1350
Zacutto @ $950
Kineotechnik @ $950
Edit to add DP4 @ $600
Cineroid @ $550

all are about the same resoultion / size, have HDMI input.. is there a reason to go with the Alphatron at 2+ x the price of the DP4 or Cineroid?

Zacutto & Kineotecnik are the middle ground in terms of price, do they offer value above the entry level choices?

for me it's the last stop on the HDMI train... camera-> recorder-> viewfinder...... the split to HDSDI and send to video village happens at the recorder

what would you buy today? why and why not something else?
 
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The DP4 is awesome, I used it all the time in my DSLR days. Can see spending more unless you need some of the added connectivity some monitors offer.
 
Alphatron. Has both HDMI and HDSDI loop . Resolution native is 960 x 540. Retina display. Mechanical shutter to close the loop. Magnesium body.

silvio bonomi
 
Zacuto is a very small and light unit, sips power from an LP-E6 (or dummy battery to V-Lock). It's a view finder, not a production monitor under a loupe.

I simply loved the Peaking display with the 5D - unfortunately, that was because of the low resolution display the camera fed it. Once mated with an FS100 or anything else HD, it's the vaguest hint of a focus aid, and only in silver. Thankfully, the punch-in is fine. Anti-fog is a must. Seriously. Without it, useless. Love it for being light, easy to pack, robust, easy to live with. Does everything I need it to do (except the rant below).

I've tried the KinekenetiK - nice, flexible but freakin' massive. Not something you'd pack every day.

All EVFs with the FS100 seem to have a bit of a disconcerting lag, so get with it, get used to it.

My biggest issue with all of this is that I can't use EVFs with external recorders without knowing if I am recording or not. You can set beeps on the PIX220 which is nice, but just wish that on the FS700 I could output all monitor gunk to HDMI and send a clean feed to the PIX just like the F3 can. Or, send what's on the PIX screen to the EVF on HDMI Out and record the clean feed.

An EVF and a Monitor are different things. I need an EVF and therefore it needs to travel well, not demand a whole different battery cuisine, play nice with the rest of the gang. Having said that, and much as I appreciate Punch In, False Colour et al, would love a WFM. Full screen with overlay, park it in the corner too. Mm-mm. That would save so many tears in the edit suite.


PS: HEY! SONY! We need Expanded Focus to come out of the HDMI port if we ask it to. Be kind! Make it so!
 
I just got an Alphatron. I say stay away. Sure it has some annoying quirks, false colour is a pain to set up, you need 2 hands to open the loupe and the battery requires an unreasonable amount of force to get in about out.
But none of those are a deal breaker, however you can't take this thing out on a bright, sunny day unless you are super vigilant about closing the eyepiece protector.

Within a couple of hours of using it I had 2 holes burnt into the screen. Yes I could have avoided it but I hardly left it sitting around doing nothing, it only took a minute of exposure to sunlight. For a piece of gear this pricey that's far far too much risk, there's no way I can guarantee I'm going to remember to close that thing every time I look away from it.

My supplier had several other people with the same problem and I'm waiting on a solution from TV Logic at the moment.
 
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MattDavis said:
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PS: HEY! SONY! We need Expanded Focus to come out of the HDMI port if we ask it to. Be kind! Make it so!
Click to expand...


Totally agree, it aggravated me to no end when using my DP4. Luckily the 1:1 pixel mode helped me when I needed it.

I've heard great (and now bad, I guess) things about the Alphatron. It's got lots of awesome bells and whistles, but it's $1350, and that's a pretty highly priced EVF for a $5000-ish camera. I chose the DP4 w/ EVF because of the cost (SmallHD recently brought it down in price by $150). To each his own, but I only need HDMI right now, and the loop-through proved to be very worthy. I also like using it as a monitor and EVF, and found myself switching between the two quite often, depending on the scenario (more static shots I like it as a monitor, where the more intense handheld moves I liked it as an EVF).
 
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