Zacuto's Gratical X

Bern Caughey

Bern Caughey

Veteran
Same hardware as the Gratical but without many of the features enabled, rather you pay to add-on those you prefer. Believe the base price is $1600 & should be released July 4th.

Sorry for the junk iPhone photo.

jzbgk4.jpg
 
$95 for peaking and $95 for color peaking?! They should give you the peaking for free. It's junk. I have a Graticle, probably one of the first to actually take delivery(especially going by my serial #), and the color peaking actually makes it harder to judge focus.

Peaking on my Panasonic color VF's: Good
Peaking on my Alphatron: Good
Peaking on my Sony OLED(F55): Excelent
Peaking on my Graticle: Piss Poor

Zacuto needs to borrow an F5/55 with an OLED VF and take extensive notes.
 
Run&Gun said:
$95 for peaking and $95 for color peaking?! They should give you the peaking for free. It's junk. I have a Graticle, probably one of the first to actually take delivery(especially going by my serial #), and the color peaking actually makes it harder to judge focus.

Peaking on my Panasonic color VF's: Good
Peaking on my Alphatron: Good
Peaking on my Sony OLED(F55): Excelent
Peaking on my Graticle: Piss Poor

Zacuto needs to borrow an F5/55 with an OLED VF and take extensive notes.
Click to expand...

If you went this route what would you say are the best features that are worth paying for?
 
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Bern Caughey said:
Same hardware as the Gratical but without many of the features enabled, rather you pay to add-on those you prefer. Believe the base price is $1600 & should be released July 4th.
Click to expand...

Did Zacuto say when this new Gratical X was going to be available? I kind of like the idea of ala carte options. In the end I usually just need an EVF to focus the damn camera! LOL.
 
zacuto: ridiculous high prices for ridiculous low functions.

get an alphatron and be done with it i'd say. 95 bucks for a standard feature like peaking? so in order to get a working unit i should spend 400+ bucks, for features on-camera EVF's had for ages? Sure!

EDIT: 1600 base price plus 400+ bucks for standard features of course ;)
 
I don't have a problem with peaking in general, quite the contrary. I think it's an absolute necessity, especially today with large sensor cameras with fast lenses. It's just that Zacuto's current implementation of it on the Graticle, needs work.

I think things like peaking, color peaking, safety bars/frame lines, zebras, B&W, and 1-to-1 are necessary. Cross converting with SDI and HDMI are useful and neccesary, especially depending on the camera you're using. I hate HDMI, but I've had to resort to using it(not on the Graticle) because I ran out of SDI and HAD to feed the VF. I think VF's are a little on the small side for things like waveform and scopes to be really useful. Lut's come in handy for a lot of people that shoot flat/LOG, but I'm not in that camp.

Even though there are a lot of things on there that I don't use, I'm not in the a la carte camp. For the most part, I like to have one, fully featured product with all of it's capabilities available to me at any time. I amy not use a feature 99% of the time, but that 1-in-100 time that I want to/need to use it, it makes it worth it, to me.
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
zacuto: ridiculous high prices for ridiculous low functions.

get an alphatron and be done with it i'd say. 95 bucks for a standard feature like peaking? so in order to get a working unit i should spend 400+ bucks, for features on-camera EVF's had for ages? Sure!

EDIT: 1600 base price plus 400+ bucks for standard features of course ;)
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more.

I hope this trend of companies "renting" and "a la carting" features goes away. I don't want to "rent" my software(Adobe) or have to "unlock" features on my gear that it's already capable of doing out of the box. I think the business model is flawed, anyway. I understand that it costs money to develop and engineer these things and there are license fees on things like certain codecs, but the manufacturers are STILL spending the money to design and implement them in the product even if no one pays extra to unlock the feature. So they have still outlaid a lot of capital out front, but they may never see a penny of that returned, because it's an "optional", "locked" feature that has to be purchased seperately from the main product.

It would be like Ford selling me my truck that had 400hp & 800lb/ft of torque, but I have to pay extra to "unlock" the ability of going over 60mph or to tow a trailer. True, I don't tow anything, but I shouldn't be artificially precluded from being able to do what is a basic, standard capability of a vehicle like that.
 
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Run&Gun said:
I couldn't agree more.

I hope this trend of companies "renting" and "a la carting" features goes away. I don't want to "rent" my software(Adobe) or have to "unlock" features on my gear that it's already capable of doing out of the bo
Click to expand...

i think (but i could also be terribly wrong) Convergent Design's Odyssey is a good example here - initially they rented and sold all recording options individually - and now, after this years NAB they are selling all recording options (exclude Multi stream) for one single bundle price - probably had something to do with the ARRI and Canon guys not willing to purchase half the functions of a unit for such high prices.

NOTE: this is my opinion, i don't know anything about what really was going on behind the scenes @ CD a few months back.
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
i think (but i could also be terribly wrong) Convergent Design's Odyssey is a good example here - initially they rented and sold all recording options individually - and now, after this years NAB they are selling all recording options (exclude Multi stream) for one single bundle price - probably had something to do with the ARRI and Canon guys not willing to purchase half the functions of a unit for such high prices.

NOTE: this is my opinion, i don't know anything about what really was going on behind the scenes @ CD a few months back.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's not one of the reasons.
 
Run&Gun said:
$95 for peaking and $95 for color peaking?! They should give you the peaking for free. It's junk. I have a Graticle, probably one of the first to actually take delivery(especially going by my serial #), and the color peaking actually makes it harder to judge focus.

Peaking on my Panasonic color VF's: Good
Peaking on my Alphatron: Good
Peaking on my Sony OLED(F55): Excelent
Peaking on my Graticle: Piss Poor

Zacuto needs to borrow an F5/55 with an OLED VF and take extensive notes.
Click to expand...

I completely hear you. We added a new peaking feature in latest update which is amazing. It makes the picture so sharp you can see the liquid in someones eyes. It came from a user group feedback in the UK. The red line peaking is going to be fixed in the next firmware update. You will also have a record light, time code, and new layout. We are listening.
 
zacuto said:
I completely hear you. We added a new peaking feature in latest update which is amazing. It makes the picture so sharp you can see the liquid in someones eyes. It came from a user group feedback in the UK. The red line peaking is going to be fixed in the next firmware update. You will also have a record light, time code, and new layout. We are listening.
Click to expand...

I DL'd the new firmware after I saw it posted a few weeks ago and the new peaking makes it a "whole new VF". I can see to focus now. Thank You.

Another suggestion: work on the frame lines/safety lines. I want solid lines all the way across that form a frame/box. I've never understood the "corner only" safety lines.
 
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