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Recently saw a second hand Sony ZV-E1 on a local online market place. Price was good and I bought it. Great video camera but lacks EVF. Same is true for it's pro oriented brother FX3. Typically those type of cameras are used with external monitor on professional shoots or with camera LCD display only when vlogging. If you like EVFs and want to add one, choice is not great. No external add-on EVF from Sony like the one Sigma FP has. Portkeys LEYE III modified with better loupe is the cheapest one at 450-500 E/$ but I wouldn't call it small. Then Kinefinity EVF for 1250 E/$. Great one but definitely not affordable. There is an obvious gap and need for a relatively small, high quality, affordable external EVFs for cinema / hybrid cameras. I was looking for quite some time on AliExpress for Mini OLED displays (0.39'' to 0.7'') as a building blocks for DIY External EVF. Usually they come with controller board with HDMI input too. Almost bought some components preparing to do some 3D design and printing around them. Surprisingly found an EVF ready to be used. This type of EVFs were designed to be used with industrial instruments and were on AliExpress for quite some time. They all had lower resolution and AV video inputs in the past. For the first time saw one with 1920x1080 resolution on a 0.7'' mini OLED display and HDMI input. Also for the first time this type of EVFs is targeted toward cameras. Price was good too at 230E/$ so I decided to give it a try. Received the EVF few days ago and am happy to report that it is better than expected. Here is the list of things that I like and few that I don't like: What I Like: High resolution 1920x1080 ( equivalent to 6 220 800 dot camera EVF). Cameras EVFs have 4:3 ratio to cover 3:2 frame + some black strips on top and bottom to display information like exposure and other camera settings. The sensor on this one has 16:9 aspect ratio. To get 3:2 ratio the EVF crops the image to 1620x1080. Still great resolution at the level of ~5 mln dots EVFs like the one in Panasonic S1 series. I see in the EVF exactly what I see on the LCD screen of Sony ZV-E1 minus peaking. This is a rather good thing. Solid, all metal outer shell, good, even great quality of craftsmanship. Eye cup is big, made from rubber and fits around the eye much better than traditional camera EVFs. Big and bright screen - has at least 10 levels of brightness that can be changed and controlled manually. Picture inside looks big and bright, quite easy to see. Smooth focusing / diopter correction ring. HDMI cable is integrated, ready to be plugged into a camera. HDMI cable looks to have good quality. No need of additional power or battery. It gets small amount of power (500mA) from HDMI. This is a huge plus for me. Has mounting thread, can easily be mounted on rigs or cages or even on camera hot shoe. Can be tilted and placed in any position you want. Another huge plus. I've simply put it on monitor holder for hot shoe, which is mounted on the camera cage. EVF sits higher and is slightly tilted. It also provides 3rd point of contact and add stability. I am able to hold the camera lower and closer to the chest, which makes it more stable when shooting. Optimal size for me ! Not too small and not too big. Relatively light. Another huge plus. Optics made of glass, look high quality. Great price for what it offers - 200 Euro ($) including shipping and taxes after some Aliexpress discount. Because EVF receives its power from HDMI you don't have to switch it on separately. It has its own ON/OFF switch but if you stop the camera, EVF stops too as it doesn't receive power from HDMI. This is very convenient because it semi integrates with the camera, you don't have to switch it on/off separately. What could be better: While loupe (optics) craftsmanship is high quality, optical schema is probably not the best. Seeing tower end of the frame and in the corners is kind of difficult. In photo mode EVF has to show picture with 3:2 ratio. It crops the display at 1620x1080 to achieve this ratio. Same is true for video. This is great because this way corners of the OLED display are always cropped and dark while picture in the EVF is still high quality and resolution is still great too. So you always look at a picture which is in focus from end to end and you can see the whole of it. Brightness control has many steps but goes only in one direction. Adjusting it when you want to make picture darker or go at the opposite direction is difficult. You have to cycle trough all settings value until arriving before the setting you were a moment ago. Brightness control button is too small and uncomfortable to use. Both are not huge issues because eye cup completely isolates your eye and cuts external light at almost 100%. Once you set the brightness level you rarely need to adjust it. It doesn't have the additional tools a pro external viewfinder usually has - like peaking, False color, zebras, etc. Because it takes power from camera and becomes additional consumer, battery is drained a little faster. Hard to say how much faster. I still prefer this compared to EVF that have their own battery. Picture is not as clear as in a high quality camera viewfinder. Native camera EVF receives video stream that already has noise reduced. Image on HDMI out from the camera is more like RAW video, lots of noise in the shadows at high ISO, some noise even at lower ISO. I guess the same would be with any external EVF, even expensive PRO ones. It's not EVF's fault. I also see sometimes some texture like noise, not sure because of this particular OLED display or because of the HDMI out stream. Overall picture quality is not up to what you see in a camera integrated EVF but it is close. Surprisingly noise in the shadows helps me better judge exposure and use successfully ETTR. I live in a PAL region but camera was set to NTSC to have 24fps. There was a lot of flicker in EVF image even when only natural (sun) light was available. Maybe this can be avoided with some additional camera settings. No such problem when camera is set to PAL and 25fps. Sometimes when adjusting brightness, EVF looses sync and doesn't display any image. Have to switch camera on/off one time and problem is resolved. Not a big deal but it happened once or twice. HDMI cable is integrated. A PRO EVF has just HDMI out socket and you can choose your own HDMI cable. This one can be easily modified IMHO. Size: L=~50mm; Diameter ~43mm; weight 188g with the integrated HDMI cable Overall I like it a lot. There is nothing like it on the market and especially at this price point. I am surprised it took Chinese manufactures so long to figure out that a good market for external EVFs exists. I prefer it over modified Portkey LEYE III because of the smaller size and no need to plug and charge another battery. I may buy another one. 🙂 Now my Sony ZV-E1 has an EVF and a great one too. 🙂 Here is the link: On Aliexpress You can find it on ebay too. Search for V780H EVF Here how it sits on top of Sony ZV-E1

I see you all lurking in the shadows, secretly reading the rumors, too afraid to hit “post”... 😇 In just a few days, the new Lumix FF is set to drop—and rumor has it, we’re talking cinema camera territory. The Canadian YouTubers? Already in Texas and Portugal, probably under NDAs thicker than a RED firmware update. So... are we talking or what? Because let’s face it: after this one, it’s gonna be another six years—and at least one global event worthy of a disaster movie—before Panasonic releases their next cine cam. Built-in ND? Or are we chasing DJI ghosts again? Meanwhile, our cowboy filmmaker has the mystery box chilling on the hood of his pickup, right across from the light he’s testing:

Just like the Zhiyun light, they will come with silly fake leather trim and Cam Mackey's name plastered over every square inch of the camera, the strap, the case, etc. They'll also have a filter that you can't turn off that gives everything a yellow tint. The x model will come with a hat and it'll have built-in wheels and a special "X" button that makes the camera itself start doing sick burnouts in the sand. There will also be a special Gerald Undone edition of both cameras that will have a special extra-super-hdr mode that increases the rolling shutter to 41.5ms. On this model, the leatherette will be purple. Finally, there will be a Matt Granger special pocket edition which is the same as a normal edition, but comes with some extra large pocket cargo pants.

I am going to predict not. I reckon it will be S5ii spec in a Sony FX3 style body and that's about it. Possibly a better built and beefier S9... Interested? 'Mildly curious'. I have literally just finished packing up my van after updating software, resetting all the settings and clocks etc on all my kit ahead of this seasons opening event. I have ZERO interest in changing anything until this season is done and in the bag. Mid-season changes just cause problems!

Published by Canon (JP 2025-040484) a month ago... «To provide a compact imaging optical system that’s wide and fast.» The prototype coming (or is it mere proof of concept for patent purposes?) would be for a 24mm f/0.7 from those white papers announcing they have worked out «a long-standing challenge in lens design» but according to Canon rumors, any RF f/1.0 lens is then just arriving around the corner, very likely.

If just one of these ^ happens, it would be ossum 🫡

If the rumor’s true and they’re dropping two new cameras, I’m not even that fussed about how they differ from each other. I just want to know how they plan to make them stand out from the S5II and S5IIX. How are they gonna explain that to customers? Just the 60p crop? Seriously, how do they expect all these models to survive in a market that’s getting tighter by the minute? And it’s not like they’re Canon, Nikon, or Sony. Beats me, feels like a magic trick at this point.

Visited Jikjisa Temple yesterday, which was founded in the year 418, and looks straight out of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Everywhere you turn there are compositions that make you gasp. The main challenge with full sun like this is the high contrast scenes, and then grading them so they don't look faded and also don't have half the image almost while or half of it pitch black. This one has slightly more contrast than I'm happy with, but it gives you a sense of the look things start to drift into. When I'm grading them for real, I think I'll likely use large power-windows and pull things down or up using those. As a reference, here's the kind of shot I'm talking about where the contrast ratios are just overwhelming. The information is all in the files, so I'm capturing it all, I just have to pull it out.

That general blackout of a couple of days ago reaching two-digit millions of people for half a day was creepy enough to say the least... First time ever in half of a century of life. We are nothing without modern life or too little. Looked to be part of a movie. Don't want to know what genre is. EAG :- )

The latest rumor is they are releasing TWO cameras: S1ii and S1iix - the latter I presume more video oriented. I really hope they use the Z6iii sensor (as speculated) and that the S1iix is a more compact form factor, with no EVF, bigger fan, no IBIS and a thick OLPF.

And the footage from it, when shown, also looks like all of Cam's other footage. At least now the mindless YouTube zombies won't have to write angry letters to Panasonic that they should send a camera to CM "so we can see what it can really do."

Thats a really nice find. The lack of power requirement and small form factor makes it ideal for cameras like the S9 etc and the BM cameras like the Micro but also for the Pocket4K. It doesn't really have to be the absolute pinnacle with all the bells and whistles as a lot of the time with something EVF less like the S9 etc as you just need it as an add on for when shooting outdoors. I'm surprised someone hasn't been buying these, slapping their own logo on and selling them on for twice the price. CineFran would've done exactly that if he hadn't moved on to barefaced retro console emulation scamming.

This seems to be the clearest frame of it. It's not really giving much away, though.

Does it exist a camera whose image technically falls apart nowadays? 😉

I agree. Chapter 3 was the best. Bar none. But even if we don't like the story (I don't love it either), the reality is that millions of viewers swallowed the show with gusto. That does not happen if the technical image on the 80 inch TV falls apart.

I've been hearing/reading opinions that the way the story would have been perceived by the audience wouldn't have changed all that much if it featured more traditional cuts, and that the gimmick of the oner was just that, a gimmick, to show off the marvel of technology and the immense talent/coordination of the film crew. (The exception to this being episode 3 with the session between the psychologist and the teen. The continuous take suited that scene the best.)

This is a topic that comes up in this forum frequently. I don't think you'll get any argument from the majority of people here that there are a number of sub-$10,000 cameras that will get you really close to Arri quality. But for a majority of Hollywood productions, they're not reaching for this camera. As I said in another message above, it's extremely polarizing among people who have used it. If your use case is shooting an hour-long oner and you can run 14 takes of it to choose your favorite, it may be the best cinema camera on the market. If you're shooting nature, it's a pretty awful camera - lidar autofocus doesn't work that far out and the focus motor can only go about an inch past the lens mount, not to mention that balancing a lens longer than 130mm or so will definitely put you over the 4th axis' weight capacity. If your use case is putting the camera on sticks and using Arri Master Primes, it may be the absolute worst camera on the market. I'm not even sure that they could be mounted, even using the Flex + a cage to add rods. It's a really cool niche camera that is finding success (and will continue to find success, I think) for specific use cases in Hollywood... and in my own short films too. But if people at Arri are losing any sleep, it's not for the DJI chicken head camera.

Weren't a lot of the most influencing and creative films ever made done with equipment significantly less sophisticated than all of this modern stuff? So... I don't get too wrapped up in the new fangled gear. It's all rather incredible, realitvely, tbh.

Just came out of watching Sinners in IMAX. What can I say? Its a good movie, I really liked it a lot and I would highly recommend it. Cinematography 12 out of 10. Acting 10/10 Story 9/10 - I would give this 10/10 if I didn’t think it was slightly inspired by dusk till dawn. If you don’t think so… 2 criminal brothers flee south to some bar to fight off vampires… [SPOILER ALERT] 1 brother is level headed and the other one is off…in both movies there is a girl that is forbidden fruit where the brother that is off wants that forbidden fruit. In Sinners the forbidden fruit is a white girl (black guy in prohibition time), in Dusk till dawn Quentin Tarrantino (yeah he acted in his own movie) was the creep that wanted to fuck the 16 year old (the forbidden fruit). Look… there are some sequences in this movie (sinners) that you’ve never seen before and that alone makes you forgive the inspirational notes and thats why its still a high 9 out of 10 for me.