DPC

Hey guys,
I wanted to share with you an awesome and affordable monitor made by IKAN that can, with a tiny bit of work, be used as an EVF.
The main reason I wanted an EVF + loupe for my Micro setup was to create a fourth-point of contact between my Micro and my body. 
With my right-hand on the ENG grip, left-hand on the len's focus-ring, chest-pad against my right-shoulder, having the IKAN + loupe pressed up against my right-eye added that extra piece of stability I have been looking for - not to mention being able to monitor and pull focus perfectly in bright daylight.
For those interested, the monitor is called the IKAN VL35 and can be had for as little as $259USD: http://ikancorp.com/productdetail.php?id=1738
I rigged it together with an old ViewFinder that I used to use with my A7S and A7RII. Having sold those cameras, I decided to use it as a loupe for my IKAN VL35.
It doesn't fit the VL35 perfectly (as it is designed for 3" monitors, and the VL35 is a 3.5" monitor), but it will do for now.
However, the good news is IKAN recently told me that they will be releasing a loupe specifically designed for the VL35 - and given the affordability of the monitor itself, I'm sure the loupe will be priced very nicely.
As for the quality of the monitor itself - all I can say is that it's great Very similar to the monitor on the BMPCC. 
I haven't conducted any scientific or methodical tests yet, such as running down the battery or precisely measuring colour and luminosity, but I have used it plenty in the real-world, and it has functioned flawlessly and beautifully. Highly recommended for those looking for a setup like this
Anyway, here are some pictures for those that are interested

 

Yep, I've seen that / those. But the agency / wire world is a very specific case and I wonder how many of those photographers are buying their own gear?

OK. Did you actually test your rented camera before using it for anything important? You sound very cross.
 

Have you understand what is SLOG, and for what is it used for? If not, than you should not shoot in to log profile because you'll have problems like now.
Here's some walkthrough what is slog: 
http://www.xdcam-user.com/2011/01/understanding-gamma-cinegamma-hypergamma-and-s-log/
http://www.newsshooter.com/2011/09/22/sonys-s-log-for-dummies-matt-allard-explains-how-it-works-with-his-pmw-f3/

If you expose slog2 incorrectly you will have major problems trying to grade it. It requires a specific technique, different to what you may be used to using a more conventional profile, especially if you are unable to preview using a LUT while shooting.

How come that the rest of us get nice colours with Sony ? Else you can try some of the other picture profiles first and see how that works for you.

And from a pragmatic point of view, just how long do you want to spend in post? I try to find settings that get me as near as possible to my final result without compromising shadow and highlight detail. These aren't raw files. I work the way I would with JPEG stills. The biggest mistake I made on early jobs with a GH4 was filming too flat and not being able to acceptably restore contrast in skin tones. 

Jase: Thanks but I'm not yet convinced that it has hit a spot:) Building a good skin from flat without a proper lut is challenging. In your sample the most problematic issue to solve was to avoid greyness in darker parts of skin midtones (ex. deltoids in shadow). When the image is 8 bit flat and desaturated, increasing saturation makes an artificial "plastic" look (due to a math of most saturation tools). Usualy it can be avoided by adding previously extracted color layer (in davinci: ilumination at 0, in ps: add color over neutral grey layer). But it work only to some extend. Adding the same amount of sat to hi,mid,low also could mess an image up. Personaly I would experiment and not dial down the saturation in the camera. Lowering contrast values are great but lower saturation in 8bit could be inferior setup. But it shoud be a testing subject and not academic blablapotesis.
Have you got any portrait sample?

 
 

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how far I could open up the image...
For me, the original is a bit too flat.  I had to really pull it around to get this. 
 
 

I have the GX80 and an EM5 MK II. I think just about everything is superior in the Panasonic file wise but he Olympus is a much nicer camera to use and the EVF is much, much better than the Panasonic (which I would describe as being usable but not much more). 
 

Very quick grade in FCPX + https://www.fcpeffects.com/products/white-balance-plugin (which I like a lot).
I would suggest using Paul Leeming's LUT  http://www.leeminglutone.com/ and following his advice on exposure. This will correct the Panasonic oranges that are clearly seen in your footage. It looks pretty soft to me too.
 
 
 

Very quick grade in FCPX + https://www.fcpeffects.com/products/white-balance-plugin (which I like a lot).
I would suggest using Paul Leeming's LUT  http://www.leeminglutone.com/ and following his advice on exposure. This will correct the Panasonic oranges that are clearly seen in your footage. It looks pretty soft to me too.
 
 
 

I service cameras all day long at a rental house, and it seems to me that as product development cycles have sped up, build quality has gone down. I get FS5s and FS7s coming back from shoots and they are simply in an appalling state. Not built for field work at all. Back in the day, the F3 was a tank. Simply a tank. That camera and other cameras built under their CineAlta banner got much better quality materials. The consumer/prosumer cameras....not so much. I was helping a fellow tech attach a battery grip to an A7S II yesterday. Couldn't get it to work. They sometimes go out six at a time, like GoPros, and come back with two or three in need of repair. These are toys, not professional cameras.
That said, Canon isn't immune. I've had to take multiple C300 MK IIs out of commission in the last few weeks due to failing ND wheels. The motors seem to burn out quickly. Meanwhile, original C300s keep on chugging after years of punishment and abuse in the field.
Canon DSLRs (as well as Nikon ones) are rock solid, though. You can give them shit for taking forever to upgrade and add features, but they take their time and build heavy-duty, reliable gear.

I recently sold a three year old 5D MK III to fund an A7R II. even after intensive use, the Canon  was like new and I got a very good price. Within two days (yes, days!) the paint had started to rub off the Sony and has continued to do so ever since. Same for the lenses. Although the Sony seems particularly shoddily built, last year I had to repair under guarantee a GH4 (touch screen broken), LX100 (sensor filth), EM5 MK II (buttons stopped working) and a Sony A6000 (circuit board fried after less than a month). That's more cameras to fix in 2015 than in the previous 25 years of pro work. Seems to me that cameras are currently brought to market too soon and that early adopters pay a high price to be beta testers of equipment that is often built to minimum acceptable standards.

Hi, I´m Javier and I´m the autor of this video, sorry my English is so bad!!. I am very grateful for the nice comments. I love this forum, I have learnt a lot about filmmaking for years as a follower of EOSHD. Talking about the video, in camera setting was Natural Profile all parameters -3 noises reduction -2, i-dynamic and i-resolution OFF. A few shots in 4k and the rest of them 1080 50p for slow motion. Everything was shot hand-held. It was edited in Final Cut Pro X, I applied post-stabilization in a couple of shots, I don't remember which of them. The primary color correction of each shot was made in this program too with color correction tool and finally I applied film convert plugin in a adjustment layer to all the video.
Greetings to all you, and thanks again, nice to be here!

Sorry for you. Perhaps you could say a little more about the circumstances? I had all my gear stolen on a train before Christmas and know of at least one other photographer who had the same problem recently. Station / train theft here (in France), I discovered afterwards, is a big and organised thing. Camera cases and Manfrotto tripod bags are  clear signals to thieves. It got me thinking very seriously about how much kit it was reasonable to carry vs the revenue generated working with it. Decent camera insurance in France is virtually impossible to find.

This is a bit old now but I thought it might be of interest. 
https://fstoppers.com/bts/it-possible-produce-high-end-video-600-point-shoot-53485

This is a bit old now but I thought it might be of interest. 
https://fstoppers.com/bts/it-possible-produce-high-end-video-600-point-shoot-53485

For anyone having trouble opening the raw files (in Lightroom etc), just use http://basepath.com/site/detail-ExifChanger.php and modify the camera model to (for example) GX7.
This is a great camera. Excellent value. I wish my A7R ii would focus as well!

Agree completely about the shiny spec sheets. Currently shooting with A6000, RX10 II and A7R II, all of which fall short of the hype in real working conditions. Especially the rolling shutter of the A7R II...

This year I've shot 5 interview-based corporate documentaries all by myself. I have a Tascam DR70D, Zoom H4N and Zoom H1s. Out of all these available options, I far prefer the H1s because they are small, simple and easy to deploy. I use wired lavalier mics with them. My experience is that, unless you have a dedicated sound person, you need to simplify as much as possible. The most important thing with the H1s is getting your levels right.

Ed, thanks for that! 
Sounds like an excellent reason for using Olympus cameras ;-)
Please keep sharing your experience : I love my EM5 MK 2 for stills and suspect that, if I just tried hard enough, there might be some way to usefully use it for film making, despite its shortcomings... Yes, fizzy codec and moiré...

Quick test. Ungraded. Sony A6000 at the end to compare. Sorry about the light. I have no mastery over winter...
You can download the original ProRes LT file from Vimeo.
(.SO = ISO. FCPX title problem...)

Quick test. Ungraded. Sony A6000 at the end to compare. Sorry about the light. I have no mastery over winter...
You can download the original ProRes LT file from Vimeo.
(.SO = ISO. FCPX title problem...)