_ In last few weeks I’ve been looking at what follow focuses are currently available on Ebay. I discovered a few new ones, see some of my latest posts andchecked out the latest prices on the ones that have been available for a long time like Trusmt, Forga, RJ as well as other Chinese and Indian stuff. This gave me an idea to do a FOLLOW FOCUS BUYER’S GUIDE. I’ve tried a lot of them myself, other ones I don’t know so much about, so can only give my opinion from what I see.

How this guide works: You will find links for every FF in below ( you can click on word in red and pictures).  Some are general search links (Trusmt, Gini, Filmcity), others specific deal links (RJ, Fotga) because they are sold by many different stores and I will include the links of the best deals I found. Chances are that some of the listings will end by the time you read this, so just do a search on the particular shop to see if it got relisted the item or search for similar elsewhere on Ebay.

I decided to go from cheapest to most expensive, rounding up with my personal recommendations and conclusions. I haven’t included every single Follow Focus on Ebay, but only the ones that I personally think deserve a place in this guide. Value for money varies, but even the most expensive ones are still great deals if you think about choice and prices even 2 years ago.

_ 1:  Starting with something that broadly known as RJ Follow Focus. I don’t have one myself, but I’ve used it a couple of times and I was very impressed. There was a very little play and overall it performed nicely. Currently the cheapest Follow Focus deal on Ebay, so for this price, I certainly recommend it.  One thing to know though, its accessory port is not standard side, so you usual Whip and Speed Crank won’t fit properly. You would need to look for one made specifically for this FF

_ 2: Fotga DP500. This is very nice looking unit, all metal, much better built than RJ, but from seeing some reviews on the net, it looks like the gearbox is a bit of a letdown, which might be the reason why it’s not as popular as RJ.  The price is pretty much exactly the same as RJ, crazy cheap, so definitely worth looking at.

_ 3: Next up is a newly discovered, but a bit dull/cheap looking FF-110, which uses the Huco gearbox (in my opinion not such a bad option), but the biggest advantage of this unit is that it comes with whole set of accessories including 6 lens rings, 1 flexible lens ring, whip and a speed crank.  The unit is only slightly more expensive than the 2 above and I thing it offers really good value for money, definitely worth a closer look.

_ 4: Coming from the same seller as FF-110 is the Filmcity X1, which I only just realized looks too much like Shoot35 FF.  I must say, this looks like a rip off, definitely not as good as the original, but unfortunately I don’t have money to buy the high end stuff, so I can only hope that I get a good value for money when I buy something cheap. The X1 looks like a nice unit, however I don’t know anything about the gearbox, which is a bit alarming. The price though is still well below £100/$150 mark, so still looks like a great deal, I'm really interested in this one.

_ 5: Next up virtually at the same price we can get something quite unique.  This is an RJ unit with a special mount that allows it to be mounted directly to the camera, without the need of rails This is probably was invented and can be found in Dfocus units. I know for sure that some people prefer to keep their setups to the minimum, taking advantage of the DSLR form factor, so a unit like this really cuts down on the size and weight of the rig. If you don’t currently have a set of rods and a compatible base plate, then this unit is definitely something to think about. I found a virtually new one on Ebay for a slightly lower price and bought it.  Will review it soon.

_ 6: Now going slight over the £100 (under $200) we get to the first of adjustable hard stop FFs. Again, this is basically an RJ unit, with some hard stop, originally introduced to budget world by Trusmt. The RJ unit is a bit on the cheap, plasticky side, but for this price, I can’t fault it. If you really want the hard stops (which can be very useful) then this is the cheapest option out there.

_ 7: Going up a bit higher (due to a high postage cost) is the Gini’s iFocus. Amazing unit really well built like the rest of Gini stuff. I used to have one, but sold it because it had the same amount of play as my Camtree FF. The reason for sale, I knew I’ll get more money for iFocus, than Camtree, so I decided to kept my good old Camtree. From other reviews and comments on my review, it appears that that majority of iFocus FFs don't have any play at all. Until I hold one in my hands that has 0 play, I can’t be sure for 100% if that is the case. I do still highly recommend it, even it it has tiny amount of play.

_ 8: With a very little else worth mentioned in £100-£200 ($150-$300) price bracket we jump right over to over £200/$300 mark starting with the cheapest, the Lanparte FF. I’ve heard these are really good, even better than iFocus, however at this price I can’t personally force myself to get one just to prove this right or wrong. It appears  to be very well built and as all the other Lanparte  products sold all over Ebay (rigs and accessories with green knobs). This company is a real competitor to Trusmt with a wide choice of product built to high standards. Shame there is no dedicated Lanpatre store on Ebay, it would have been nice to see everything they have in one place.

_ 9: Trusmt NF2. Good, old Trusmt. I used to have a T2 version and at the time, when most of the FFs above were not available I was amazed by the value for money. Really well built unit with an upgraded gearbox, which is suppose to have less than 0.5mm backlash. I guess it is true if they so bravely put emphasis on the play. I also haven’t seen any feedback claiming otherwise, so it could be a really good choice if you are looking to buy a quality FF without experimenting with cheaper options, like I do :-) Of course this unit also has the famous hard stops, which I personally didn’t use much, but is a nice feature if you are not working against time, as constant adjustment can be very time consuming.

_ 10: And the final FF in this user guide, just still under £300/$500 bracket, but quite expensive Lanparte with Hard Stops, just like Trusmt above.  This is certainly a quality looking unit with all the bells and whistles, but I’m still not sure it it’s worth the price when so much other stuff is available at half the price or less. If you are a Lanparte fan though, this could be an ultimate FF for you.

_ Conclusion: With such a great choice of completely different FFs it is really hard to recommend just one. I think it is more about your budget than anything else. The few than stand out to me are: RJ (for being the cheapest), Filmcity X1 (looks good for the price), RJ with direct fitting to the camera (unique mounting option) and  Gini iFocus (built like a tank, great value for money).  I won’t recommend just one, but I would suggest that you guys make up your own minds about what you need and how much you want to spend.  Maybe watches some reviews, I’ve done a few myself including iFocus and Trusmt (click the names to see the reviews). I’m also hoping to review a few more in near future, so stay tuned.

P.S. These posts always end by being really long (hopefully not too boring though). I hope some of you stuck with me till the end, let me know if you did and if it was helpful at all.

_ Today. I’ve noticed 2 new Follow Focuses on Ebay at ridiculously low price, about the same as the very popular Fotga and RJ units. 

The new ones I found come from India, rather than China, where I usually except to find the cheapest gear.

Both are sold by the filmcity23 shop, which sells a lot of gear usually found in other India based Ebay shops, but also some exclusive stuff like these 2 follow focus units.

So let me go through these units individually:

_ 1: FF-110 – This one doesn’t carry the Filmcity name and looks quite generic, but there are some nice points & accessories that potentially makes this FF one a best deals on Ebay.

The FF-110 comes with loads of extras, including as speed crank, whip, set of 6 lens gears (my favorite) and even 1 flexible lens gear (very popular). You won’t get so many extras with one of cheap Chinese alternative, so this really improves the value for money you get with this unit. A set of 6 lens gears would set you back £50-£60 to buy separately. A whip & a speed crank would cost another £30-£40, so you could say, you get this FF for free.

This follow focus has Huco gearbox. This one used to be quite a popular gearbox, and could be found in Redrock, Camtree and Gini FFs. A lot of people claim that this is not such a good gearbox, but I’m still using my Camtree FF to this day, because I find that its gearbox has the least play out of all budget FFs I’ve tried,  so I don’t thing Huco gearbox is the worst choice to go for.  One of the nice advantages of Huco over some fancier looking, integrated gearboxes is that it can be reversed to work properly with Canon and Nikon lenses (which focus into different direction).

Overall I think it is probably quite a decent follow focus and for the price it is probably the best value for money FF currently available on eBay. It would make a perfect first FF even is not quite perfect, although I think it should be quite decent. Also, all the accessories that you get with it can be used with any FF, so if you decide to upgrade you won’t have to invest into a new set of accessories.

_ 2: Filmcity X1 - this actually carries Filmcity name on the side and inside the focus knob; nice touch and this FF certainly looks more exciting than FF-110. The X1 has nice, bright red aluminum parts, including what looks like a 360 degree adjustable pointer (looks the same like my Camtree), knob at the bottom (again the same as Camtree) and the accessory port.  Unlike camtree though, this FF has a different gearbox, one of them fancy integrated ones, that I’m not really familiar and I don’t actually think it can be reversed, which is a bit alarming (the reason I sold my Trusmt FF, which would focus properly with Canon lenses). However if this is anything like Chinese FFs it will work fine with Canon lenses. The nice touch of this gearbox is that it has 2 gears of different sizes on each side of the gearbox. This means you will not have any problems using this FF with smaller lenses like 50mm or most of the vintage manual photography lenses which are usually really small.  Another nice touch is the removable magnetic marking disc. Although not something that I usually need, but can be a useful feature.

This Follow Focus comes with a Whip and 1 Flexible Lens gear, which is not as great deal as the FF-110, but will be enough to get you started right away. A whip is worth around £20 if bought separately, so it is still a great deal if you need one as you won’t get one with cheap Chinese units.

Again, I think this follow focus offer a great value for money, you certainly won’t find anything much cheaper, especially with a whip. I’m personally really interested in this FF. It has a lot of point I like in my Camtree FF and a gearbox, which might or might not be better than Huco. Very interesting, you might see me reviewing this one pretty soon, for this price I wouldn’t be risking much.

_A few days ago I’ve had the opportunity to work with a JAG35 wireless follow focus.  I was working a music video shoot, shot on RED ONE with Zeiss CP.2 Primes.  Nice kit to say the least. I knew about the JAG35 wireless FF for quite some time now and I was really happy to finally get my hands on one for a whole day.

I wouldn’t call this post a Review, but rather I want to share my thoughts and reflect on my experience using this FF.

To start with, I want to make it clear that I’ve never used a wireless FF before, but I use a manual (without motor) Follow Focus almost on every shoot, so it didn’t feel to unusual. Actually it felt quite exciting and fun using the remote, which loosely resembles the controller for the high-powered remote controlled cars.
_

_ On the front, this remote has a nice large focusing wheel and2 adjustment wheels below which determine the motor hard stops, useful for both cine lenses and photo lenses without hard stops like Canon EF. These wheels also adjust the speed of motor, so let’s say if you lens has a very short focusing through you can adjust the remote to give the focusing wheel a long through by making the motor attached to the lens spin much slower than the focusing wheel on the remote (hope you understand what I mean). I didn’t really have to use this feature at all with the Zeiss primes because they have such a long through, but a lot of photo lenses, like my Canon 100mm Micro, have a very short focusing through and focusing with these lenses is an absolute nightmare, even with a follow focus. Using something like this remote focus unit can give new life to such lenses, letting you adjust the focus in much smoother way. For me this is a big advantage over a common, manual FF.  I never knew such feature existed before I got my hands on this FF and for me this is one of the top features. Obviously if you film and focus yourself at the same time , this unit is not a good option, but if you are pulling focus for someone, this is just great.

I don’t usually pull focus for other people, but using this cool unit actually made the whole experience quite exciting. I was using it for all the jib shots where focusing otherwise was not possible anyway.  Rather than standing next to the camera and guessing the distance, I chose a more fun way of standing next to massive 17” screenand focusing by looking at the image feed running directly from the camera via SDI cable. It was almost like playing a computer game, except it was much more pressure to perform well.

Coming back to remote; it also has a sliding adjustment knob on the side which would let you adjust the aperture if we had 2 motors, but we didn’t have 2 and since we were in controlled lighting environment, the aperture didn’t need constant adjustment.

The remote is powered by a Canon battery, same that is used in 5D/7D cameras, so it is a convenient choice for people using these DSLRs. Same battery goes on the actual motor. Unfortunately the motor bracket didn’t hold the battery that well, so it had to be secured by additional gaffer tape to make sure it doesn’t fall out. I’ve heard of this problem before, I think from another review, so this is something that JAG35 should definitely address.

_ The motor itself is pretty nice. It’s fast and responsive, although it seems to have a slight delay, which I guess is something that should be expected for such price, after all this unit costs many times less than any other wireless FF.  Another thing that can be a downside in some situations is that the motor is quite noisy. If you are recording sound on onboard mic, you can forget about using such sound, but in reality you wouldn’t really use such device with onboard mic as the only souse of sound. It is certainly the best for jib, dolly and steadicam shots. In our case, shooting a music video, the motor noise didn’t make any difference whatsoever.  I will be using another wireless FF in a few days time, so I will be  able to compare the noise levels and see if it is something standard or a downside of Jag35 FF.

One more thing I wanted to mention is that the JAG35 wireless FF can only be mounted only on 15mm rods. RED has 19mm rods,so there was no way to mount it directly on the rods. The FF had to be attached to a short 15mm rod (which might have been the part of the kit) which was then attached to a flexible arm and positioned upside down on the top of the rig. This meant that the motor was now spinning the opposite direction, making things a bit confusing for me. The ability to reverse the spinning direction would have been great in such situation, but there wasn’t one. Fortunately for people like myself, it looks like the upcoming V2 version of this follow focus will have reversible motor function on both focus wheel and aperture slider.

I actually can’t wait to see what other improvements the new version will have, as the first one was already pretty good for the price.

As mentioned above, in a few days time I’m working on a new music video, this time using a Preston wireless FF which I think costs many times more, so I will see if it is also many times better and really worth the extra money, not to say I could afford one.  No matter how got it would be, as far as I can tell the JAG35 unit is the only one that fits into a “budget filmmaker” bracket, which is what this site is all about.

So my conclusion to this post is that if you want to buy your own wireless FF for what ever needs you have and you are on a tight budget, the JAG35 FF is certainly worth looking at and the upcoming improved V2 version will probably be even better value for money.  If had I had more money and I was doing more focus pulling I would certainly buy one of these cool toys.

_ There are  new FFs constantly appearing on the market. Different brands fight for business. It is certainly makes life difficult for brands, but us, customers certainly benefit from this competition.  These are great times for people on the budget.  I’ve been looking at what’s new on eBay and noticed a few new follow focuses with adjustable hard stops,  just like the ones originally found in Trusmt units. Looks like Trusmt FFs have some competition.

Then new ones I found are:

1: What looks like an RJ Follow Focus with adjustable stop, although in some other listings it is marked as Fotga, which usually is completely different design. The particular deal found is certainly makes it the cheapest “hard stop” follow focus out of the lot, but it also looks the most plasticky, so don’t expect an amazing build quality, however I used one without hard stops and it performed surprisingly well, very little play, like on most budget FFs most of which are more expensive. This FF comes with one lens ring, so I think it is a pretty cool deal if you are on the tightest budget.

_
2: Lanparte “hard stop” model. Looks very similar to Trusmt units, but certainly not a complete rip-off , but their own design. Looks like a very good quality unit, however it is the most expensive out of the lot, even more than Trusmt. I heard the Lanparte are great FFs, but the price is a bit too high comparing to what else is available in budget category.

_
3: COOLLCD Follow Focus, again with adjustable “hard stops”. Now this is something completely new to me.  Looks very similar to the Lanparte FF, but again it is a bit different, although the gearbox looks very similar, don’t know if it is the same though.  Comes with 2 lens rings. With shipping costs about the same as Trusmt NF2, so not an amazing bargain, but a decent price.

_ Conclusion: Any of these 3 FFs and the Trusmt one are great FFs that were not available a few years back. Anything of this quality would cost much more before the DSLR revolution gave the manufacturers a boots to start producing these affordable FFs that a lot of us now use. We take such units and prices for granted, but if you think about it, all of them are actually really good value deals, so I recommend all of them,  although the Lanpatre is a more than twice the price of the RJ, so I think it is not as great value for money, but if you like this particular brand, then it might be the best choice for you.  If you are on the tightest budget RJ is the one to go for. The CoolLcd and Trusmt sit somewhere in the middle. I used to have a Trusmt T2 (old gearbox) and it was a great unit, you can check out my review here.  I think the CoolLcd is probably also a very nice unit worth looking at, but the choice is yours. If you don’t actually care about the “hard stops”, then there are plenty of other deals out there. There has never been a better time to buy a Follow Focus.

_
The Gini’s iFocus has now been out for quite a few months.  When it first came out I saw a review on another website and I bought it 10 minutes later, the review has totally sold it to me. Now, 2 months or so later I managed to get around to my own review of this unit. If watched the video above, you’ll know my initial thoughts. I filmed that video about a month ago and by now I’ve used the iFocus quite a few times. So let me go through all the point in the video with my updated view on them.

First of all, the unit is so nicely built. It’s very solid, quite heavy and feels really nice. This is my 4th FF by now and it is certainly the most professional, high-end looking out of 4, although Trusmt FF also looks and feels really cool.

Looks and feel are important, but to me and probably most of you the performance is the most important thing in a Follow Focus. Considering the price of this FF is certainly doesn’t disappoint. It is slightly cheaper (only slightly due to Gini’s high postage costs) than my Trusmt and Camtree, but the performance- wise is it the same if not better than the other 2. The focusing knob is large and feels very good in the hand. The gearbox is one of the best at this price range, but it still has some play, which is a shame. The other reviewer claimed his didn’t have any play at all and this is the reason why I got mine. I wonder if it just my copy that has play or is it just how this gearbox performs.

One of very unusually things about this follow focus is that it is mounted to just one rod.  Initially I was concerned that due to its weight the unit would move out of position, but after using it for a few times I didn’t experience any problems at all, so no problems there; this cool design actually works.

As mentioned in the video, the gear box can be reversed and I did have to reverse it for my needs. It took a few minutes and was not very difficult, so this is a very nice feature on this unit.  Again great design that makes sense and works.

It is a shame though that the actual gear can’t be swapped from one side of the gearbox to another as I was unable to use the ifocus on the left side of the rig with smaller lenses like 28mm/50mm.  The unit digs into the camera while the focus gear is stays to far away. The only thing to do is to fit the FF to the right side of the rig, which some of you probably do anyway, but I usually have mine on the left and for me it is a bit of a problem.

Few other points: The pointer is not movable, but for me it is not a big deal. I couldn’t take off the marking disc, which is again is not a big deal. The marking disc itself is very large; great for setting a lot of precise marks.

Overall the unit is great, definitely worth the money.  If you are about to buy your first FF, you should take a very good look at this unit. However, if you already have one of the decent budget FFs it might not be worth the upgrade.  

Nevertheless,  apart for a few slight downsides it is still one of the best budget FFs and one of my favorite too. 

_
Thank you to everyone entering the competition. Unfortunately there can be only one winner.

As I suspected there weren't many entries in my first even giveaway, just 26 entries across 3 platforms from around 10-15 people.  To all of you who didn't win, make sure that you enter into my future giveaways. I will do the next one at the end of January 2012, so only a few weeks to go until the next one. I'm sure there won't be many more entries into the next one so make sure that you enter the next one too for a great chance one of my lenses.

To make sure that you don't miss the future competition SUBSCRIBE on YouTube and follow BF on Tweeter

_ If you read my post on my 200mm lens test, you will know that I decided to giveaway the lens, that I think performed the best in that test and also is the best built. In my opinion it is the Chinon 200mm f/3.5. It’s a great little prime; very solid (no plastic parts here), quit heavy, with a very nice and smooth long through focusing ring.  The lens is still in excellent condition cosmetically and optically. It comes with both lens caps and has a very easily adaptable M42 mount.

It’s is not an expensive lens and might not be a highly desirable prize, but it’s very simple to enter and it will only take a few minutes of your time.

There are 3 ways: YouTube, Facebook & Tweeter.

Youtube:

• You must be subscribed to my page: www.youtube.com/user/alanbesedin
• You need to Like and Favourite this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMLhjlrzcmI
• Once the above steps are complete you need to post a comment on the video above to confirm your entry.  From that, I will be able to take your username and put it into the raffle.

Facebook:

• You need to like the BudgetFilmmaker page: http://www.facebook.com/BudgetFilmmaker
• You also need to like the actual post about this competition. Again from that, I will be able to take your username and put it into the raffle.

Tweeter:

• You must be following Budgetfilmmaker there: https://twitter.com/#!/BudgetFilmmaker
• You will also need to tweet this little message from your profile:  Great Chance to Win a Lens, Chinon 200mm prime. Check out the details here: http://www.budgetfilmmaker.co.uk/1/post/2011/12/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit1.html #Chinon200giveaway
• I will be able to track you down by the hash-tag and add you to the raffle.
  

You don’t have to enter in all 3 platforms, you can use only 1, but if you enter in all 3 your chances will of course increase. It makes sense to do that anyway, because you most likely have different profile user names on each site anyway and you could cheat this way anyway and enter 3 times. Even if you have exactly the same names on all 3 sites, you name will still be counted 3 times.

Please no cheating though, just one entry from each platform. If I see that the profile was created just few days ago and it’s empty,  I’ll have to ignore such entry, as such page would like the profile was just created to enter and might be one of a few my the same person.

I will be happy to send this lens anywhere in the world, so no restrictions in that sense.

You can enter until the midnight on Thursday, the 5th of January. It will then give me enough time to announce the winner on Friday, the 6th.

Good luck to everyone entering. If you don’t win this time there will be many more opportunities in future. I’m not rich, but I will try to do 1 giveaway each month, so stay tuned.

_ I don’t usually use Nikon lenses, because I prefer to keep my setup clear, especially when using a follow focus, which I use a lot. Nikon and Canon lenses focus in different direction and to me it is confusing when trying to focus quickly and precisely , so I usually use lenses that focus anticlockwise from foreground to infinity, unlike Nikon which focus clockwise.

Saying that, I still decided to get hold of a decent Nikon lens to see what the whole fuss is about.

Well, to start with, the lens is really nicely built.  Weird thing is that my lens doesn’t look the same as all the other Nikon 50mm f/1.4s I found on internet. My one has 3 lines on the focus ring, just like Nikon 50mm 1.2 and unlike all the other 50mm f/1.4s I’ve seen, which have 2 (see the pictures below). Very weird, if someone could demystify this, that would be great.  My 50mm actually looks nicer than the other Nikon 50mm f/1.4s I found (not in my picture though, so I’m not 100% the build quality and the optics are exactly the same. If I had too much money I would buy another 50mm and compare them, but I’ll just go with the copy I have. The focus ring on this lens feels really nice, it is smooth and easy to turn, but not loose.

_Optically this lens is really nice, at least from my first little test I’ve done. Images are sharp, great contrast and colors. Bokeh is also one as would be expected from a f/1.4 lens.  I decided to use it in a low light situation, with a combination of a small LED light on top of the camera. By no means this was a scientific test, just sort of real like user experience and I did enjoy filming with this lens a lot. I might do another a bit calmer test video for this lens with a bit more emphases on resolution and it’s performance in natural lighting or external evening street lighting.

If you are already a Nikon lens user and you don’t have a 50mm yet, this lens is definitely worth looking at.  It is nowhere as cheap as some other lenses I already tested, but it is f/1.4 and it’s Nikon which pushes the price even higher.

At this point I would give it 4.5 out of 5, just because of it’s price, which is not incredible value for money.  Otherwise it would be a 5, especially if you are a Nikon lens user.

If you are going to use it on a Canon DSLR, make sure to buy a decent adapter, because the cheap one I bought on Ebay has play and ruins the good feel of this lens.

We all know DSLRs are incredible Filmmaking tools. But lets not forget, it’s a stills camera, that has the video function, not other way round. To get the best out of it people like myself rig it up with different accessories like a shoulder rig to improve the ergonomics, follow focus to help achieve best focus and this clip on viewfinders to help with shooting in bright daylight, since there is no real EVFs on such cameras. 

Relatively recently third party EVFs started appearing on the marked and a lot of well known filmmakers started caling that these are essential tools for DSLRs and Large Chip Camcorders, so I decided to invest into one. I bought my one second hand on eBay. It was sent to me from US, so with customs charges I ended up paying about £450 which is no exactly a bargain, not really the cheapest monitoring option for a budget filmmaker, but on the paper it sounded so good that I couldn’t resist it.  This review is based on Cineroid performance with Canon 5D mark II, so some points will not apply to other cameras due to 5Ds poor HDMI output.

Let me start with the good points, the reason I bought it.

I really hate how most of the budget monitors show the image out of the 5D ones you press record button. The resolution drops and images stretches out, creating an ugly image. This is the main reason why I never invested in a liliput monitor. I’ve worked with one though and I didn’t enjoy the experience.  Cineroid on other hand handles these problems much better. While resolution still drops, cineroid rescales the image back in to proper ration. And while I only get 480p resolution during recoding, the magnifying loupe helps to get the focusing right.

Another nice feature is the HDMI loopthrough. After being forced to use the liliput monitor on one of the shoots because director needed to see the picture clearly I decided that I need something like Cineroid which will give me a proper image while director can view the image looping through it into something like liliput. I’ve used this feature couple of times and it is one of my favorite things in this Cineroid.

Third reason for buying this evf is ability to put it anywhere, in particular on the side of the camera making the whole setup more ergonomic, just like boadcast camera.  It is great way to use the camera on your shoulder. With an EVF I can have the camera virtually on my shoulder because I don’t have to look at the back of its screen making it much less front heavy than the usually DLSR setup where you offset the camera to the side allowing you to view the screen properly.

I like the flip up feature this evf has.  It is really useful when I want to show the image to the director. The magnets hold the loop well in place, so no problems there.

One of the things I really miss in 5D is the peeking function. Due to it’s large sensor and lenses that create really shallow dept of field focusing can be very difficult especially when focusing on a moving subject.  The peeking function seems to be got sent, but this is actually what brings me to the bad points of this evf. While peeking works fine in 5ds preview mode, once I press record and resolution drops to 480p the evf really struggles to deliver any proper peeking, which is obviously caused by low resolution coming from the camera, This is obviously camera specific, but I didn’t know that before I bought it.  The peeking will probably work just fine on other cameras including Canon’s 7D and bigger cameras like Sony F3, FS100 and Panasonics AF101, but if have a 5D like myself or one of the other Canon DSLRs with a poor HDMI out, then don’t expect to get much out of the peeking function.

One of the other problems I get with my 5D is the unstable performance. Almost 50% of time, when I press record screen goes to black and just stays black. I must then stop the recording and start it again. For some reason when I press it quickly second time always seems to work. This inconsistency is very annoying and now I expect the monitor to freeze every time I press record, not good at all.

Before I bought Cineroid, I would read about how it is essential for DSLRS and large chip cameras because their monitors and evfs are really bad quality. Well let me tell you something, Cineroid display is actually very poor quality comparing to my 5D display. It’s not just about the resolution, more importantly, the color reproduction is very poor and judging the exposure accurately from Cineroid's image alone is virtually impossible. When I switch it off and look at the 5D display,  The picture looks very different and the picture out of 5D is so much more accurate. Such quality would be an acceptable for cheap Liliput, but not for a £560 (new) evf. I've tested my Cineroid against a Zacuto EVF on one of the shoots a few months ago and Zacuto has much better screen quality, both color and exposure wise.

Few more bad point I found, are: The display image sort of refreshes when there is a lot of movement in the frame making this weird wave running across the screen.  The menus are quite fiddly and if you try to customize the evf for you particular needs you get  the glitches with software all the time.  It is a shame that there seems to be no way all to upgrade the firmware, so whatever problems are there, they can’t be fixed.

My conclusion to this review is that this evf is really not worth the money you have to pay for it.  If it was half the price, I would give it 4 stars, but at this price it going to be 2 out of 5 and I would not recommend this accessory to a budget filmmaker.
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