From the course: DSLR Video Tips: Gadgets & Gear

What is an EVF?

From the course: DSLR Video Tips: Gadgets & Gear

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What is an EVF?

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Rich Harrington: Hi! My name is Rich Harrington. Robbie Carman: And I'm Robbie Carman. Rich Harrington: And today we're talking about electronic viewfinders. Now as DSLR camera shooting continues to evolve, we're seeing more and more adaptations that make them function more--I hate to use this word, but like a real video camera. Robbie Carman: Well, not a real video camera. Let's say a traditional video camera. Rich Harrington: Fine. Robbie Carman: Because these cameras can record real video, but you're right Rich. One of the things that's been a problem in DSLR video so far in the evolution of these cameras has been most of the time you are stuck behind the camera here in some way. With the traditional viewfinder maybe you used a loupe, and we'll talk about loupes in another week, but what's happening these days, and let's say probably over the past year or so, is sort of the introduction of the evolution of the viewfinder or the loupe to these guys, and this is an EVF or an Electronic Viewfinder. Rich Harrington: Yeah, and what we're seeing here is that the electronic viewfinder, the screen sizes look similar, but one is a lot higher resolution. Now for those of you who are iPhone users or Smartphone users, you probably remember the type of screens you had early on versus the ultrahigh resolution screens we have today. Same thing, the trend we're seeing on laptops switching over to these higher display count displays, and it just works better. So a big chunk here is that we have a higher resolution image. But there are lots of benefits including the ability to see the image with clearer focus, better use of color and even overlays to get the camera controls. Now there are a lot of these on the market with more coming. We're using a Zacuto Electronic Viewfinder here; small HD, lots of other companies are coming out with these. We're also even seeing some of the digital disk recorders having a display built-in that you can use to record, and really this is just meant to give you flexibility. I've mounted it on the camera here but I could actually just unhook this really quick and switch it over to my rig, and I'll show you how this could really add some flexibility. So I'll just take this off the hot shoe. Robbie Carman: Yep! Rich Harrington: Nice here in that I can articulate this and adjust it. Robbie Carman: Absolutely. Rich Harrington: But if I just put this right on to my body here, I've got a shoulder rig, we'll just slide that into play. Robbie Carman: There you go, right there. Rich Harrington: Yeah. Robbie Carman: And now the other cool thing about these though is that it doesn't necessarily have to be on the camera itself. I've seen a lot of rigs where people will sort of mount them on a separate arm or another place over here somewhere on the rig. Rich Harrington: Yeah Robbie Carman: So not the camera person necessarily using the EVF but maybe a focus polar or an assistant camera person or something like that has access to it, and as Rich pointed out, one of the great things about these electronic viewfinders is that they provide a much higher resolution image than you're going to get on the back of the camera, but they still give you that image at a nice compact form factor instead of having to go to a larger external monitor. Rich Harrington: Yeah, so let's take a look at some of these benefits in depth.

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