Resources For the Indie Film-maker
Posts tagged dslr
Cheaper alternative to Zacuto – Gini Rig
Aug 1st
The Gini rig, named after the eBay seller who first sold these rigs have now become infamous for a couple of reasons:
- They started out being pretty close clones of Zacuto products such as the striker.
- They are apparently made of high quality CNC aluminum parts. On the Cinema 5D forums, there are hundreds of posts from happy owners.
- They are relatively cheap. You can buy a full shoulder mount rig on eBay for a few hundred bucks if no-one else is bidding on them which is quite often.
As you can see, apart from the color they no longer make Zacuto replicas but have designed their own rigs. These look pretty full on and the good thing about them is they are highly customisable because they are really just a bunch of components. Unlike all the other type of rigs that have come on the market recently, I believe these aren’t made in China but in South Korea.
See below for more examples of their rigs.
Budget DLSR Shoulder Support
Jun 6th
LCDVF VS THE SUN
Apr 24th
Here’s a test to see whether the LCDVF can damage my LCD screen if exposed to the sun.
Instead of risking the LCD on my 7D, I substituted the screen with a white piece of paper. I sped it up and added some music to make the test a little less boring to watch.
Other loupe viewfinders have been known to damage the LCD causing white spots to appear if exposed to the sun. This is cause by the magnifying glass effect where the viewfinder concentrates the sun rays into a tiny spot causing it to burn the LCD. Picture what we used to do as kids with a magnifying glass to ants.
Some threads on people who have experienced this problem with a well known viewfinder are here:
dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-5d-mk-ii-hd/468454-zacuto-other-magnifying-type-viewers-lcd-burn.html
cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7431&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
After doing the test for over 5 minutes I am reasonably confident the LCDVF is safe to use outside without having to worry about it burning a hole in my LCD screen. The hotspot is too broad to create enough heat. When I had my finger on the hotspot, it felt cool to the touch and theres no way it’s going to burn an ant let alone the LCD on my 7D.
Maybe the manufacturers of the other viewfinders can design their products in a way to not risk damaging the user’s LCD screens?
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