Best LCD shade or Loupe for manual focus??

What is the best LCD shade or Loupe for manual focus in sunlight?
Looking for some good suggestions that mount well but are easy to remove when not using live view.

butterfly2937 wrote in post #16323827
What is the best LCD shade or Loupe for manual focus in sunlight?
Looking for some good suggestions that mount well but are easy to remove when not using live view.

Hoodman offers several useful products of that type.

DC Fan wrote in post #16323925
Hoodman offers several useful products of that type.

Hoodman does not seem to offer a good way to attach this only a rubberband. Do you find that to be a problem?

butterfly2937 wrote in post #16323981
Hoodman does not seem to offer a good way to attach this only a rubberband. Do you find that to be a problem?

I handhold the Hoodman, I find banding it in place to be annoying (not the process, the fact that it now attached)

DC Fan wrote in post #16323925
Hoodman offers several useful products of that type.

That's what I use. Great, and I handhold it.

Yep, Hoodman is the way to go.

The Hoodman is nice but I found the lack of an easy way to attach it so I could free up both hands to be a deal-breaker (the rubber bands are "ok" until you lose one... and the crane clamp "thingy" is just huge, unwieldy, cumbersome, and is a bag space hog). I know you can hang the Hoodman around your neck when not in use but when I'm all "geared" up out in the wilds I already have enough stuff dangling, hanging, stuffed, strapped, clipped, clamped, slung, and taped to me. So I sold my Hoodman and bought the Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 2.5X. I find it to be better in every way except price. You did say "the best" and this is it and to me it's worth every penny (and by looking at your impressive gearlist it would seem as though you could probably afford it ).

Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 2.5X

baj2k wrote in post #16334692
The Hoodman is nice but I found the lack of an easy way to attach it so I could free up both hands to be a deal-breaker (the rubber bands are "ok" until you lose one... and the crane clamp "thingy" is just huge, unwieldy, cumbersome, and is a bag space hog). I know you can hang the Hoodman around your neck when not in use but when I'm all "geared" up out in the wilds I already have enough stuff dangling, hanging, stuffed, strapped, clipped, clamped, slung, and taped to me. So I sold my Hoodman and bought the Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 2.5X. I find it to be better in every way except price. You did say "the best" and this is it and to me it's worth every penny (and by looking at your impressive gearlist it would seem as though you could probably afford it ).

Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 2.5X

Is there a way to still attach an arca Swiss plate to this or is the base arca Swiss compatible. It is hard to tell from the picture.

butterfly2937 wrote in post #16338537
Is there a way to still attach an arca Swiss plate to this or is the base arca Swiss compatible. It is hard to tell from the picture.

Yes you have to have a flat Acra-Swiss type plate to attach to it... I also removed the red lever at the bottom right side of the camera mounting plate. It's used for clamping on add-on cinematography gear that I don't use. It just added a bit of weight and it made it harder to get my camera in and out of the camera bag so off it came.

I use one of the cheap Chinese ones on my M. Works great, uses a magnet system. It has a plastic lens but I was surprised to see how good it actually was.

http://www.ebay.com …ecups&hash=item​2eca94347a

I use my quick plate to hold it down instead of the supplies knob.

Those Zacutos look really nice! Wish I had the budget for one of those.

butterfly2937 wrote in post #16323827
What is the best LCD shade or Loupe for manual focus in sunlight?
Looking for some good suggestions that mount well but are easy to remove when not using live view.

My experience with the Hoodman is that its optical performance outside of the central area is very poor (the image is quite soft in the corners & edges). So much so that for manual adjustments of focus and tilt adjustments for Tilt/shift lenses, mine sits in the drawer at home. Its for sale if anyone yearns for a Hoodman. I've not tried the Zacuto, which is supposed to be of much higher optical quality. Remember that all of the better products in this area were originally designed for video application.

I've also tried several external LCDs, from the inexpensive Aputure on up to the more proessional Small HD DP6. Its my excperience that the much higher HD resolution of the HDMI output provides a huge improvement in image quality possible over the standard USB camera output. For simple remote compositional issues, the USB resolution is fine, but for fine tuning lens tilt angle and focus, a high quality HDMI external monitor is a huge improvement in resolution. Obviously I am willing to sacrifice weight, size and complexity for the superior resolution.

I wrote an article about it, see the examples at the end of the article
http://www.fredmiranda​.com/smallhd/

Mike K

Mike K wrote in post #16341687
My experience with the Hoodman is that its optical performance outside of the central area is very poor (the image is quite soft in the corners & edges). So much so that for manual adjustments of focus and tilt adjustments for Tilt/shift lenses, mine sits in the drawer at home. Its for sale if anyone yearns for a Hoodman. I've not tried the Zacuto, which is supposed to be of much higher optical quality. Remember that all of the better products in this area were originally designed for video application.

I've also tried several external LCDs, from the inexpensive Aputure on up to the more proessional Small HD DP6. Its my excperience that the much higher HD resolution of the HDMI output provides a huge improvement in image quality possible over the standard USB camera output. For simple remote compositional issues, the USB resolution is fine, but for fine tuning lens tilt angle and focus, a high quality HDMI external monitor is a huge improvement in resolution. Obviously I am willing to sacrifice weight, size and complexity for the superior resolution.

I wrote an article about it, see the examples at the end of the article
http://www.fredmiranda​.com/smallhd/

Mike K

Wow that looks amazing and certainly must increase focusing accuracy. It looks like the model available now is a AC7 which one in this series do you recommend? This looks like something to save for! Is there any lag time using the HDMI out put of the camera?

butterfly2937 wrote in post #16341783
Wow that looks amazing and certainly must increase focusing accuracy. It looks like the model available now is a AC7 which one in this series do you recommend? This looks like something to save for! Is there any lag time using the HDMI out put of the camera?

There is almost no lag in the video output.
When I got the Small HD DP6 there was no competition for the HD resolution external video monitors, but now there are several choices from Ikan, Marshall and other companies. I consider the HD resolution 1289X800 to be important, as well as the software features called dSLR scaling and 1:1 pixel mapping by Small HD.
The software features are described in some detail in my article. To make focus very obvious the focus assist feature works well, and you can press the 5-10X magnify button on the camera and use 1:1 pixel mapping. Several years down the line I expect dSLR (or their equivalent) to have really good LCD monitors with features such as these.
Mike K