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BOMB EVF (OLED) - First Impressions and Review

Rob Anderson

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BOMB EVF (OLED)
http://www.red.com/store/products/red-pro-evf-oled (SKU# 730-0010)

The original announcement thread went missing, but Jarred introduced the BOMB EVF (OLED) Sunday -- along with all of the other cool NAB 2012 stuff. It's $3,900 new. Existing LCOS owners can pay $1200 for the upgrade ($900 if you bought an LCOS in the last 30-days). It boasts more accurate color, better environment/temp performance, same form factor. Sold.

Today I hit the NAB floor and made the trade. Just spent the last hour testing it out.

I'm super impressed. Hands-down, the best electronic viewfinder I've ever used. Exactly what I had hoped for in every way. In layman's terms; blacks are black. Colors are right on. Screen is razor sharp. Feels like the same weight as the LCOS and has the same mounting options. Both very good things. My Gunner+Epic shoulder rig will be much better off now as I can lose the janky rails system I bolted together for an eye-level touch mount. I'll be all EVF for running and gunning now and much better for it. If you're on the fence and already own an LCOS option, there should be no question. It's worth the upgrade fee. Huge improvement. If you haven't picked up an EVF yet, you'll definitely want to give this one a try.

The other issue, and this one seemed to have been a personal one for whatever reason; I would get strange flickering in my eye whenever I blinked and shifted my pupil [when using the LCOS]. Other people in my crew did not experience this but for me, it was most definitely there. It forced me to concentrate on not moving my pupil while looking through the EVF and making sure I didn't try to track around the menus too frequently while moving. A real pain but apparently "unique" to something about my own eyesight. That said, I get none of that using the OLED and that is a major bonus for me.

I climbed over the fence from the DSLR world and this is what I had wanted all along. I'm thrilled to have it.

Big thanks to Jarred and Brent for putting this in my hands! It's been said many times but with service like this, we'll never tire saying it; RED is the best company, with the best product and service in the world.

Now all I need is the +1 MONITOR ADAPTER...

*The last photo I included is looking through the EVF to give you an idea of the much improved color levels. No more milkiness at all. I shot this through a Nikon Zoom so excuse the motion blur and otherwise crap photo. But this should give you some idea. Obviously the real deal is super sharp.
 

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Now that's customer service!

I agree about everything you said Rob. Black and white levels are deep and clean. This one's a home run.
 
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I do not see the "BOMB" inscription?!
Now me and my TSA Peeps will have nothing to talk about while doing the Cavity Search!
:(

Stu Aull
S-X #00199
BOMB EVF
 
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I do not see the "BOMB" inscription?!
Now me and my TSA Peeps will have nothing to talk about while doing the Cavity Search!
:(

Stu Aull
S-X #00199
BOMB EVF

IMHO that is as big of an improvement as the technical side... ;o)
 
Thanks for the review, Rob! For those of us who have never used the Bomb, how's the weight?
 
Thanks for the review, Rob! For those of us who have never used the Bomb, how's the weight?
In my rough guesstimate; about the same as a roll of quarters. Dense and well built. But not heavy. I have a scale sitting within inches of it in the studio, but I shouldn't even be awake right now. ;)
 
The other issue, and this one seemed to have been a personal one for whatever reason; I would get strange flickering in my eye whenever I blinked and shifted my pupil [when using the LCOS]. Other people in my crew did not experience this but for me, it was most definitely there. It forced me to concentrate on not moving my pupil while looking through the EVF and making sure I didn't try to track around the menus too frequently while moving. A real pain but apparently "unique" to something about my own eyesight. That said, I get none of that using the OLED and that is a major bonus for me.
This is great news. The effect you're talking about is the "rainbow" effect. Most commonly found on early DLP projectors, it's an artifact of showing the red, green and blue components serially (at different times) rather than all at once. If you let your eye move around, you'll see a brief rainbow of RGB wherever there is a high contrast image on the screen. White text on black is the worst, which is why I've always wanted an option to change the text color on the EVF status info. Only about 5% of people are susceptible to the rainbow effect, which makes for fun forum arguments of "that projector sucks and gives me headaches" vs. "no, it's perfect!" -- turns out both sides are right, they are just experiencing different things. Anyway, I'm also highly sensitive to the rainbow effect which has made the original EVF less than ideal for me. Really glad to hear the OLED solves this problem for us 5%! Thanks for the info.
 
Just for the record Rob Im glad you mentioned this as I see it to and when I asked others they always say it looked fine to them. Im glad Im not crazy and my camera is showing only me something to make me crazy.
Thanks for the update. Im going to be in line to upgrade my viewfinder but I was pretty impressed with the Bomb now.
 
So no rainbow effect? The original Bomb is useless to me, I just see a colorful mess when I look through one.
.

No rainbow effect. I spent some time looking through it yesterday, and like eveyrone else was immediately hit by the sense of "Fuck yeah" night and day. I'm upgradeing mine as soon as possible.
 
This was the best unexpected announcement, especially with the Upgrade option. Can't wait to send in this old EVF that has been mostly just sitting on the shelf.

Agreed... and I'm kind of bummed that those of us who purchased the original BOMBs don't get priority on the new units/upgrades... especially those of us who are unhappy with the quality and functionality of the units.
 
The new OLED bomb is truely great - no doubt. Colors are great, huge improvement and the rainbow effect is gone. Only issue I have with it now is that the eyepiece is a little small for some clients and I'm still having problems getting the eyepiece cushins to stay on (as with the old one).
 
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