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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Zacuto Gratical HD Micro Oled EVF

steve weiss said:
... But understand that you will never see the difference in 1080 to 40K when viewed on an image this size. I don't want to get into a 4k discussion because I know how passionate you are all on it and it's great but we all know that like anything the eye can only resolve it at certain distances and sizes. Think of a billboard, the dots are golfball sized when viewed 5 feet but you see no dots at 200 feet from it. Of course 4K is great for a million things but in this case it will not make a difference. Most people do not realize that many of the on-board monitors we use are not even 720p. I don't believe the Epic touch screen is HD, I could be wrong and many use that for critical focus. The Gratical is 720p (larger including scopes) and you are viewing it from like an inch away and not seeing any pixels.


Someone asked about the shutter that used to be in the old Arri film viewfinders. Good question. I'm an old timer and I have to admit, that I hated those shutters. You had to push fairly tightly into the eyecup to get it open and by the end of the day you had a permanent red ring around your eye. Couple reasons why we didn't do this. first, we typically operated that system on a dolly or tripod and you had resistance. The concept never really worked in handheld mode because the pushing required you to pull back on your camera for resistance. Arri's were build like a tank and heavy when tripod mounted and nowadays we have a bit more flex in our lighter camera setups then those days. People didn't do as much handheld back then.
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?

All the infos got me interested in the Gratical but I wonder why you tell it's impossible to see the difference between HD ready and full HD resolution? Your distance argument doesn't apply here as you are using a loupe and blowing up the picture size to the eye. It depends if the horizontal resolution and picture manification outperform the eye sight. I want to have the same immersion as beeing in the 1/3 first row of seats in a movie theater and not in the last seats at the back. It's also why I never use the Bomb EVF as size and resolution aren't close to the 5'' Touch and a Grid loupe. I definitly have to look through one of these.

Do you apply some sharpening in the EVF?

The mechanical shutter on film camera wasn't as clumsy as you discribe. All the movies made handheld where shot without problem , don't tell you have to use sticks because of the pressure you have to put on it! What red orb on your eye?

Now if you'r really happy with your flap system, good for your. I'm eager to test it. It's also cool to have a working option out there.

Patrick
 
What is the FOV when looking at the Gratical screen? If one cannot tell the difference between 1920 and 1280 with this FOV, it must be pretty narrow?
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
okay ... fine ... they will sell many thousands of this thing - most likely worth the effort. But for less than $2 more Zacuto could have just added a USB for power to the unit.
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So...you're saying you'll make the plate...and you'll sign me up for one? Cool deal. Thanks, Mark. XOXO
 
Yeah I wonder what their reasoning was, Zacuto, care to comment?
 
There is a usb input, but just for updates not for powering, seems strange.
 
Gratical HD runs on 6-28v, USB is only 5v. So that could be a reason.

I happened to have an LPE6 dummy plate (with a wire) from a V-mount plate I bought a while back. Just chopped off the DV plug on the end and wired it to a D-tap plug. Plugged it in and checked the pins/voltage, all good to go!

My Gratical shows on up on Monday, excited to get my hands on it!
 
Josh Becker said:
Gratical HD runs on 6-28v, USB is only 5v. So that could be a reason.

I happened to have an LPE6 dummy plate (with a wire) from a V-mount plate I bought a while back. Just chopped off the DV plug on the end and wired it to a D-tap plug. Plugged it in and checked the pins/voltage, all good to go!

My Gratical shows on up on Monday, excited to get my hands on it!
Click to expand...

I'll see if I can get the Switronix guys to spin a plate with a lemo receptacle - they can do it faster and easier than me and they already have LPE6 plates/products.
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
That's regulated to 7.4V, 2.5A - so .... not sure of exactly how much current the Gratical needs but I suspect it will work fine. Personally, I'm much rather have 2-pin lemo receptacle on the plate - and then just cable it however I want to cable it.
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Then a feature request...for the love of god make the connectors 90 degree so that you don't have a lemo going out of the gratical and thus sticking way out to the side. Make sense?

If the cables can be kept streamlined that would be great.
 
Got my Gratical this morning... first thing I noticed upon powering it on: some dust and hairs inside, hanging out between lens elements.

1cQEG+


Hooked up to my FS7, camera out of focus so my iPhone could focus on the dirty bits.

It's nothing major, just a tad bit annoying to have them in there immediately after pulling it from the box. Not sure if there is any way I can shake/brush/blow them away. Hopefully it happened during assembly and I don't have to worry about dust and hairs getting into the EVF when using it out in the field.

Here is a short video where I move my iPhone around to show that the pieces are "floating" between the OLED screen and the anti-fog lens in the eye cup. http://d.pr/v/1dWFS
 
Also, I just went to tinker with the Gratical's display options (brightness, contrast, etc) and was surprised to see that changing the brightness in the EVF also effected the waveform/histogram! I don't see how this would be a desired effect. Maybe I want the EVF a bit more dim to be easier on my eye but that doesn't mean the INPUT signal is changing.

Then I checked the LUT on/off... also changes the waveform and histogram when you turn the LUT on and off.

Looks like they have the scopes at the end of their signal chain, meaning any display changes, LUTs, etc. will be reflected in the waveform. Disappointing. Am I the only one who thinks the scopes should always reflect the input signal? Especially on the Sony cams where you want to shoot Slog, so you'd want to see Slog waveform levels but have the EVF image w/ a LUT.

Side note: Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if it's a bug, but I can't seem to apply custom LUTs. They import fine (.cube files) from the USB stick, but when I select it from the LUT menu... nothing changes.
 
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