Just an idea,
People are buying these expensive LCD screens with flipping functions. Well a much cheaper way is to buy a cheap second hand 3" casio hand held portable tv with AV input, and mount it upside down!

These should work great as they can also run off AA batteries for when your location shooting.

Just an idea to getting around the problem on the cheap.

Hope that helps,
Wayne.

Probably because it would be rrrrrrrrrrrreally hard to focus using such a little, low rez TV. It'd probably have to be a car LCD screen flipped upside down. In fact I think some of the car LCDs have a flip button on them, in case you want to mount them on the ceiling.

true, but arn't the LCD's on the cams themselves just as small and low res? I'm now mainly refering to the 'flip the LCD with a magnet' guys.

Maybe im wrong.

Wayne

yeah basically it would be ok for assisting with framing but not really focusing or color or exposure. Plus if you really want cheap little lcd screens you can get them pretty cheap and compact online if you dont mind qvga resolution (probably 1/3 as many pixels as a prosumer camera's lcd) but without the bulk of the tvtuner and antenna. do cheap second hand portable tvs usually have av input? i wouldnt have thought so, but maybe.

Yeah, all the cheap casio's i've looked at on ebay have av inputs, and sell for about £10.

It may not be up to the res of more expensive LCD's, but my idea is more a cheap alternative/starting point. I mean EVERY homemade adapter to my awareness suffers from the upside down issue, so surely this info will benefit someone, I hope.

Wayne.

Definately does. I use a steadicam JR, which requires very delicate balancing. Having an LCD screen sticking out of the left side makes it impossible to balance. It has an LCD screen, but it's monochrome and has a horrible picture. I'm going to try this method.

Ah, ok here's what I'm going to do.

I'm buying this LCD monitor. ($56 including shipping and handling and AC adapter)
It has a little over half the resolution of the Canon GL2 LCD screen.
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-5-TFT-Color-LCD-Monitor-for-Wireless-Camera-Car_W0QQitemZ5777919704QQcategoryZ11074QQcmdZViewItem

Then I'm buying one of those 12v model plane batteries to portably power it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/12V-3-3Ah-NiMH-Battery-4-AirSoft-Mod-Gun-RC-Boat_W0QQitemZ5991300585QQcategoryZ51029QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

With the charger:
http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1215

And wiring the screen to the battery pack.

The battery is 3.3Amp Hours, or 3300Milliamp Hours. Considering the screen is 500mA Hours, it will last me about 6 and a half hours, possibly more because I'm not using the speaker. Of course, all of these items together will cost a bit over $100, so I'm going to let the idea cook in my mind for a little before I make the decision.