Hoodman EX1 KIT for improved LCD viewing

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Marc Myers

Anyone concerned that the hinge isn't up to the job of holding any additional weight or stress.

Marc, that thought occurred to me. Not so worried about supporting the weight, but it looks like if you bumped it the wrong way there would be a lot of leverage capable of breaking something.

I have an LCD hood, but it just pops off if you hit it. Will be interesting to read more reports after people put it to use in the field. Hopefully not an issue; looks very cool and should be well worth the price. I will probably get one myself.

[Keith Moreau]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

Marc, that thought occurred to me. Not so worried about supporting the weight, but it looks like if you bumped it the wrong way there would be a lot of leverage capable of breaking something.

I've actually completely snapped off the LCD before, breaking the metal bezel off, but the hinge mechanism and the mult-cable survived. I suppose I was lucky, the LCD, electronics, everything was ok except for the bezel that surrounds the LCD and connects to the hinge. I was actually able to get it functional by creating a makeshift bracket to hold the broken parts together. I was going to post about it, even took some pictures, but didn't have the time. A new bezel front and back was about $100, very easy to replace, not bad for what could have been catastrophic.

But what impressed me was the good build of the EX1 in this situation. The EX1 basically fell over while on tripod, toward the open LCD. The leverage of the EX1 and it's handle against the hinge, but the hinge survived fine and still works fine today. What gave was a thin part of the metal bezel along the hinge.

So, yes it is possible to snap the LCD off, and maybe the Hoodman would exacerbate that. I'll post back with some feedback when I receive the Hoodman, should receive it in a couple days.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

Marc, that thought occurred to me. Not so worried about supporting the weight, but it looks like if you bumped it the wrong way there would be a lot of leverage capable of breaking something.

I have an LCD hood, but it just pops off if you hit it. Will be interesting to read more reports after people put it to use in the field. Hopefully not an issue; looks very cool and should be well worth the price. I will probably get one myself.

I share your reservations, Boyd - also because one would like to press the eyepiece against his eye socket a bit, in order to create that additional support point when shooting hand-held. This is how the in-built EVF would be used; but while the stock EVF will certainly withstand, I'm not so sure about the LCD hinge...

[Forrest Burger]

Here are a couple of pics of the Hoodman unit at work this weekend. Overall I have to give it very high marks. Very little, if any slippage once the thing is attached, and when properly positioned I saw no light spilling in. I shot two soccer games and had no discomfort to my eye. It does add some weight to the LCD screen of course, but I don't really feel it's too much to cause harm to the screen's hinge. Very easy to get on and off.

Overall, IMHO worth every penny I paid for it!

Forrest

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Thanks Forrest.

Any chance of some hand-held shooting pics?

[Barry J. Weckesser]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Thanks Forrest.

Any chance of some hand-held shooting pics?

Piotr - Look at the first pic from Forrest and extrapolate that if the viewfinder were pointed downward - his face would be snug against the camera body - I believe that is what would happen if you used this with the Redrock shoulder mount apparatus.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Barry - this is exactly why I'm interested in using the Hoodman loupe when shooting hand-held only, if at all.

To help me decide, I'm once again kindly asking anyone having the loupe to post their pictures, showing a person actually shooting with the naked EX1, with the Hoodman loupe against his/her eye.

TIA.

[Forrest Burger]

Piotr,

The handheld positioning of your head will be very similar to the pictures I posted. Because of the EX1 viewfinder in the back you'll most likely need to angle the HoodLoupe upwards so you're ear doesn't come in contact with it and the EX1 handle.

I suppose the disadvantage is that the EX1 will be slightly lower than eye level. But the BIG advantage is that you can push the EX1 up next to your body and cradle it by keeping your elbows tucked in.

With the Quick Release Pro I have attached to the bottom (previous pics) the cradling is very easy by supporting the camera with your left hand under the QRP while still having access to focus and iris. This combo seems to make for a very nice handheld situation. I haven't recorded any footage yet but it feels very stable...MUCH better than trying to handhold the EX1 without a shoulder mount. Also, you can attach wireless mics and such to the QRP. From my early tests this combo may well produce handheld shots that rival shoulder mount cameras because you're using your whole body as a tripod of sorts.

I'm under heavy deadlines now so I'm not sure when I'll be able to post some handheld pics, but hopefully this helps. As I said before, the HoodLoupe setup definitely takes the EX1 up a notch. You can now effectively get critical focus outside without having to block the sun from the LCD or use an external monitor. Great for running and gunning. It attaches quickly, doesn't slip around very much and effectively blocks light from spilling in.

This is a very well designed, well built product and I will be using it a lot!

Forrest

[Barry J. Weckesser]

Forrest - I certainly agree with your assessment of the HoodLoupe but am having a bit of difficulty in understanding how you can cradle the camera with your left hand and make focus and iris adjustments on the run. I tried that before (without the QRP) and found it quite tricky - that is why I use the WristShot to completely support the camera with my right hand thus allowing my left hand the freedom to make constant focus and iris adjustments. Since I am (hopefully) going to use the QRP to mount a Nanoflash I am also going to experiment with a shoulder mount because of the extra weight ( approx 2 1/2 pounds - Nanoflash, QRP, battery) - don't think I could handle all that with one hand for prolonged periods of time.

[Forrest Burger]

Barry,

You're probably right about a true run and gun situation. Due to the nature of most of my work (corporate and medical) I rarely shoot handheld. But it would seem in a little more controlled handheld situation you can use your left hand to support the camera/QRP and still have access to the focus and iris rings with your fingers...not ideal for sure but pretty doable. And, I don't have long fingers!

I'll try to post some pics when I get time, but imagine having the EX1 viewfinder snug against your shoulder, right eye in the HoodLoupe which would be angled up, your elbows snug against your midsection, left palm flat under the QRP and your right hand on the EX1 grip at about a 45 degree angle. It just seems very stable to me, but again, this would be under a controlled situation and not so much in a wedding and/or run and gun news situation. A true shoulder mount would be better for sure.

Hope that helps.

Forrest

[Barry J. Weckesser]

I just received my QRPro2 in the office - a very nice unit - very solid - I also made a to-scale mockup (including photos on the box) of the Nanoflash and it does fit nicely - will try it on my camera when I get home. I can visualize your "shooting stance" and it does sound fairly stable - I have also found bracing the camera (with the large Sony battery protruding out the back) against my chest does help.

The last piece of the puzzle (shoulder mount) arrives tomorrow and will have to see how that works out - the QRPro2 is rather hefty and together with the Nanoflash (same weight) -I don't think I could handle that handheld for any period of time.

[Forrest Burger]

Let us know how it works. I think you'll find the QRP 2 to be quite useful.

Forrest

[Keith Moreau]

I received the Hoodman, I like it a lot. It's actually pretty dense because a lot of it is made with fairly thick rubberized material but I don't sense it will over stress the hinge. The focusing lens is high quality, it stays in place fairly well, and slips on and off easily once adjusted. I'll probably wind up using it often in situations with shallow DOF.

Regarding Handheld with the EX1:

I have an EX1, but using it handheld for any length of time is not practical. I have a few solutions, a really largish Dvrig Pro, which is fine for long shoots because you can even add batteries and all kinds of attachments to the unit. Quite large and imposing though.

I recently got an inexpensive rig called the Tiffen Davis & Sanford Steady Stick, it was less than $100 at Amazon.

The unit is actually quite useful and fairly compact and less imposing than the DVRig Pro, and it distributes the weight to your hips, rather than arms. You can then aim with the right hand and focus/aperture/zoom with the left or right, which is the important for run and gun.

[Keith Moreau]

I had a chance yesterday to use the Hoodman, along with my Steady Stick, for a 2.5 hour 'run and gun' type of shoot, completely hand-held the entire time. In this situation I'd normally just use the open LCD, but for that shoot I used the Hoodman 100%.

Overall I liked it, but with a few of caveats:

1) It would be nice if the inner surface of the Hoodman was a little more light-absorbent. There is a little too much reflection off the internal surface. It's not bad now, but I'd like it to be velvety black that just absorbs light. I'm contemplating seeing if I can paint or apply something that will reduce those internal reflections.
2) On the EX1, because of the location of the Hoodman in relation to the body, to get a straight on view of the LCD through the Hoodman lens, you really have to press the right side of your face/cheek against the EX1 body. Not sure if there is a solution to this, so if you have an exceptionally wide face it might be a bit uncomfortable over time. It didn't bother me too much but I did notice it.
3) The contoured eyepiece cup is too small. This was an indoor setting so there wasn't too much bright light that I needed to block, but with my head positioned for a straight-on view of the LCD and my check very firmly pressing against the EX1 body there was still some open space on the right side of the eye cup. I probably will need to find a way to improve this. I have a iCuff that I got for another bad eye cup for another consumer camcorder, that one isn't quite right for this but maybe another iCuff or other eye cup would work. If anybody has hints, including Hoodman about a practical solution please let me know.
4) Attaching to the LCD is adequate, but not elegant. Once you have it strapped to the LCD for a session, you really don't want to take it off. It's also not very precise in it's positioning. It can and does move around a bit. I would have preferred something that snapped around the LCD, with some contoured plastic that you could easily and repeatably slide on and off. I'm considering adding some plastic pieces to do just that and eliminate the velcro attachment piece.

Overall, it's an improvement on the only other EX1 loupe I've used. I wish for the $150 that it was more optimized for actual use without me having to do mods to it, but as another poster said (maybe in another thread) it seems to be a collection of parts from other Hoodman products to make something that works, rather than a unit expressly made for the EX1. Since the EX1 is wildly popular I would expect Hoodman to sell a lot of a more precise unit.

[Robert St-Onge]

So I just received my Hoodman and did a quick testing, overall the built quality is good.
As mentionned previously, the contoured eyepiece cup is too small. I was a little worried about the 1:1 view before ordering but that as proven to be good. Optics are great.

I did some handheld shooting and I will have to come up with several minor modifications in order to have it stay in place. I wear glasses, so the unit must be perfectly centered in order to have a full coverage of the lcd. I also tried it without my glasses and I was able to have a comfortable viewing but I prefer having my glasses on while shooting.

What striked me most: I did noticed in dark areas that the top portion of the lcd always looks darker than the bottom. At first it isn't so obvious, but if you slightly pan down and up again, you will notice it, unless my lcd is defective. But without the Hoodman, my lcd looks fine.
It makes manual exposure control a little harder to evaluate, since you can hardly see any detail in dark areas, like dark hair being in the top portion of the lcd, so you would overexpose that area in order to pick up some detail but you shouldn't.

It would be great to have others comment on this.

I will also try to recalibrate my lcd, maybe that could help a little.

Otherwise, I think it's a good piece, after making minor modifications, I will have a real field test handheld.

Rob