Before talking about the big news, let me just get into the whole LCD-as-a-viewfinder issue for a second.

I’ve been interested in the LCDVF since I first heard about it. Since the viewfinder on the DSLRs is blocked by the mirror when set to movie mode, the LCD screen has to be used as a VF. Obviously this makes it very very hard to focus – especially when shooting in 1080p. In the past few months companies have responded to that issue, one of the first solutions being the Hoodman HoodLoupe (which was actually build for still photographers, making it easier to review the images on the LCD screen when shooting in bright daylight).

Today, many people rely on the Zacuto Z-Finder, which sure is a great product – but very expensive. A cheap alternative, the LCDVF, had been introduced by a one-man company early this year. It offers a magnification of about 200% but no diopter. No problem for me, since I’m using contact lenses anyways. The LCDVF is listed at about 160$ (130€ in Germany), which is still much less than the cheapest Z-Finder (starting at 265$, but at that price also without diopter).

The LCDVF has been out of stock pretty much everywhere for the past few weeks, so I wasn’t able to get my hands on one of them. The only retailer in Germany selling these things seems to be a web shop called EnjoyYouCamera.com (they also ship to UK, FR and IT btw). After checking back with EYC I was told the LCDVF should be back in stock by last week ;-) Nothing there yet, though.

Another issue has popped up on the internet when someone with a 550D/T2i got his hands on a LCDVF – apparently the screen of the 550D is slightly bigger than the one on the 7D and 5DmkII, resulting in the mounting frame of the VF cropping off 2mm on both sides of the LCD screen. Not much you might say (so do I), but also not really perfect when you think about the 160$ you invested into this.

Since this really concerned me, I contacted the manufacturer asking about whether they would be addressing this issue in the near future and when I could expect the LCDVF to be in stock on EJC again.

They replied very fast, stating that a new LCDVF, especially designed to fit the 550D/T2i is already being produced and will be shipped in 4 weeks. EJC will have this new VF in stock in 5 weeks, the old one should be back in stock either this week or early next week.

Here’s the full mail they sent me:

Hello Markus,

www.enjoyyourcamera.com will have our present LCDVF in stock after 1 week.
And new version after 5 weeks.

The JPG they attached:

I’m excited about the news, but 5 weeks is a long time and there are quite a few shootings I would have to attend without any possibility to focus properly.

I’m thinking about buying the old version of the VF for a start and getting the 550D version later. I’m pretty sure they’ll sell like hot candy on eBay so I won’t have to worry about making too much loss with this ;-)

Hope you enjoyed this news as much as I did on this beautiful monday morning. I’m still missing my voice due to a cold, but that won’t stop me from trying out my new Fader ND Filter today (reviews later). Plus I feel the urge to go DIY on a slider solution, so stay tuned.

xo