By Jonah Kessel

Wukan Video Journal from Jonah Kessel on Vimeo.

Using a fat Chinese man, a large backpack, a baseball cap and the hood from my sweatshirt, I attempted to hide myself.

I was sandwiched in between the beefy man and a f-stop Satori backpack jammed with gear on the rear of his motorcycle. He drove me down a dark dirt road in the middle of the night near the uniquely autonomous village of Wukan, Guangdong Province, China.

I was hiding from police and those who might not want attention drawn to the small village of about 13,000 people.

Earlier in the week, pissed off villagers had overthrown their leaders and in mass numbers chased the police out of town. When the police came back, they set up barriers and created a stronghold in their fishing community, only letting sympathizers and foreign journalists into the village. These outsiders started to grow in numbers and after a couple of days, a small media circus had developed.

The New York Times’ Edward Wong described the situation like this:

“The outsiders had come to see how furious residents had transformed their village on China’s southeast coast into a temporarily autonomous zone. Their anger focused on two issues: what they called illegal land sales by village officials, and the death on Dec. 11 of a village advocate while he was in police custody. The villagers chased out Communist Party officials, repelled an assault by police officers and barricaded all roads leading into Wukan with tree trunks. The two police stations in the village stood empty. So did the headquarters of the Communist Party committee.”

The villagers used this media circus and created a bit of a propaganda war. They shared their homes and food with us and drove us around on their motorcycles whenever we needed. This was a funny sight: I would be on the back of a motorcycle with a DSLR rig hung to the side, flying through small alleys and passing other motorcycles — all carrying journalists on the back as well.

With the global spotlight on this village, provincial officials were cornered and agreed to start negotiations with the angry mob.

Within 24 hours I filed one basic news video and one video journal (above) on my experience in Wukan. The video journal was paired with a text journal by Edward Wong. You can read his story “Canny Villagers Grasp Keys to Loosen China’s Muzzle” here. I shot mainly with one camera and a prime 24mm lens. While I love using jibs, sliders and mechanical movement, this video journal seemed most real shot hand-held.

While there was a lot of media there, I was the only DSLR video shooter (that I saw). All other newspapers, TV stations and wire service photographers were using standard video cameras — and with good reason. This was a tricky shoot and using a standard camera would certainly have been easier.

However, I knew it would be tricky and planned accordingly. Before I left I was told to pack light — bring no bells or whistles. Nothing extra. There would be limited car space, I would be riding by motorcycle and I would most likely have to run, so should bring only one bag.

Knowing this I created a really small franken-rig and minimized everywhere I could. Above, you can see what the franken-rig looked like disassembled and in use.

Above: f-stop Satori bag, Blackrapid RS-7 strap with Canon 60D with Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L USM, Canon 5DMII with Canon 24mm f/1.4 L USM, 2x Redrock Micro microHandGrip (Part # 2-19-0009), Redrock Micro Handlebar clamp (Part # 2-017-0002), 2x 18″ 15mm carbon fiber rods (Part # 8-011-0002), Porta Brace Universal Shoulder Pad, Jag35 Top Handle, Jag35 Tripod Plate Pro, Jag35 Quick Release Gorilla Stand with Zucoto Gorilla Plate, D | Focus Follow Focus, Jag35 90 Degree Clamp with ball head attached to a Ruige 5″ TL-S500 On-camera HD LCD monitor, Genus Counterweight for CSMK Shoulder Mount System (3.5 lb) and topped with a Rode VideoMic Pro Compact Shotgun Microphone.

I got all of this to fit into a single f-stop bag. The rig was small enough to fight for territory in press scrums and stable enough to run around in a less than stable environment.

This setup was also small enough to take onto a plane without checking anything. I kept one small tripod with me — although I barely used it.

The videos were largely edited during during the middle of the night or in the back of moving cars as I was fighting US East coast deadlines.

To see the strange conclusion to this story see my blog post “Wukan Journal Unfinished.” To see how this story unfolded check out these stories:

• Canny Villagers Grasp Keys to Loosen China’s Muzzle
• Demonstrators Who Took Over Chinese Village Halt Protest
• Officials Meet With Protesting Chinese Villagers
• Wukan Protesters Seek Return of Xue Jinbo’s Body
• Wukan Revolt Takes On a Life of Its Own

– Jonah M. Kessel is a Beijing based freelance visual journalist working with the New York Times. See his web site here and follow him on Twitter here.

By Dan Chung

CNN have been in touch to say that their latest show ‘The Next List’ with Dr. Sanjay Gupta launches today. It’s all about innovation and fittingly it’s all been shot on Canon DSLRs. Running at 2:00-2:30pm ET each Sunday, the programme will profile exceptional individuals. The first is cyber-illusionist Marco Tempest. Check out the trailer by clicking on the image below.

By Dan Chung

Sam Morgan Moore of Half Inch Rails has been busy again. It seems like not a week goes by without him launching a new widget; this time it’s the descriptively named Bumper – a simple end stop for any camera rig using regular spaced set of 15mm rods. I must confess this is not something I ever imagined that I needed for my rig, but if you think the risk of impaling someone on yours is too great then this is for you.

15mm Bumper from HalfInchRails from Sam Morgan Moore on Vimeo.

You can find out more about the Bumper here.

By Tom Pietrasik

SALOON from Tom Pietrasik on Vimeo.

Before making Saloon – my first film – I had been aware of the potential of DSLRs to capture beautiful video, but uncertain of how exactly to approach this new medium.  I’d been inspired to take things further by the work of Dan Chung, Philip Bloom and others I’d heard speak at the Canon Pro Solutions event last year in London.   I took a video course organised by the National Union of Journalists and bought myself the basic kit required for film-making and began planning the production of a short film.  I’ve learn t much from the process, not least of which is the basic – and often inconvenient – question of obtaining proper legal authorization for the use of music.

I chose my subject carefully. Having lived in Delhi for ten years, I was familiar with the relaxed and often jovial atmosphere of barber shops and knew that they were very colourful institutions that are great to photograph. The work of a barber also involves plenty of repetition, which is ideal for filming activity that can later be edited together to produce the sequences for a film.

I don’t like to interfere with subjects when I’m taking stills and I wanted to adhere to the same rule when making my film, to produce an authentic account of life in a barber shop. So I allowed events to unfold naturally and, apart from the early shots of the hairdressers looking to camera, the only scenes I “directed” were of a barber loading a blade into the razor and a hand collecting the comb (which I knew could be edited to one of the many shots I had of men grooming their newly coiffured locks).

‘Saloon’ was made over the course of a weekend in a lower-middle class suburb of New Delhi using my Canon 5DmkII and a Chrosziel focus-finder mounted on a Manfrotto 679B monopod with the optional retractable legs that provide for greater stability. I’ve always used prime lenses for my stills work but was aware that a zoom would allow me to work faster, mixing wider establishing shots and close-ups without the need to change lenses. So, I opted for a Canon 24-70mm f2.8L as my principal lens.

At work with the 5DmkII in Ganiyari, Chhattisgarh, India. (Photo by Dilip D'Souza)

This set-up is not perfect. I found that the cramped confines of a barber shop are not particularly suited to working with a monopod and, for a few of the shots in Saloon, I worked hand-held, dispensing with the focus-finder and resorting to my lighter Canon 50mm f1.4 lens instead of the zoom lens. In addition to providing a few extra stops, this smaller kit allowed me to get close-in to my subjects without the awkwardness of wielding a large lens.

The music for Saloon was an important decision. I’ve never particularly enjoyed Indian commercial cinema but, ever since I saw the movie Dil Se, almost 15 years ago, I’ve been aware that the Tamil composer A.R. Rahman has written some wonderful musical scores. Not only is “Satrangi Re” an infectious song, it comprises a couple of distinct themes and breaks between these themes which is great for editing. As the song ebbs and flows, so too do the sequences of my film and, though it’s less than three minutes long, I like to think that the shifting pace – accentuated by Rahman’s score – somehow makes Saloon feel more substantial.

I made Saloon mainly practice my skills and it was only later, buoyed by the praise I’d received from the small number of friends to whom I’d subsequently shown the film, that I considered entering Saloon into competitions and festivals. The prospect that my film might be widely screened by established institutions meant I had no alternative but to obtain a music license for Satrangi Re. I began negotiation from an awkward position. Satrangi Re had become such an integral part of Saloon that I couldn’t envisage an alternative. I just didn’t want to contemplate the idea of my film running to a different soundtrack. Not only would this involve a lot of time and effort re-editing, but the result was likely to be less effective without the oscillating rhythm that seemed so well suited to Saloon. 

I also had the niggling anxiety that I might actually be refused a licence or that the rights holder would quote me a fee beyond my means. I had no idea what I was getting into. Rahman had relinquished ownership of Satrangi Re many years ago and I would have to deal with a Mumbai-based production company with vastly more experience in the negotiation of music rights than me. Ultimately, the process proved quite difficult. There was lots of back and forth on the phone and I found the experience not unlike attempting to agree a taxi fare with the many drivers I’d employed during my ten years work as a photographer in India.

To my relief a licence was eventually granted which means my film can now be shown – along with other shortlisted Virgin Media Shorts – as a preview to features screened at Picturehouse cinemas across the UK over the next twelve months. It’s a real privilege to have AR Rahman’s music feature in my short film but the process of establishing the right to use his work is not one I’d like to repeat. It really is worthwhile anticipating the question of legal permission for the use of music well before the editing process begins. 

Saloon has now been entered into several festivals and it has been shortlisted for this year’s Virgin Media Shorts competition (a winner will be announced on November 10th). 

Tom Pietrasik is a British photographer & filmaker dividing his time between London and New Delhi. His photography has appeared in a variety of publications including National Geographic Adventure magazine, The Financial Times magazine and Marie Claire. He also shoots for development agencies including UNICEF and the World Health Organization together with NGOs like ActionAid, Oxfam and Save the Children. You can read more about Tom on his blog.

By Dan Chung

Audio Developments are a British company that specialise in broadcast audio mixers. At the show they were demonstrating an interesting mixer aimed at Canon DSLRs and especially the 5D mkII. The AD071 is a three channel mixer with limiters designed to compete with the popular Juicedlink and Sound Devices MixPre-D products. It is quite lightweight but yet feels robust. It has a multi-segment LED audio level meter is very nice to use. It has an attenuated unbalanced output for going direct into a DSLR as well as twin XLR outputs for feeding a professional video camera.

Video by Felix Clay.

By Dan Chung

The EOS-1D X wasn’t the only innovative product on show in London this week. Several accessory manufacturers chose the Canon event to demonstrate their latest products. One that caught my eye was the latest incarnation of the strangely named Swedish Chameleon rig. Before the show I had never seen one in the flesh and was pleasantly surprised at how well the contraption worked. The hands free operation really works and the novel friction band follow focus is good as long as you don’t want to change lenses in a hurry. They offer a more conventional gear based option for the follow focus for shooters like me who are forever swapping glass. The rig is suitable for all Canon DSLRs and there are also version for cameras like the Sony F3.

Canon Pro Solutions 2011 – Swedish Chameleon V3 rig from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

They also showed a very basic new rig which buyers of the Canon 60D in Sweden will soon be lucky enough to get for free. It is ultra lightweight and does the job intended.

Canon Pro Solutions 2011 – Swedish Chameleon basic rig from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Many thanks to Felix Clay for shooting these videos.

By Matthew Hopkins

When shooter/editors Josh Thompson and Liam White found themselves absorbed in the 24 hour news coverage of the escalating trouble in London last month, the lure of the action proved too much. The Progress Film Company is based in Brighton and predominantly shoots using DSLRs for commercial, music and corporate work. But Josh and Liam packed a Canon 5DmkII kit and jumped on the first train to Clapham Junction. Upon stepping out of the station onto the High Road, they were immediately engulfed in chaotic scenes of looting, vandalism and violence.

Josh and Liam worked quickly and quietly, with one person taking the camera out of their bag and shooting while the other kept watch. By remaining relatively discreet they were able to capture scenes of missiles being thrown at police, rioters breaking into shops and looting, as well as violence towards members of the public who tried to intervene.

A still frame from the video showing police giving chase

After seeing one photographer being assaulted and having his camera smashed, they started shooting with an iPhone4 and a Flip UltraHD from the heart of the action, walking through the looting crowds who were smashing their way in and out of high street shops. Again they worked fast, passing through each area swiftly before regrouping.

Upon reviewing the footage with the Progress team that evening, it was quickly agreed that they should keep shooting despite having no clear story or news agenda. Josh and Liam returned to Clapham the next morning to document the reactions of those involved in – and affected by – the riots. We wanted to listen to the discussion on the street rather than present a story or show the chaos that the news was broadcasting. A 5DmkII allowed us to get close to those involved without intimidating them and once we’d started shooting, a crowd gathered to join in the debate.

Upon reviewing the new footage it became increasingly clear that there was a message on the street that the news broadcasters did not seem to be focusing on. Residents were talking about the inevitability of something like this happening. With an editor in the studio running through the footage with a detached view, we were able to build a story that focused on the issues rather than getting too involved with the initial violence.

With that in mind, we spent a further two days shooting in other affected areas around London such as Croydon, Tottenham and Hackney, asking members of those communities “Why has this happened?” The answers to this question were far from clear-cut – racially, politically, economically or otherwise – with fingers being pointed at far-reaching issues that in some cases go back generations.

Our aim in editing this film was to keep the feeling of discussion open – we used the camera to listen rather than to enforce an agenda, and chose to keep away from cutaways during the narrative of the film.

What develops on screen is a very powerful insight into communities that we all thought we understood, but in reality know very little about.

For more details about Progress Film please check out the website.

By Dan Chung and Sarah Li

Ruige were demonstrating their latest HDMI monitors at BIRTV. They feature the remote magnification switch that they previously showed as a prototype at NAB 2011. The monitors also had improved full screen viewing when used with the 5DmkII in record mode.

They also showed a new 4.8inch monitor which not only had HDMI and HD-SDI input and output but also had the ability to cross convert HDMI to SDI – all built into the back of the unit.

By Matt Allard

Lenses should be the most important part of your kit. Camera bodies come and go, but good glass can be used for a lifetime. Testament to this is that 20- to 30-year-old lenses can still look fantastic on your camera. Over time they have been refined – auto focus and stabilization may have been added – but the basic design remains the same.

You should always try to buy the best lens you can afford. You are better off spending more money on your lens than getting an expensive camera body and a cheap kit lens. In most cases you get what you pay for, but there are always exceptions. If you only have enough money for a Canon 5DmkII body and a cheap lens, you are better off getting for example a Canon 60D and spending more money on a better piece of glass. You can keep quality lenses forever but your camera body can become outdated in a matter of years. Another very important thing to remember is try to buy a lens you can use on multiple cameras as this will save you a fortune down the track.

The first thing you need to consider is whether you are going to use the lenses for stills as well or just video. For photo and video you are going to want a lens that has autofocus. Manual focus for photography can be a major hassle, depending on what you’re shooting. Go and try to shoot some fast-moving action with a manual focus only lens and you will be tearing your hair out. You just can’t focus as fast as a good auto focus system. 

But for video, manual focus is crucial. You can’t be in the middle of shooting something and have your lens whirling around trying to grab focus during a shot. Lenses by Canon/Nikon/Tamron/Sigma etc that have both manual and auto focus are your best option if you plan to shoot stills and video. A lot of modern day lenses also offer image stablizers (often referred to as IS or VR) which can make a big difference to your photos or video.

If you want lenses just for video then you need to consider other things. For example, if you buy a Canon EF lens for, say, your 7D you have no ability to change exposure smoothly during a shot as the aperture is controlled by a clicked dial on the rear of the camera. The other problem is that Canon EF lenses don’t work fully on anything other than a Canon body. There are adaptors from Birger and other companies that are coming out that will allow you to use EF glass with full aperture control for cameras like the Panasonic AF100, Sony FS100 and the Sony F3,  but they will not be cheap. So for video your choices are a bit harder. You ideally want a lens that allows you to manually control the aperture and has manual focus. Even manual aperture lenses do have hard aperture stops but you can get them declicked to offer smooth iris control.

The second thing you have to decide is whether to get a prime lens or a zoom lens. There is no right or wrong choice here: it comes down to the individual operator and what he or she needs the lens for. Zooms can save you a lot of time as you don’t have to keep changing lenses, you don’t have to move around as much and you don’t need to buy as many lenses. When looking at a zoom lens you want to make sure you get something that has a constant aperture eg f2.8. If you have a zoom lens with variable aperture, the aperture will change when you change the focal length – this is a major pain for video. Additionally some zoom lenses (known as varifocal) do not maintain the focus throughout the zoom range meaning that you have to refocus every time you zoom – another major pain. In the ideal world your zoom lens would be fixed aperture and maintain focus (parfocal).

Combinations
A good example combination for a Canon APS-C sized sensor camera like the 7D or 60D would be a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, a Canon 17-55mm f2.8 and a Canon 70-200mm f2.8L (or f4). This would give you 3 lenses that would cover a large range at fast aperture. Add a 1.4 or 2x teleconvertor and you would extend this range even further. If you were using a Canon 5DmkII you would just get a Canon 16-35mm f2.8 instead of the Tokina and a Canon 24-70mm or Canon 24-105mm instead of the 17-55mm. These are just examples as there are other brands out there that you could use. 

The Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 - A good wide option for crop sensor cameras

Your other option, if you’re just using your lenses for video, is to get older Contax/Zeiss or Nikon manual focus only lenses (either zooms or primes). You can now also get old manual focus Canon FD primes adapted to fit EOS cameras or other cameras like the NEX. Optically a lot of these lenses are older designs but many are still very good and it would save you a lot of money.

Shooting the Tsunami aftermath with the F3 and Tamron 18-270mm

Some of the super zooms on the market will allow you to cover a huge range. For example I used the Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-f6.3 on a Sony F3 during the Japan tsunami/earthquake. It gave me a super range without me having to change lenses. I did this as a compromise for time over quality. Is it a good lens? Not really. It looked ok on the F3 although this lens is supposed to be used with the inbuilt stabilization on, so when using it on the F3, every time there was wind or lots of movement the whole picture turned to jello. I have also heard that this lens looks terrible on say a 7D. 

My advice would be to stay away from this sort of lens for video work. I think these super zooms are much more suited to travel photography rather than video. For me, when I do use zoom lenses, I never tend to use them as zoom lenses anyway. When I use the Canon 70-200mm I’m normally either at 70mm or 200mm. I rarely use anything in between. So you need to ask yourself whether you will be using the zoom as a zoom or just using the two extremes of the range.

Personally, I much prefer using prime lenses over zooms. Zooms can make you very lazy. You stay in the one spot and just zoom. Using primes makes you think more about your shot and forces you to move your feet. If your feet aren’t glued to the floor you will discover new angles that maybe you would never have seen if you were using a zoom. Primes also have the added benefit of being much faster lenses. The look of, say, a f2.8 zoom lens and a f1.2 prime is completely different. Don’t get me wrong; there are some fantastic zoom lenses out there, but they just don’t have the same look as a good prime lens. Fast zoom lenses are good but fast primes are great. 

Also, most lenses are optically not at their best when their apertures are wide open and tend to perform better when they are stopped down. This may be vital with stills, but I don’t think it’s as important when shooting video. Your stills lenses are designed, in the case of a full frame, to cover a huge sensor at high resolution; when you’re shooting video the image is getting reduced to a much lower 1920×1080 pixels. At this frame size the lens isn’t really getting pushed very hard. Personally I am comfortable with the quality of the results when shooting most of my lenses wide open.

People using DSLRs for video these days have in my opinion an over-fascination with shallow depth of field. You don’t need it on every shot you do. Of course, if you want super shallow depth of field then you need fast primes. Primes also, of course, offer the benefit of being in most cases very fast and therefore very good in low light conditions. I can tell the quality difference between a really good prime lens and a stills zoom quite easily. One of my favorite lenses is the Canon 50mm f1.2. It is way more expensive than the Canon 50mm f1.4 and you could buy about 20 Canon 50mm f1.8 lenses for the same money – but in my opinion it is worth every cent. For me 50mm is the lens I use the most. If you are planning on buying a really good quality lens, buy it in the focal length you use the most.

Build quality is very important to me. In most cases, the more expensive the lens, the better the build quality. The Canon L series for example are built pretty toughly. A prime example the Canon 50mm f1.2L as opposed to the Canon 50mm f1.8. Yes the Canon 50mm f1.8 only costs around $80 but if you drop it from just a few feet it will probably never work again. Good build quality also means there is less chance of moisture or dust getting into your lens.

The Canon 50mm f1.2L and 50mm f1.8 lenses

Depending on the type of work you’re doing, build quality may not be a major factor for you; for example, if you’re very careful with your equipment and don’t travel much. If you’re constantly in challenging environments and travelling a lot then you need something built to withstand the conditions. Next time you’re shopping for a lens, pick it up and feel the weight, see what it is made out of and ask yourself: “If I drop this, will it be ok?”   Of course, even if you have something as solid as a Canon 50mm f1.2L, if you drop it straight down onto the front element it may not survive. One common alternative option are the Zeiss ZF and Zeiss ZE series – built like tanks with solid metal and not plastic.

Then there’s flexibility: can I use my lenses on multiple cameras and across multiple manufacturers? If you want the greatest flexibility you want to buy lenses that you can use on lots of different cameras. The problem up to this point (although people are working on it) is that if you owned say a Canon 5D and you wanted to buy a Sony FS100, but all you owned were Canon EF lenses, you couldn’t use them. If you have invested thousands of dollars in lenses you want to be able to use them on whatever the next camera is that you decide to buy. 

I have a wide variety of lenses from Nikon, Canon, Tokina, Sony and Zeiss and my favorite lenses are my Zeiss ones. There is just something about the look of them. They are also extremely flexible. In a Nikon mount they offer manual focus (albeit in the opposite direction to Canon) and manual aperture control. Using inexpensive lens adaptors I can use these lenses on Nikon DSLR, a Canon DSLR, my Sony F3 and even my Sony NEX-5. Although I love my Canon L series glass I can’t currently use it on anything else (with the exception of the Sony NEX-5 without aperture control).

A Nikon 80-200mm easily adapted to fit a Sony NEX

What matters is the lens that is right for you: think about what you normally shoot and how you shoot it. Factor in price, speed, f-stop, build quality and flexibility and determine what your requirements are. There is no substitute for really good glass; it can ultimately determine the quality of your finished product. Remember too that you are the artist – your camera and lens are just the palette and brush.

There are way too many lenses to cover in this post so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask here below and I’ll be happy to help you out.

About Matthew Allard, Aljazeera Senior Field Cameraman, Kuala Lumpur:
Matt has been a Camera/Editor in TV news for more 20 years, previously working for both Channel 9 and Channel 10 in Australia. Twice Network Ten Australia’s cameraman of the year as well as being a Walkley Finalist for outstanding camerawork in 2006 (for coverage of the Cronulla Race Riots) and a Logie Finalist for outstanding news coverage 2006 (Bali 9). He is a multiple ACS (Australian Cinematographers Society) award winner. His Sword Maker story that was shot on a 7D won the prestigious Neil Davis International News Golden Tripod at the 2011 ACS Awards. He has covered news events in more than 35 countries, from major sporting events to terrorist bombings. Based out of the Kuala Lumpur broadcast centre in Malaysia he is an avid user and follower of new technology, shooting stories on HD broadcast cameras, the Sony F3 as well as new Canon DSLRs.

The new Zacuto EVF Gorilla plate system

I’ve been using the Zacuto EVF for a while now and find it to be a very welcome addition to my regular shooting kit with the Canon 5DmkII. Originally I had it mounted on top of the camera with the supplied hotshoe adapter but very quickly found this to be an inconvienient location because there was then nowhere to place my microphones when running and gunning. I have since constructed a bracket using some parts from Really Right Stuff and an Ultralight arm that allowed me to place the EVF on the side of the 5DmkII. This frees up the hotshoe again and places the EVF in a good position on the side of the camera to allow for a more ENG style of shooting – better balanced with the camera offset when mounted on a chest or shoulder support rig. Crucially for me this setup allows me to keep the EVF as part of the camera as I move from Redrockmicro running man rig chest rig, to full shoulder rig, to tripod and to my camera bag – all without needing to dissassemble the EVF setup. My solution is fine but a bit expensive, somewhat of a cludge and a little heavy.

Enter Zacuto with their own custom solution which looks to be lighter and more flexible than my setup. The EVF mount is based on the company’s Gorilla plate system for DSLRs. It too offsets the EVF to the optimal position without adding too much bulk to the camera. There is also a quick release to allow rapid detachment of the EVF.

The Zacuto EVF Gorilla plate in use with a Striker rig

For me I could see myself using this setup almost without a support rig at all for some shoots, just holding the EVF to my face and gripping the camera in the other hand. Also launching soon is the Zacuto’s universal cable Pincher which will neatly hold HDMI cables in place and provide strain relief.

The EVF Gorilla plate bracket

The EVF Gorilla plate bracket is $240 US and available now from Zacuto’s web store, it requires the use of a $69 Gorilla plate if you do not own one already.

Disclosure – This website recently joined the Zacuto affliate sales program but this in no way affects this website’s many and diverse bloggers who are free to talk about any gear they use.