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Alpa iPhone Viewfinder - first field trip experience

GrahamWelland

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
A break in the rain allowed me to get out and try my new Alpa iPhone Viewfinder today (please excuse the poor iPhone pics below). Using this viewfinder solution presents an interesting mix of lo-tech Alpa body & lenses/shutters alongside the hi-tech MFDB & iPhone viewfinder application.

Overall I'm very pleased with the performance of the Alpa eFinder app although it does have a few foibles due to the iPhone. For instance, in vertical mode with the camera aligned over the lens you have to use the iPhone inverted and the app displays the labels upside down, although the main display rotates correctly to display the lens framelines - not sure if this is purely an app issue or a limitation with software buttons on the iPhone iOS libs.

Frameline accuracy seems pretty decent and much better than the optical viewfinder for me. It's very easy to have parallax between your eye and the VF center with the optical VF but the iPhone removes this error. I did find that the vertical framing wasn't exact but I need to test that further. It wasn't a problem in use though and may have been due to me tilting the camera anyway. You still have to guess with shifts/rise.

For lenses wider than 37mm you'll want a wide angle adapter for the iPhone so that you can get the full preview. The eFinder app supports a wide variety of wide angle multipliers e.g. 0.8x - 0.38x plus obviously native 1x.

Front view - note iPhone upside down in vertical alignment configuration:


Framing an image - here's what you work with:


Example of preview in Alpa Viewfinder app & captured image:


Typical view with histogram:


Horizontal view with camera over center alignment of the lens:
 
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yaya

yaya

Active member
Looks great Graham although I'm sure someone at Apple will cringe when they see they're branding presented upside-down (remember the boo-haa surrounding the Sex In the City episodes showing the old PowerBook's lid?)
 
jotloob

jotloob

Subscriber Member
Graham

That looks very nice . My holder is on order but has not arrived yet .
I use VIEWFINDER PRO , which I downloaded at about photokina time last year . There were some updates since and I believe it is identical with ALPA eFINDER now . But more expensive , as I have seen . Why ? ? ?
What you see on the iPHONE 4 is equivalent to about a 47 mm lens , iPHONE 3 GS to about a 53mm lens and iPOD TOUCH G4 about a 60mm lens .
ALPA is working on corresponding WA adapters .

I have also set up my VIEWFINDER PRO for the HASSELBLAD 503CW with the CFV-16 and CFV-39 for all available lenses .
That APP is a good tool , also for many users of other cameras .
You can easily define which lens you want to use .
 
jonoslack

jonoslack

Active member
Hey - that's really cool; really really cool.
Must be a pain in the *** when the phone rings though :ROTFL:
 
jotloob

jotloob

Subscriber Member
jonoslack said:
Hey - that's really cool; really really cool.
Must be a pain in the *** when the phone rings though :ROTFL:
Click to expand...
You should not mention the worst case because that might keep people away from buying the eFINDER APP .
But you are right , I just tried to imagine how that would be .
Can't happen to me anyway , because I will use an iPOD touch 4G . But o.k.
there could also be an E-MAIL notification from the getdpi forum . Mmmmm
:OT:What shall I do then ? ? ?
 
J

jlm

Workshop Member
keep on alert: my Iphone prototype will be done this week.

design parameters:

1. rotates between H and V on the phone lens axis
2. parallax correction built into base, correction ranges from inf to 3'
3. fits any hot-shoe (may take an adapter to fit the alpa)
4. cost under $500
5. very high quality machining
 
jotloob

jotloob

Subscriber Member
jlm said:
keep on alert: my Iphone prototype will be done this week.

design parameters:

1. rotates between H and V on the phone lens axis
2. parallax correction built into base, correction ranges from inf to 3'
3. fits any hot-shoe (may take an adapter to fit the alpa)
4. cost under $500
5. very high quality machining
Click to expand...
John

I am very much looking forward to see your device .
I hope you have an integrated cupholder with it . Uuuups . . . sorry , that was nasty .
 
Godfrey

Godfrey

Well-known member
That looks neat. We'll all be using electronic viewfinders soon.
Hmm. How about setting up an iPad as the viewfinder?

Turn off network, turn off phone. ;-)
 
Guy Mancuso

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
jlm said:
keep on alert: my Iphone prototype will be done this week.

design parameters:

1. rotates between H and V on the phone lens axis
2. parallax correction built into base, correction ranges from inf to 3'
3. fits any hot-shoe (may take an adapter to fit the alpa)
4. cost under $500
5. very high quality machining
Click to expand...
John love to see this when your done. Please take some shots and post. I'm sure a lot of folks would love to see this.
 
GrahamWelland

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Battery seems to hold up ok but like any camera based application, it'll use up power. So far it hasn't been a problem but then again I do have a dedicated device for this use and I'm not using it on the cell all the time.

Calls - well, just stick it in airplane mode. ;) (I'm "lucky" in that I have two iPhones ... the joys of working for a telecom! :eek:). You can also use an iPod Touch btw.

Construction is very high quality CNC machined aluminium with a spring release & click stops on the frame at either centred or aligned settings for the phone/camera lens over the body. There's some very slight play in the holder since it is removable - you slide it into the fixed base for either portrait or landscape orientation plus I remove it with the iPhone in it and put it in my pocket when I walk around with the camera outfit since losing the holder & iPhone would make for an expensive bad day! I'd like to see the holder have a little less play in it mechanically since I could see that in a windy situation it could introduce some vibration. It just needs a little extra tension back/fore to counter the necessary tolerance you need to be able to slide the holder in/out and adjust the frame. There is a sprung ball bearing beneath the frame that provides tension up/down against the rail but not back/fore which I assume would tighten everything up more. This assembly is by no means lose at all but I'd prefer it to be tight & solid like the rest of the Alpa assembly in general such as the sliding shift/rise & all clip on components in the rest of the system. Maybe they'll tweak this for v1.1.

Yair - yes, I'm expecting a letter from Steve Jobs! The horror of having to mount the phone inverted and the logo displayed that way!!! Actually it does have a practical downside in that the on/off button is at the bottom in this mode, plus the eFinder application displays the text in the button bars at top/bottom in a fixed orientation - right side up. Thus the buttons are upside down. :( I notified Alpa about it, although ultimately it's down to the developer of the application - Dire Studio, the folks who produce Viewfinder Pro orignal version.

Jurgen - the Alpa app is a slightly restricted version of Viewfinder Pro and you can upgrade with the full lens library to bring it up to the same capabilities. I've been using Viewfinder Pro for a while now and the ability to set up 4 different cameras, each with their own lens collections for framing is quite helpful if you use lots of different systems. The new v2 includes support for different aspect ratios too for the frame display. If you already have Viewfinder Pro then you don't need to purchase the Alpa eFinder version. With respect to the wide angle adapter, I'm waiting for a 0.48x adapter to arrive at the moment - but it's one with a magnetic ring adapter so you can clip it on/off. Not a necessity for me yet for my Alpa but I do have wider lenses for other systems that need this extra display with the viewfinder application.

Now if the viewfinder app included an accurate meter & histogram it would be really excellent. That said, nothing stops you from running other apps when the phone is in the holder so you can use tools like 'level' to set the camera horizontal leveling, or some metering apps too. One interesting app I'll have to try next time out is Sunseeker/Moonseeker in it's 3D visualization mode - you can see where the sun/moon will rise against the camera view which could be useful for setting up in advance for the sun peeking over the scenery for example. You can also capture & keep record shots with the viewfinder app already and I often do that and they're added to your iPhoto collection automatically.

Overall, I think it's a pretty cool outfit and I expect that this'll replace my optical finder full time. You only need it powered up for basic initial framing but it works very well as a live view. From a practical perspective it does introduce another piece of battery driven equipment into the field with it's associated downsides but on the flip side you can definitely shoot without it if you do run out of power. I was impressed with the lateral view accuracy and it's definitely better with longer lenses too which are tough to frame with the wide angle optical viewfinder.

It will be interesting to see how the Phase One IQ backs step up if they include the rumored limited live view capability. The clarity of the iPhone screen helps with this outfit and so hopefully one of the new backs with it's superior screen might provide everything this iPhone solution does. Time will tell ...
 
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GrahamWelland

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
jlm said:
does the ipad have a camera? ;)
Click to expand...
The iPad2 would make for a VERY big viewfinder solution :ROTFL:

However, on a serious note, if the viewfinder app could link between the iPhone and an iPad you could have a cool solution. However, it seems like a solution looking for a problem to me. What you're really looking for is live view/review to an iPad in real time and that's something the MFDB would need to do.

jlm said:
keep on alert: my Iphone prototype will be done this week.

design parameters:

1. rotates between H and V on the phone lens axis
2. parallax correction built into base, correction ranges from inf to 3'
3. fits any hot-shoe (may take an adapter to fit the alpa)
4. cost under $500
5. very high quality machining
Click to expand...
Looking forward to seeing this.

The one thing I note from the Alpa solution is that you need to make sure that you can accomodate an iPhone in a case like a "bumper". That's something the Alpa folks overlooked and the spring loaded holder doesn't open wide enough with the stock shaped holder inserts for the iPhone. You can certainly fit a phone with case if you remove them or modify them but that's not very appealing. I just chose to use a naked iPhone for this.

The second observation is that you need to make sure that the holder feels solid without any appreciable play in it. In the Alpa case the phone is held rigidly but the removable/rotatable holder frame has some very slight play that I'd rather not have if possible. It's very minor but we all want perfection :)
 
J

jlm

Workshop Member
i too am using a protective case and will accommodate with and without.

no play on my baby
 
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