From toy to tool: how to modify the PortKeys LEYE SDI into an AMAZING electronic viewfinder

hi my name is Johnson I'm a cinematographer in this video I'm going to show you how to modify the portkey's LI SDI and turn it into a really amazing viewfinder I would give it a focus pull right now but the LI SDI could have been sold like hot cakes I mean an electronic viewfinder at this price point having HDMI and SDI inputs very low power consumption the possibility to power it with LPE 6 batteries or externally having all the features you need like 3D Luts anamorphic disk squeeze guides histogram false color even every false color waveform peeking zebra it has it all but the eyepiece [Music] I'm so sorry but it feels almost like a toy it's the whole construction of it and especially the diopter funny thing is almost no YouTube video addresses to the fully extend it's like everyone's trying to avoid the seam I've seen a lot of videos about the Li and a lot of them were mentioning that they got the LI from Port Keys as a gift for making a review so maybe that's part of the issue the most accurate reviews I read on Amazon like this one it's from an Italian customer saying that the biggest flaw which is why I returned it is that's internal lens that magnifies the screen heavily distorts the image unless the eye is always exactly in the center just move a few millimeter and it distorts everything making it impossible to work another review says it's difficult to nail the focus mentioning for an image that turns out to be too distant and small aside from the poor diopter lens and there may be very cheap eye cushion problem leaving that aside why does the image feel too distant and small why is that did podcasts make a mistake by choosing a panel that's only 2.5 inch diameter for me it felt that there was something wrong with the old eyepiece the panel seems to be decent the features the evf offers too the build quality except for the eyepiece of course is actually quite nice and so it's the price point of the whole product so I thought why not remove the whole eyepiece disaster and replace it with something that does a pretty good job since over a decade now there's a good old set finder [Music] what I call eyepiece here you could also call it a loop so does the kudu on their website the vet finder still be built and that's the best thing for a project here they say that most of their Loops are the exact same the only thing that changes is the mounting frame does that finder is available for more than a decade now and as we only need the thing itself which sekudo says is still the same we can easily get a used one on eBay as I made this video I found lots of them for about 30 to 60 dollar which is great for your wallet and great for the planet too what's also a big Advantage the kudu still sells parts for the Z finder such as eye cushions diopter lenses or very nice anti-4 covers which are awesome and never let me down in the past so what they of course don't sell and we needed to design was our own mounting frame and adapter from the portkey's LI to the zakuta set finder but first we had to remove the eyepiece and see what's inside for that I went to a friend's Workshop to remove it you will need a 1.5 millimeter in this or worked even better a T6 talks there's one screw that has been filled with thread Locker I guess so Port keys can see if it has been altered we scratched it out with a small needle I guess I don't have to tell you that doing all that will void of course any warranty you might still have when you remove the eyepiece please be super careful because here comes the first surprise instead of attaching the panel to the main part of the evf portkeys decided to tape it to the eyepiece so after unscrewing it the flat ribbon cable that connects the panel to the main board is very vulnerable it's best if you mount the evf to the table before you start working on it so at this point we realized we not only had to design an adapter from the port keys to the Z finder but also a tray for the panel itself the most difficult part of the whole modification process is the following removing the panel from the eyepiece without damaging it I know it looks scary and I want to be honest with you it really was first I didn't dare to remove the adhesive tape from the panel itself as it did Super fragile and also I was afraid of damaging the silver foil on the back of the panel which is a reflective surface for the panel's backlight so first we removed the panel from the eyepiece itself which was less scary and then we removed the tape from the panel Before The Next Step of our modification I'd like to show you what I find is wrong with the eyepiece of CLI on my iPad I prepared an image that has exactly the same measures as the panel of the airline now I place the eyepiece on top of it to give you an impression on how the loop behaves as you can see the loop does not magnify it does the opposite it shrinks the image which is why the image seems to be too small and too distant to nail manual focus also if you move your eye just a little bit off the center here comes the Distortion people were mentioning very annoying now comes the Z finder with the exact same image on my iPad the image is much bigger the loop does what it's supposed to do it magnifies the image makes it easier for me to judge focus and immerse in the composition in comparison with the that finder you will get an image twice as large as portkey's original Loop delivers next we designed the tray for the panel to make it part of the viewfinder we left room at the bottom so you can just slide in the panel without the need of messing with the split ribbon cable it also leaves space for the what we think is the backlight part after that we modeled the adapter frame for attaching the Z finder you will still be able to use the same screws that come with the LI as they are long enough for our design to make this modification easy accessible for everyone we decided to put the files on thingiverse for free so you can print it with a 3D printer however it is possible to donate to our project on singivers or on the website I put down below if you're on the position to donate we would be more than happy while printing the parts here are some notes for the printing process we recommend using a nozzle of 0.4 millimeter and petg as printing material in the printing process please add a tiny bit of support for the corners of the tray part the support will be easy to remove and the results will be much better than printing it without this option foreign need to finish our modification [Music] at first we carefully insert the panel into our tray and mount it thank you as you can hear it snaps in with the base of the evf it feels very solid [Music] the panel fits perfectly it still has a little bit of space to make sure that the material can expand or shrink a tiny bit without damaging the panel in fact we chose ptg for that not to happen but better be safe than sorry next we attach our mounting frame for the Z finder screw it in this is very important please be absolutely sure to use at least one extender frame from the kudu on top of our adapter these are somewhat flexible which our adapter is not and as the Z finder covers the top screws when you attach it you won't be able to remove it without destroying the adapter or the Z finder this would be so frustrating so please keep it in mind one extender frame will do usually at least three of them come with that finder to adjust the distance to the panel if needed now we can attach our new eyepiece to our Li viewfinder [Music] snaps right in [Music] turn it on really this is an upgrade that's absolutely worth it it turns the Ally into an amazing professional electronic viewfinder at this price point it's an absolute steal and with this modification I can highly recommend it to remove the Z finder just give the extender frame from the kuto a gentle squeeze and here we go [Music] thank you for watching I hope you liked it as I said if you're able to donate you'll make our day but more important good luck with your modification and have a lot of fun using it I'm sure you'll love the results

Channel: Thorsten Schönrade

Views: 57,687

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Id: sPMH5Iru7zM

Length: 10min 36sec (636 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2023