During our cinema5D Virtual Show, we had the occasion to talk with Tõnis Liivamägi, founder of Kinotehnik, about the success story of the original LCDVF for DSLR cameras ten years ago, and its latest LCDVF BM5 for the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K/6K. Let’s take a closer look at it! Kinotehnik Success Story To better understand the Kinotehnik story, we have to come back in time more than ten years ago, in 2009. At that time, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is out for a few months, and filmmakers all over the world start to realize that this camera is the real definition of a “game-changer.” Otherwise, the LCD screen on the back of the camera is not articulated. It is hard to see what you are filming in bright daylight, and there is no built-in EVF like in every modern mirrorless camera. Also, external electronic viewfinders are something that does not exist at that time. To solve that problem, Tõnis Liivamägi, an Estonian filmmaker, had an idea: a detachable loupe to correctly see your camera screen in bright daylight, and help you with focusing. The loupe attaches directly to your camera LCD via a magnetized frame and some magnets on the loupe. After a couple of prototypes, Tõnis started to share his original idea on the cinema5D forum, and it went viral. Kinotehnik was born with its first product: the LCDVF. As Tõnis told us, the first 300 units of the LCDVF were sold to cinema5D customers in the...
Published By: CineD - Wednesday, 27 May, 2020