Focus assist tricks
 

I must admit I've gotten spoiled by my previous HD100 focus assist controls and even the Z1U's colored peaking and the blow up button. Are you all finding the peaking sufficient to nail focus on the 350? My older eyes are having a harder time than they used to.

I'm seriously considering that new Panasonic 8" monitor which also has a waveform I can use. However, when shooting on shoulder... back to peaking. The 2" BW viewfinder is all there is, correct?

Yep, the 2" is all there is. The HD viewfinders on the higher end Sony cameras won't fit the XDCAM units. The recent firmware upgrade improves the peaking display quite a bit though.

-gb-

The update did help the viewfinder and also (maybe I'm crazy) the external LCD ... but I still don't see the reasoning behind having variable controls of the horizontal and vertical peaking. I've experimented and changed them around to see what the benefit is, but I came up empty.

The Z1U focus assist is very handy! Wish my 350 had something similar.

I found that the recent update helped alot with the 2" view finder. I think that the variable control of the Horizontal and Vertical peaking serves to control the thikness of the rimming while the level control on the view finder control the overall intensity.

I too thought that the LCD benifitted from the upgrade.

I don't know about other lens, but my Fuji HSs18x5.5 lens has a quick zoom button which is very useful for setting focus.