XL2 Video chip size and Director's Viewfinders
 

Hello all,

I am thinking about buying a director's viewfinder and would like to purchase one that I can use with my XL2 as well as other film formats. I'm looking at a couple that have 2/3" video chip as a viewing format and was wondering what the size is of the XL2's video chips?

Does anyone have any recomendations on director's viewfinders that they like?

Thanx,

Mike Escher

The XL2 is a 1/3" CCD camcorder, as are similar cameras in its price range. 2/3" cameras cost considerably more. However, I'm not sure how that relates to directors viewfinders....

For the full story on the XL2 chips see Chris' article here:

http://dvinfo.net/canonxl2/articles/article06.php

There was another thread about this and Charles P. chimed in with his 'views' (no pun intended). The director's vf calibrated to 2/3 chip size would tell what lens is needed for the FOV the director wants in the scene IIRC. Since a lot of 2/3" camcorders have interchangable lenses, I guess this would be helpful.

-gb-

Since a 1/3" chip is 6/11 = .545 times the size of a 2/3" chip (no, they aren't actually 1/3 and 2/3 inches) it should be a simple matter of taking the focal length measured by a viewer set for 2/3 inch and multiplying by .545 to get the focal length required for a 1/3" CCD. This assumes the full chip area is used in 4:3 aspect ratio. With the various ways to fit 16:9 on a chip a different ratio may apply but it should be able to determine it quickly by experiment.

Here's the link to the previous post Greg referred to, which also links to a product page of a finder that has 1/3" markings.