Can an electronic viewfinder be used to expose film?

[jsmoove]

I'm wondering if a high-res image can be fed into something like:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1611309-REG/portkeys_leye_4k_hdmi_electronic.html
Could you expose 35mm film (or paper) on the microdisplay?

 

[wiltw]

Black is not true 'lack of light'...so contrast suffers if attempting what you want to do.

 

[jsmoove]

@wiltw Oh right, whoops. Thanks for the answer!

 

[grain elevator]

Uhm there doesn't need to be no light for something to register black on film. If it has normal contrast to the human eye, it should have normal contrast to film.

 

[Kino]

Check the resolution of the eyepiece; its not even HD.

Yes, it will take a 4K signal, but it displays 1440 x 980.

Just because it can receive a 4K signal, doesn't mean you are looking at a true 4K image; it has been decimated to fit the lower resolution of the screen.

Besides the aspect ratio of the viewfinder 16x9 will require further cropping for your 4:3 images, lowering even more the resolution you will get on your camera.

When HD designers decided to arbitrarily restrict high resolution video to panoramic or wide screen aspect ratios, they did a great disservice to classic aspect ratio images.

At best I suggest you find an 4K OLED monitor that can display over 90% Rec. 2020 color space and build a light tight box around and shoot the screen with a good flat field lens.

And, you'll need to learn a bit of color science to make sure you both calibrate and get accurate colors to the monitor.

 

[wiltw]

Uhm there doesn't need to be no light for something to register black on film. If it has normal contrast to the human eye, it should have normal contrast to film.

Understood. But if you reduced gain so that the 'black' areas are your baseline for exposure, the highlights might not be as bright. Consider the contrasts claimed with TV screens. Some examples https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/picture-quality/contrast-ratio

As already pointed out, the displays don't have terrific resolution.

 

[Lee Rust]

I've copied photos from the 15" Retina screen of my MacBook using a 6x9 film camera on a tripod, but a 35mm reflex would work just as well. The resolution and contrast are quite acceptable, but make sure the room is dark and that the screen is clean and at 90 degrees to the lens. I use a digital camera to find the right exposure. The screen pixels are only visible if you look very, very closely at the film image.

 

[wiltw]

I've copied photos from the 15" Retina screen of my MacBook using a 6x9 film camera on a tripod, but a 35mm reflex would work just as well. The resolution and contrast are quite acceptable, but make sure the room is dark and that the screen is clean and at 90 degrees to the lens. I use a digital camera to find the right exposure. The screen pixels are only visible if you look very, very closely at the film image.

But that is very different from using an accessory EVF to expose film...

• Camera EVF with 1440 x 900 Resolution (1.3 Megapixels)
• 300 cd/m² Brightness, 1100:1 Contrast

1100:1 is scarcely 4.5EV brightness range, when even TVs have 5000:1 contrast range.

 

[radiant]

I've copied photos from the 15" Retina screen of my MacBook using a 6x9 film camera on a tripod, but a 35mm reflex would work just as well. The resolution and contrast are quite acceptable, but make sure the room is dark and that the screen is clean and at 90 degrees to the lens. I use a digital camera to find the right exposure. The screen pixels are only visible if you look very, very closely at the film image.

Interesting. I looked at the specs:

- 15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology; 2880-by-1800 native resolution at 220 pixels per inch with support for millions of colors.
- 300 nits brightness
- 900:1 contrast ratio

https://support.apple.com/kb/sp719?locale=en_US

So if doing 15x12.7" print from the negative you would achieve 220 DPI resolution at print? Probably quite decent resolution.