p.2 #1 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Thanks for all the advice and images; I find an additional LV display very intriguing .
What a shame there are no real LV displays - which are fully articulated - built into any APS_C (+) cameras .
My Nex might benefit from such a thing, in particular the smaller DP4 models .
Does anyone have experience with the Sony CLM-V55 monitor (German forum link) ?
p.2 #2 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Yes, I am thinking that apart from making it easier to focus, I just might enjoy the compositional assistance of such a monitor... I am very curious about this, but need to raise some money first.
p.2 #3 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Hey Mike,
Wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing your reasons for choosing the DP6 vs the DP4. I'm looking to use this for the same reasons you are and am wondering if the extra size and resolution makes that much difference.
Thanks!
Mike W.
Mike K wrote:
I have a Small HD DP6 and use it on a Canon 5DII. My application is not video, but as a larger, high resolution monitor for Tilt/Shift lens use.
p.2 #4 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Mike K wrote:
I have a Small HD DP6 and use it on a Canon 5DII. My application is not video, but as a larger, high resolution monitor for Tilt/Shift lens use. In that situation the camera lens is often just a few inches from the ground. I can bend down and with my head a few feet above the camera make fine adjustments to the lens tilt/lock knobs and lens focus with two hands. I don't use peaking, but do use focus assist, a form of mild peaking (white outlines on high frequency edges). However, the 1:1 feature is great for max screen resolution. I go back and forth between normal (to compose) and 1:1 (for fine adjustments at 5-10X) as you don't see the entire image with 1:1. In essence, I use the DP6 as a large, high resolution flip/swivel screen. Works Great!
Is the DP6 bright enough for general daylight use and/or are you using the sun shade with it? From what I found on Small HD, it seems the DP4 is a bit brighter, but I like the resolution of the DP6.
p.2 #5 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
numbers505 wrote:
Hey Mike,
Wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing your reasons for choosing the DP6 vs the DP4. I'm looking to use this for the same reasons you are and am wondering if the extra size and resolution makes that much difference.
Thanks!
Mike W.
I am writing up a review of the DP6 as Fred is also very interested for the same application as mine, low angle Tilt/Shift.
The increase in resolution is pretty significant. If you are going to use the monitor primarily for composition, it is not a big deal, but for my application of fine tuning lens tilt and focus it makes a very noticable difference. I have owned other 480X800 monitors, like the 7" Lilliput, and it seemed rather soft by comparison. Its really hard to tell precisely where the optimum lens focus is. I wasn't interested in an EVF as it would not allow critical viewing from 1-2 ft distance. Marshall and Ikan are to release HD monitors this year also, but like the DP6 they will not be cheap.
For max resolution I use 1:1 mapping, which is viewing about 2/3 the 5DII LCD, pixel per pixel, along with 5-10X image magnification from the camera. Another great feature are the DP6 presets for Nikon & Canon, which allow auto resizing of the display so that nearly all of the monitor pixels are used. This can be quite a problem with some displays as much of the monitor's screen is wasted on border.
You might think that focus peaking would substitute for resolution, but this is not my experience. Peaking and especially Focus Assist + is a somewhat rough focus guidance when you need to use manual focus to quickly grab the proper focus with moving subjects (like with video). It allows you to quickly assess the dof without studying the scene in great detail. Some image qualities are sacrificed with peaking as the sharpest edges are haloed with white. This preempts their use for evaluation of image sharpness in a native state. In my experience for stills there are more accurate and precise strategies.
Setting up the DP6 takes a few minutes and increases the working bulk of the camera so I use it selectively. The DP6 is plenty bright, I usually don't use the shade and I don't crank up the brightness beyond 50. Too much brightness seems to degrade the fine resolution. LIke all LCDs glare can be a problem in certain situations, then it takes a minute to attach the shade. From time to time Small HD have sales of "B stock" which are units with several dead pixels. I got one with a $300 discount. I only see the dead pixels when using "focus assist +", which is a form of highly amplified focus peaking. Get on their mailing list if you want to be notified of B stock sales.
Mike K
p.2 #6 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Great write-ups Mike! I really appreciate the added insight regarding the DP6. I've been waffling back and forth between the DP4 and DP6. Larger screen is better if not using it as an EVF, and I'm just not sure I would. It's a whole new paradigm for me (using a field monitor for focus and framing assist), so it is a challenge to figure out what would work best for my needs. If I had an extra 2700 USD laying around the two new DP7 options look amazing haha!
Anyway, your posts are very very encouraging and insightful; I feel I'm on the right track considering either the DP4 or DP6, with DP6 starting to take the lead. Thanks!
p.2 #7 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
joychris wrote:
I shoot video a little flat to boost shadow details and protect the highlights, so to be honest I can't say anything about color accuracy with any authority.
This statement has been bubbling around in my brain for the last couple of days, and when I was reading an interesting video camera review today, I realized why: when you shoot flat and are not in raw, you are using up valuable bits and may not get that back in post. I presume the emphasis here is on "little"?
I don't understand much about video at this point, but would be curious to hear a little about your pipeline, if you have the time.
p.2 #9 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Thanks Stefan! The DP4 on sale there doesn't appear to be the "bundle" edition, but the price is around the bundle price, including shipping and customs fees, so the only way this is more attractive would be if they offer a local guarantee... Hmm...
p.2 #11 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
carstenw wrote:
This statement has been bubbling around in my brain for the last couple of days, and when I was reading an interesting video camera review today, I realized why: when you shoot flat and are not in raw, you are using up valuable bits and may not get that back in post. I presume the emphasis here is on "little"?
I don't understand much about video at this point, but would be curious to hear a little about your pipeline, if you have the time.
I expose for shadow detail and I avoid blowing out the highlights. In video - especially with the FS100 - its really easy to blow out whites and with 8-bit color space (4:2:0) there's not a lot of recovery going on. If you fry your clouds or blow out a bright background, you're stuck with white and there's really nothing you can do to fix it in post, your image is toast. Same goes for shadows, any significant recovery is going to make them look a muddy gray or introduce a lot of noise. Color grading (or correction, same thing) in video is not like pulling a over/under exposed raw into LR and getting lots of shadow or highlight detail back. Raw photos have a lot more latitude for this than 8-bit video, obviously since there's more color space.
The FS100 has more adjustments than a DSLR, you're not just tweaking saturation and sharpness, you can tinker with the black levels and all then individual colors, gamma and such. So what I do (and I'm a low-rent pro, not shooting features) is avoid crushing the blacks and keep the zebras off my image so I'm not blowing out the whites - with my picture profile settings this flattens the image a bit. So in post I get the skin tones right and then tweak the rest to bring back the color. I'm only making minor adjustments as I'm not an expert grader.
Even when shooting with the 5d2 I used the Neutral setting with sharpness, saturation and such all turned down (-3 IIRC, its been a few months since I sold it) so the image was pretty flat and I just boosted certain parts of the image in post. When the Technicolor and Cinestyle profiles hit, it made the image even flatter. Its easier to add a bit of color in post, but its much tougher to bring down the color in an over saturated image, at least it is for me. Overall with 8-bit video, IMHO, there is a little more latitude with colors than with deep blacks and bright whites. Flat keeps the blacks and whites in line and you can tweak the rest.
There are a few really good videos by Stu Maschwitz, a brilliant feature film colorist. Here's one where he gives a nice overview of how its done with video. The tweaks aren't over the top, but there is enough to make subtle changes and create your look:
There are a ton of before and after grading videos that show examples by colorists far more skilled than me. For my pipeline - after a shoot, I pull all the video off the card and edit it down close to the finished product for a first rough draft. Then I go through each shot and make color corrections and balance everything from shot-to-shot as needed. I also add any music, voice overs or tweaks to recorded audio. That's a final rough draft which I watch on two different TV's and my laptop to see if anything needs to be tweaked audio-wise or if there are any glaring differences in color. Then I tighten my edit, add any graphics and export the final product according to the specs of the broadcaster. If its for the web, it can just be uploaded. I hope that's what you meant by pipeline.
p.2 #12 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Yes, that's pure gold, thanks a lot for taking the time to post in such detail again.
Sooner or later, I am going to try my hand with some video. I am not quite sure what I would like to do, so I think my initial investment will probably be minimal, like a Manfrotto 701HDV and a Røde Stereo VideoMic Pro, or similar. I might pick up Final Cut Pro X to play around with, iMovie is pretty limited.
p.2 #13 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Sadly the D800's interpolated Live View feed and poor low-light performance, both the result its sensor line-skipping LV implementation makes critical focusing more difficult than it should be. When I did my youtube videos on the subject I had my D800 connected to a 42" 1080P 120hz LCD TV and didn't find it was much better for focusing.
p.2 #14 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
It would be awesome if Nikon would make a fix for the line skipping issue, but maybe it just takes too much processing at this resolution. Anyway, I find that I can focus fine, but a bigger screen would be better, and the focusing aids would help.
p.2 #15 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
carstenw wrote:
Yes, that's pure gold, thanks a lot for taking the time to post in such detail again.
Sooner or later, I am going to try my hand with some video. I am not quite sure what I would like to do, so I think my initial investment will probably be minimal, like a Manfrotto 701HDV and a Røde Stereo VideoMic Pro, or similar. I might pick up Final Cut Pro X to play around with, iMovie is pretty limited.
No problem, the d800 is a beast - if you want to get into video its a great camera. FCPX is a huge step up from iMovie. I have a tough time with iMovie because I've always edited from a timeline and Apple yanked it from iMovie years ago. You can get by with just a decent mic if you're not doing any pans. I had the Ride video Mic Pro on the 5d2 and it was awesome, I actually used the in-camera audio quite a bit after getting the Rode.
p.2 #16 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Thanks Mike!
I'm wondering if you could elaborate a bit on the 'more accurate and precise strategies' you mentioned earlier.
Some image qualities are sacrificed with peaking as the sharpest edges are haloed with white. This preempts their use for evaluation of image sharpness in a native state. In my experience for stills there are more accurate and precise strategies.
p.2 #17 · Using External Monitors for Focusing (and Video)
Some image qualities are sacrificed with peaking as the sharpest edges are haloed with white. This preempts their use for evaluation of image sharpness in a native state. In my experience for stills there are more accurate and precise strategies.
Thanks,
Mike W.
Peaking takes the high frequency edges and halos them. In the Small HD monitors it halos them with white. Sharper edge, more halo. Thus you can no longer see the original edge, due to the halo. What you can see with peaking is a wave of halos moving across your screen as you rotate your focus ring. This makes it easier to quickly pick out the in-focus area from out of focus areas. Go to the Small HD website where they have sample video clips of focusing with peaking and focus assist+. Note how you can quickly pick out areas (looks like waves of white) of in-focus as the subject moves.
Focus Assist+ is one selectable feature that exaggerates this effect by darkening the out of focus areas to make the peaking even more obvious. This might be a real help with video where you very quickly want to grab focus, and where the absolute best focus is not as critical. for example manual focus tracking of a moving subject. For stills work, peaking hides a bit of the edge detail and makes critical optimization a bit more difficult. This is especially true for focus assist+, which dramatically darkens the backgound.
Another feature that I find really helpful is called 1:1 where the 800X1280 pixels of the DP6 match the output of the Canon LCD in a 1:1 image. Thus no pixel interpolation is used, which avoids the very common problem of letter boxing of the image on the external monitor. In that case you don't even use all of the pixels you paid for in your external monitor. The downside is that the camera LCD (I use a Canon 5DII) has more pixels than the DP6, so I loose the edges of the frame. They have preset set ups for Canon and Nikon, and you can custom make additional presets. I use a set up where a one button push on the DP6 will toggle between the entire LCD image for composition (pixels interpolated), and 1:1 for sharpness evaluation. For max sharpness resolution I use the 5-10X magnification button on the camera with the 1:1 feature on the DP6. Another of the custom presets is a one button toggle to turn focus peaking on/off.
Needless to say, the extra pixels of the DP6 (800x1280, true HD) are a big step up in resolution from the common 600X800 monitors.
Mike K
