HDMI Field Monitor Review

by Sebastian WöberFebruary 25^th, 2010

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Please note:
– I’m not a native English speaker, I hope you will forgive the grammar mistakes I make.
– I write this review to help you decide which monitor best suits your needs. During the testing I tried to concentrate on fact not opinion. I marked my personal opinion throughout the review.
– Wether or not some of the companies are or were sponsors of the site does not influence this review.
– cinema5D or I did not get paid to do this review and we’re not going to keep any gear reviewed here. If this review helped you please donate 1.50$.



Introduction

Field monitors. They can be awesome for your personal work and if you show up without it on a professional set you might get in trouble. Your director and sometimes the producers and clients on commercial shoots expect to see what you see.

Here we’re looking at 4 hdmi monitors that wanna get a date with your dslr. Most dslr’s that shoot video have a mini hdmi output that can be hooked up to a monitor that provides a hdmi input. It’s not what you might think, they won’t have kids.
You can also use a rca (composite) cable to connect a field monitor, but quality is usually far inferior to hdmi. The Canon 7D I used for my testing has an output of 1620×910 via hdmi.

Other reasons for a field monitor that cross my mind:

• focusing aid
• you can hook up a second and third display for more people to watch
• you can conveniently shoot at weird angles
• you don’t need the camera in your hands to see what it records (eg car mount)
• when you’re handheld and don’t wanna use a viewfinder loupe or have a focus assistant

On the following pages we’ll look at different attributes of the products that I consider most important and compare them to each other. At the end I’ll give you a summary of each.
I hope you enjoy reading.

Sebastian from cinema5D

If this review helped you please donate 1.50$.