Monitor for both photo & film

[Rhood]

I'm looking for a monitor  to accompany  my M1 Air.
I don't have the budget for a crazy accurate monitor.
Right now I'm using my laptop screen or sometimes I use an iMac 27" from 2019.

A few questions.
Is it stupid to look for used monitors? Is it very bad if they are 6 tot 9 years old?
Are there brands to avoid?
Is it always better to go for a photo or color grading orientated monitor? Or is it better to go for brand? For instance I know Eizo is a very reputable brand.
They have cheaper options available that are not orientated towards photo/color grading. 

I think I'll set the budget to around 300 max. Do tell (and explain) me if that's too low.

I came across a used NEC PA301W, it seems like a huge beast of a monitor. I can get it for around 150. Seems like a deal?
I know it's quite old though. Any opinions on this?

Thanks!

[webrunner5]

Yeah buy the  NEC PA301W, not going to find anything better for less than 300.

[kye]

6 hours ago, Rhood said:

I'm looking for a monitor  to accompany  my M1 Air.
I don't have the budget for a crazy accurate monitor.
Right now I'm using my laptop screen or sometimes I use an iMac 27" from 2019.

A few questions.
Is it stupid to look for used monitors? Is it very bad if they are 6 tot 9 years old?
Are there brands to avoid?
Is it always better to go for a photo or color grading orientated monitor? Or is it better to go for brand? For instance I know Eizo is a very reputable brand.
They have cheaper options available that are not orientated towards photo/color grading. 

I think I'll set the budget to around 300 max. Do tell (and explain) me if that's too low.

I came across a used NEC PA301W, it seems like a huge beast of a monitor. I can get it for around 150. Seems like a deal?
I know it's quite old though. Any opinions on this?

Thanks!

An average monitor that's been calibrated will be better than the most expensive monitor available that hasn't been calibrated.

There is no such thing as an "accurate" monitor without calibration.  Buy a calibration device and then go looking for a monitor.  When you do this you can calibrate your laptop screen as well.

[kye]

6 hours ago, Rhood said:

I'm looking for a monitor  to accompany  my M1 Air.
I don't have the budget for a crazy accurate monitor.
Right now I'm using my laptop screen or sometimes I use an iMac 27" from 2019.

A few questions.
Is it stupid to look for used monitors? Is it very bad if they are 6 tot 9 years old?
Are there brands to avoid?
Is it always better to go for a photo or color grading orientated monitor? Or is it better to go for brand? For instance I know Eizo is a very reputable brand.
They have cheaper options available that are not orientated towards photo/color grading. 

I think I'll set the budget to around 300 max. Do tell (and explain) me if that's too low.

I came across a used NEC PA301W, it seems like a huge beast of a monitor. I can get it for around 150. Seems like a deal?
I know it's quite old though. Any opinions on this?

Thanks!

I suggest this model of calibrator: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1506566-REG/x_rite_eodisstu_i1display_studio.html

Then buy whatever you can afford with the rest of your budget.

Buying a monitor without it being calibrated is like having a two-year-old adjust all the secret manufacturers monitor parameters and then using it as a colour reference for your work.

[Rhood]

12 hours ago, kye said:

I suggest this model of calibrator: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1506566-REG/x_rite_eodisstu_i1display_studio.html

Then buy whatever you can afford with the rest of your budget.

Buying a monitor without it being calibrated is like having a two-year-old adjust all the secret manufacturers monitor parameters and then using it as a colour reference for your work.

Thanks for the advice, I was planning on xritecallibration, but not immediately. You made it more urgent now.

Also saw some used Benq PD2700 monitors, are these better than the NEC talked above?

[kye]

31 minutes ago, Rhood said:

Thanks for the advice, I was planning on xritecallibration, but not immediately. You made it more urgent now.

Also saw some used Benq PD2700 monitors, are these better than the NEC talked above?

Cool - calibration is the key.

In terms of monitors beyond that, I'm not really sure how to judge a good monitor vs bad.  Obviously if you need a wider colour space than 709 then you'll want the monitor to have that coverage, and if you're working in an environment where you want to look at the monitor from different angles (eg, if you have multiple people reviewing your work at the same time - like director cinematographer producer etc) then colour accuracy over angle-of-view will matter.

Maybe the bit-depth matters too?  I use a BlackMagic Ultrastudio Monitor 3G to get a 10-bit image out of Resolve to my reference monitor without going through the OS colour profiles, so maybe the 10-bit helps?  I read a bunch of monitor reviews some time ago but I got the impression they were the same as most camera reviewers - people that didn't know much (except how to speak like they're an expert) just repeating specs and media release BS back at you.

[Rhood]

Thanks for the input.

I had this sort of feeling when I was looking and searching for some reviews.

A similar question as with the monitors. Is it bad to buy a used callibrator? Anything that can go wrong with them? An used i1 pro going for slightly cheaper than the i1 display you suggested. I’m only looking for Xrite as I once heard they are the best.

[Thomas Hill]

I've been considering one of these. There's a "renewed" one for less than 300.

ProArt

[Yannick Willox]

I have a proart PA248QV. It is also a lower cost type of this series, 24 inch. It comes "calibrated" out of the factory. Side-by-side to my much more expensive Dell 24", which has been calibrated with a Spider, it looks better/more accurate.

Getting into the hassle of recalibrating, more expenses for a (used?) calibration device etc. is only worth it if you are in a VERY controlled environment, with a fixed lighting setting.

I think for REC709 these kind of displays should be quite reliable - although certainly not reference grade ... Benq has a very interesting photo/video series, which can switch between photographic and video modes easily, but at 4x the cost (which is still quite cheap).

The Asus proart series easily goes to 5K euro, but I think there is not 1 model able to do 24p (natively). If you need that, you need to look at the Benq video series.

[webrunner5]

2 hours ago, Thomas Hill said:

I've been considering one of these. There's a "renewed" one for less than 300.

ProArt

I had one of those exact ones. I F ing hated it, sold it in 2 months and bought a BenQ and love it.

[Thomas Hill]

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

I had one of those exact ones. I F ing hated it, sold it in 2 months and bought a BenQ and love it.

Good to know. The 1440p was already giving me pause

[kye]

8 hours ago, Yannick Willox said:

I have a proart PA248QV. It is also a lower cost type of this series, 24 inch. It comes "calibrated" out of the factory. Side-by-side to my much more expensive Dell 24", which has been calibrated with a Spider, it looks better/more accurate.

If anything is different to a calibrated monitor then it doesn't look "better", it looks "inaccurate".

My Dell panel was also factory calibrated, but oh boy did it change when I calibrated it.

This might lead you to question how good calibration really is, but when I calibrated my MBP display and my external display I could move an image between the two and the colours would look very similar indeed.  The main difference was that the MBP display changes quite significantly when you change the angle of the display, so getting a perfect visual match on brightness / contrast / saturation is impossible.

8 hours ago, Yannick Willox said:

Getting into the hassle of recalibrating, more expenses for a (used?) calibration device etc. is only worth it if you are in a VERY controlled environment, with a fixed lighting setting.

Think about it this way...  if I made a custom LUT and applied it to your laptop display, you'd want me to remove it wouldn't you?  Even if you were doing videos on planes/trains/automobiles.  The fact that it's not controlled lighting doesn't mean you're happy to colour your videos through my LUT.  That's what having an uncalibrated display is like - an unknown LUT applied permanently to that display.

Besides, it's actually very easy to arrange a controlled lighting environment.  The only thing you need is to have is relatively low-level temperature ambient lighting.  For that I recommend MediaLight bulbs: https://www.biaslighting.com/en-au/products/medialight-mk2-dimmable-e26-110v-a19-bulb
They fit into a standard light socket and are completely neutral in temp/tint.  Put one of these into a lamp, ensure that it's shining on a relatively neutral surface, close the blinds, and you're fine.

8 hours ago, Yannick Willox said:

I think for REC709 these kind of displays should be quite reliable - although certainly not reference grade ... Benq has a very interesting photo/video series, which can switch between photographic and video modes easily, but at 4x the cost (which is still quite cheap).

I agree that for rec709 most displays should be fine, if they're calibrated.

One colourist mentioned that after calibration the image on their consumer-grade GUI monitor was very close to their super-high-end reference display, so unless you're doing mission-critical work then (for rec709) you should be fine with a calibrated monitor.

[Rhood]

Thanks for the huge amount of knowledge @kye

Sorry to re ask my question, but I don't want to wait to long to buy.
Is it bad to buy a used callibrator? Anything that can go wrong with them? A used Xrite eye one pro package going for slightly cheaper than the i1 display you suggested. Eye one pro is quite old though, better to go with more recent models?

I noticed some calibrators can be used to calibrate projector. That can be handy in the future, as we might go for a projector instead of a tv in the living room.

[webrunner5]

Nothing wrong with buying a used one. They have no moving parts so unless it was dropped from a high height, I see no reason other than a newer model being out not to buy one.

[MrSMW]

Ha, just been going through a similar kind of quest really…

I have a decent desktop PC with a 25” Benq monitor.

I have a new 14” MacBook Pro for work on the go.

I shoot 50% stills and 50% video so both of equal importance.

All was fine ‘on paper’ until I tried editing video in the MacBook. Screen real estate. It has nowhere near enough!

So I bought a 15.6” portable monitor to use on the road (I work out of my caravan/travel trailer roughly 2 months per annum) which solved the issue as rather than a ‘mirror’, I have set it up to keep Premiere Pro tools on the MacBook and the actual video window full screen in the monitor.

But then we hit another problem which is it is impossible to calibrate them to be the same.

I use Xrite and you cannot calibrate a MacBook Pro with it so what I have done and do is as follows:

1: Calibrated my desktop using Xrite.

2: Manually calibrated my second monitor to resemble visually as close as is possible, it’s bigger (and better) desktop brother. It’s not perfect, but not too far off.

3: The MacBook itself I can’t get anywhere near like the second monitor or the Benq, so what I am doing instead is:

A: Doing the assembly work on the MacBook Pro on the road, but stop short of grading the project and instead…

B:…wait until I get back home to my office and then transfer the project to my desktop PC and do the colour grade, final tweaks, export and upload etc.

Conclusion. With hindsight, I would probably have been better off going with a Mac Mini and so when I get home, plugging that into my big Benq.

But it’s no biggie and the only real difference is a portable HD between the 2 systems.

When my PC finally needs to be consigned to the scrap heap, I will go Mac in the studio which will provide better consistency.

I have only one other option to try and that is when I get back from a job, connect the MacBook itself to my Benq.

I’ll work out the most efficient and best workflow as this year progresses…

[Yannick Willox]

18 hours ago, kye said:

If anything is different to a calibrated monitor then it doesn't look "better", it looks "inaccurate".

My Dell panel was also factory calibrated, but oh boy did it change when I calibrated it.

What I meant was, the newer lcd looks better, but colors match. Contrast is better, red goes further, etc, the previous one did not cover srgb and rec709 100%.

i use them side by side, the proart is better. The factory calibration report is better than what I got with my old dell with my old spiderpro.

so, if you are not in a 100% controlled environment, and dont recalibrate often, imo there is no use if you have a decent factory calibrated item.

of course, you could have had bad luck. And of course, this changes if you have to do critical, highend color grading.

But then, I am not mastering audio on Soundblaster speakers in an untreated studio either.

[kye]

13 hours ago, Rhood said:

Thanks for the huge amount of knowledge @kye

Sorry to re ask my question, but I don't want to wait to long to buy.
Is it bad to buy a used callibrator? Anything that can go wrong with them? A used Xrite eye one pro package going for slightly cheaper than the i1 display you suggested. Eye one pro is quite old though, better to go with more recent models?

I noticed some calibrators can be used to calibrate projector. That can be handy in the future, as we might go for a projector instead of a tv in the living room.

I suspect that @webrunner5 is right that as long as they're working they're probably fine.  They're essentially a digital camera with a single pixel!

I have the i1Display Pro, and the i1 series seems to be the one with lots of support, so it's worth checking what software you'll use it with and what support those packages have.

8 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Ha, just been going through a similar kind of quest really…

I have a decent desktop PC with a 25” Benq monitor.

I have a new 14” MacBook Pro for work on the go.

I shoot 50% stills and 50% video so both of equal importance.

All was fine ‘on paper’ until I tried editing video in the MacBook. Screen real estate. It has nowhere near enough!

So I bought a 15.6” portable monitor to use on the road (I work out of my caravan/travel trailer roughly 2 months per annum) which solved the issue as rather than a ‘mirror’, I have set it up to keep Premiere Pro tools on the MacBook and the actual video window full screen in the monitor.

But then we hit another problem which is it is impossible to calibrate them to be the same.

I use Xrite and you cannot calibrate a MacBook Pro with it so what I have done and do is as follows:

1: Calibrated my desktop using Xrite.

2: Manually calibrated my second monitor to resemble visually as close as is possible, it’s bigger (and better) desktop brother. It’s not perfect, but not too far off.

3: The MacBook itself I can’t get anywhere near like the second monitor or the Benq, so what I am doing instead is:

A: Doing the assembly work on the MacBook Pro on the road, but stop short of grading the project and instead…

B:…wait until I get back home to my office and then transfer the project to my desktop PC and do the colour grade, final tweaks, export and upload etc.

Conclusion. With hindsight, I would probably have been better off going with a Mac Mini and so when I get home, plugging that into my big Benq.

But it’s no biggie and the only real difference is a portable HD between the 2 systems.

When my PC finally needs to be consigned to the scrap heap, I will go Mac in the studio which will provide better consistency.

I have only one other option to try and that is when I get back from a job, connect the MacBook itself to my Benq.

I’ll work out the most efficient and best workflow as this year progresses…

I calibrated my MBP monitor fine on my i1Display Pro.  I have only calibrated to rec709 though - were you trying to calibrate to a wider colour space?  I've tried doing that before on my previous device (a Datacolor Spyder - best to avoid these) and couldn't get a proper calibration even though my monitor claims almost 100% of Adobe RGB.

3 hours ago, Yannick Willox said:

What I meant was, the newer lcd looks better, but colors match. Contrast is better, red goes further, etc, the previous one did not cover srgb and rec709 100%.

i use them side by side, the proart is better. The factory calibration report is better than what I got with my old dell with my old spiderpro.

so, if you are not in a 100% controlled environment, and dont recalibrate often, imo there is no use if you have a decent factory calibrated item.

of course, you could have had bad luck. And of course, this changes if you have to do critical, highend color grading.

But then, I am not mastering audio on Soundblaster speakers in an untreated studio either.

I understand that one might have a better calibration report than the other, especially if one has a wider gamut capability than the other, but once properly calibrated they should look basically the same.  Unless one of them is really underperforming and not really up to getting a proper calibration?

Ah - I just realised that both my MBP display and my Dell panel are wide-gamut monitors.  Perhaps this enables a very good calibration against rec709?

If that's true, that might be a consideration for @Rhood - to get a cheaper wide gamut monitor as it might get a better calibration result.

[kye]

8 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Ha, just been going through a similar kind of quest really…

I have a decent desktop PC with a 25” Benq monitor.

I have a new 14” MacBook Pro for work on the go.

I shoot 50% stills and 50% video so both of equal importance.

All was fine ‘on paper’ until I tried editing video in the MacBook. Screen real estate. It has nowhere near enough!

So I bought a 15.6” portable monitor to use on the road (I work out of my caravan/travel trailer roughly 2 months per annum) which solved the issue as rather than a ‘mirror’, I have set it up to keep Premiere Pro tools on the MacBook and the actual video window full screen in the monitor.

But then we hit another problem which is it is impossible to calibrate them to be the same.

I use Xrite and you cannot calibrate a MacBook Pro with it so what I have done and do is as follows:

1: Calibrated my desktop using Xrite.

2: Manually calibrated my second monitor to resemble visually as close as is possible, it’s bigger (and better) desktop brother. It’s not perfect, but not too far off.

3: The MacBook itself I can’t get anywhere near like the second monitor or the Benq, so what I am doing instead is:

A: Doing the assembly work on the MacBook Pro on the road, but stop short of grading the project and instead…

B:…wait until I get back home to my office and then transfer the project to my desktop PC and do the colour grade, final tweaks, export and upload etc.

Conclusion. With hindsight, I would probably have been better off going with a Mac Mini and so when I get home, plugging that into my big Benq.

But it’s no biggie and the only real difference is a portable HD between the 2 systems.

When my PC finally needs to be consigned to the scrap heap, I will go Mac in the studio which will provide better consistency.

I have only one other option to try and that is when I get back from a job, connect the MacBook itself to my Benq.

I’ll work out the most efficient and best workflow as this year progresses…

The setup I have been pondering is to have my MBP and an external display built for gaming or a laptop secondary display.  Andrew reviewed one on the blog recently, but I can't find the link so maybe it's gone.

I use Resolve, which works brilliantly with the BM display devices like the Ultrastudio 3G, and gives a clean HDMI out of the monitor window, similar to how you have configured your second monitor, only this bypasses the OS colour management and gives a completely controlled calibrated feed from Resolve, plus it's 10-bit which I suspect also helps.
I believe they also work with other NLE's so that might be worth exploring?  The one I have is powered directly from the laptop via thunderbolt and gives a 10-bit HDMI and SDI up to 1080p60, but there's also the (more expensive!) 4K Mini that does 4K: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio/techspecs/W-DLUS-11

So I was thinking that I could pair my Ultrastudio with a USB powered HDMI-in monitor to create a second display completely powered by the MBP that is also great for editing and is nicely calibrated.  On-camera monitors are probably too small (5-7 inch or so) and field monitors are probably too expensive, but I think there's consumer ones that also accept HDMI, so I might go in that direction.  

Combined with a MediaLight calibrated globe and a desk lamp I could probably have a dual-screen calibrated laptop setup in a lighting controlled neutral grading environment.  Combine that with my Speed Editor and maybe a colour grading surface, and it would be a full editing setup that easily fits in a suitcase.

[webrunner5]

One thing you really have to consider is now a lot of monitors, laptops have a setting where they adjust to the lighting conditions in your house, ergo, daytime, nighttime, etc. automatically. Handy as heck to be honest, but not so handy for grading if you forget.

 Most people don't have the luxury of having a completely controlled environment to grade in.

[MrSMW]

5 hours ago, kye said:

Andrew reviewed one on the blog recently, but I can't find the link so maybe it's gone.

It was a Uperfect and cost about 1k.

I also went with a Uperfect but a smaller, cheaper and less capable one.

With even further hindsight, I should have spent a little more and gone for another identical Benq for my home away from home on wheels.

It will do the principle job I need it to do however which is really just a display monitor.