3 Things to Look for in a Field Monitor
- Larger viewing area for better monitoring of focus and composition
- Brighter view for working under very bright light such as outdoors in full sunlight
- Allows other crew to see what is on camera
- Added features give more feedback and control to the filmmaker
- Can be set up for wireless monitoring
- Size
- Brightness
- Battery Life
- Awesome Camera Accessories
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photo by monkeybusinessimages via iStock
Working professionally in video requires you to be on top of all the technical aspects of the project, a field monitor for videography provides many benefits for pro or other advanced videographers in monitoring the video as you’re filming.
There are good reasons for using an external field monitor for video productions. A few of them are:
With those thoughts in mind, here are 3 things I usually look at when considering an external field monitor for photography and videography:
Larger Screen
The demands for professional video, including wedding videography, are higher than for casual video making. The view screen on our DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, or dedicated video cameras and camcorders are much bigger than what we had just a few years ago, but even the smallest external field monitor provides a lot more image area to look at.
Why is this important? It’s important because there are sometimes small little errors we make during filming that we might have avoided if we had a bigger view of what we’re recording. Focus is one procedure that is easier to take care of with a bigger view.
A step up from the built in view screen is the 5 inch screen of the Delta DH5e-V2 LCD field monitor from Ikan. The large screen size and a feature called false color assist you in making sure that the focus is spot on.
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Bright View
Filming outside in sunlight or indoors under certain types of ultra bright artificial lights such as in a sports stadium can cause issues with viewability. Bright sunlight will wash out the view screen built into our camera, but an external field monitor combats this issue in several ways.
First, the larger screen of an external field monitor is brighter overall simply because of its size. Second, the field monitors come with sunscreens that help manage excess glare. Third, you can readjust the position of the field monitors so that the bright light isn’t directly on the screen.
Being able to see clearly will help you with good composition and also avoiding any crew members or other unwanted elements being in the recording.
These reasons make it beneficial to use a field monitor for still photography too, since we may be shooting still images in similar conditions from time to time.
The 9 inch Ikan VX9w-S is a field monitor that is an excellent choice for working under extremely bright lighting conditions like what you might find in bright sunlight or certain indoor venues. An added feature of some field monitors like this one is the ability to convert signals for HDMI to SDI or the other way around, SDI to HDMI.
Long Battery Life
A field monitor is only useful for professional videography for as long as it has power. Sometimes we have the option of plugging in our equipment to a wall socket, such as if we’re filming an interview for our YouTube channel. But most of the time, we will rely on battery power.
An external field monitor such as the Ikan VXF7-V2 7 inch monitor is powered by Sony L style camcorder batteries. These batteries are common power sources for field monitors since they are inexpensive and can be charged quickly. Since they are relatively cheap, we can keep several charged up for longer videography projects.
Other Features and Benefits
photo by magical_light via iStock
The ability to monitor wirelessly, see waveforms and histograms, and convert from one signal to another are other great reasons to use external field monitors for videography. If you film professionally or need professional quality video for your personal productions, a field monitor is a valuable asset.
Not only do you gain valuable functions, but you also ease your workflow and enable yourself to capture better video since you have a bigger, brighter, clearer view of what’s being filmed.
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