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Monitors for 2x and 1.5x stretch preview


jgharding
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Hello all,

 

I'm looking to gather together information about which external monitors allow anamorphic preview modes and in what capacity. Thereare bits and bobs all over but it'd be nice to get lots of experience in one thread. 

 

If you have a moment, and experience with a monitor that allows  anamorphic preview, please post some experiences here! It'd be nice to know which ones support properly and which require workaround.

 

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EDIT:

 

Summary of thread so far:

 

It can be hard to focus with de-squeeze enabled, as a smaller area of the monitor is used to display footage

 

  • SmallHD monitors have an anamorphic mode. Some of them only have a 1.5x viewing mode but through custom parameters, you can stretch the signal to monitor in 2x (or even a 1.5x crop of a 2x signal): http://www.eoshd.com...smallhd-monitor
  • If using the Small HD DP4 a magnifier is useful.
  • zacuto's evf also has some nice options for de-squeeze, though you may want a loupe for magnification.
  • The budget Chinese monitor available from http://www.personal-...onitors-amazing appears to have custom modes, though it's hard to find more information online.
     
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EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs

zacuto's evf also has some nice options for de-squeeze. though to me I feel you'd have to use the magnifier loupe with it otherwise the height is so small on the screen you wont know what's in focus

personally, using a screen without this option ( sony 5" clm v55) I just shoot and frame with the squeezed image. im using a 1.5 anamorphic so i'm used to it and am used to accounting for how the end result will look. it's actually quite nice because the images always look that much more wow when you desqueeze at a later date and see it at the correct ratio later that day.

based on my experiences I'd say that using a screen with a desqueeze function on it, without a loupe to magnify the image, you'd want a large screen so the desqueezed image is at least 4" tall, otherwise you'll need to constantly pixel magnify to see what it going on focus wise.

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based on my experiences I'd say that using a screen with a desqueeze function on it, without a loupe to magnify the image, you'd want a large screen so the desqueezed image is at least 4" tall, otherwise you'll need to constantly pixel magnify to see what it going on focus wise.

 

This is very true. Since your subject will ultimately be smaller on the monitor, larger monitors are much better for anamorphic monitoring. With a spherical lens, when something looks in focus, it's probably in focus. For anamorphic lenses, this may not be the case at all and it is a lot harder to tell on a smaller monitor. I just shot some footage with my shoulder-mounted Iscomorphot 8 2x while monitoring with my DP4 and was surprised to see that though it appeared to be in focus in my monitor, all of the footage turned out to be soft and pretty unusable. If I continue to shoot anamorphic footage, I will probably pick up an AC7.

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This is very true. Since your subject will ultimately be smaller on the monitor, larger monitors are much better for anamorphic monitoring. With a spherical lens, when something looks in focus, it's probably in focus. For anamorphic lenses, this may not be the case at all and it is a lot harder to tell on a smaller monitor. I just shot some footage with my shoulder-mounted Iscomorphot 8 2x while monitoring with my DP4 and was surprised to see that though it appeared to be in focus in my monitor, all of the footage turned out to be soft and pretty unusable. If I continue to shoot anamorphic footage, I will probably pick up an AC7.

 

check out the evf attachment for the dp4.  I tried the zacuto and even de-squeezed it was great with the magnifier. 

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Hey everybody, please let Convergent Design know that we want anamorphic monitoring on their new Odyssey monitor:

 

https://vimeo.com/72494555

 

If they add this feature, we will have a big, fully-featured, waveform-capable, anamorphic-friendly OLED monitor (and a great external recorder as well) for about $800 less than the SmallHD DP7.

 

Please leave them a comment!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just got a response to my comment from Convergent Design:

 

Odyssey7Q has a greater feature set, including anamorphic support (live view and playback) for 2:35:1, 2:55:1, and 3:55:1. Odyssey7 will not.

 

I went ahead and ordered the SmallHD AC7. It has a built in 2x-stretch-and-cropped-to-1.5x" anamorphic mode that I have had my eye on for a while.  

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I went ahead and ordered the SmallHD AC7. It has a built in 2x-stretch-and-cropped-to-1.5x" anamorphic mode that I have had my eye on for a while.  

 

I've had my eyes on those for a while as well. Would be great if you could comment on it a bit after using it!

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After setting it up and calibrating it, I feel that the AC7 is the ultimate anamorphic monitor. You can switch the anamorphic mode I mentioned above on and off with ease, and the image that you get is so large that it is really easy to check critical focus, especially by assigning Focus Assist Max to one of the buttons. This monitor breathes life back into my GH2, which does not allow the camera's magnified focus assist to be used when an HDMI cable is plugged in. I could never tell what was truly in focus. But now it's become my primary anamorphic camera again.

 

I only wish that it had waveform monitoring, but the false color feature is pretty easy to use.

 

I saved some money (and weight) by buying the HDMI-only LCD version, but I can always send it back to SmallHD in the future for the SDI upgrade. 

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  • 2 months later...

Dave Dugdale wasn't too impressed about the colors of the AC7 I see, but it's still a very tempting monitor. I fear the affordable Ikan that seemed to fare a lot better colorwise in Daves test lack anamorphic scaling? http://www.learningdslrvideo.com/field-monitor-shootout/

 

Unfortunately, the Ikan does not have anamorphic monitoring or custom aspect ratios. Also, Ikan doesn't seem to ever offer firmware updates.

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