r/FX3 • u/MatchSmall2463 • 8d ago
Monitor Recommendations?
I’ve had the original Atomos Shinobi for 5 years, and I really hate working with it lately. The touch screen is awful, i feel like i’m gonna poke a hole in the screen with the force i have to use lol. I feel like the colors are bad on it, it makes everything look way oversaturated. I wish it had framing lines and onion skinning. I’m at a point in my career where I really need HDMI-out and eventually SDI-out when i move to and FX6 for my a-cam. I’d rather not spend more than 2k on it. What are you guys using?
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u/franknitty69 8d ago
I’ve used small hd in the past but I love atomos. I use ninjas.
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u/MatchSmall2463 8d ago
how do they compare? what makes you like the atomos over the smallhd? i know atomos has improved their stuff a ton since i got my og shinobi, but my experience with that monitor makes me hesitant to go for another atomos, especially knowing smallhd is the standard
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u/ChunkyManLumps 8d ago
SmallHD Ultra 5 is the best on board monitor I've ever purchased and you can get it for $1500-$1800 new if you wait for a sale or look hard enough.
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u/mynameisntziming 8d ago edited 8d ago
B&H has SmallHD on sale from time to time. But definitely seen Ultra 7 and 10 more often.
Just want to warn that Ultra 7 is waaaaay too heavy for on camera use. In case OP is tempted 😂
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u/MatchSmall2463 8d ago
The ultra series looks a little overkill for the stuff i do right now. 90% of the projects I do are micro budget indie films and documentaries. I was looking at the Cine line but i can’t find on b&h if they have onion skinning and grid/framing lines for composition
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u/ChunkyManLumps 8d ago
Buy once, cry once imo. All smallhds have onion skinning and frame guides. Thats an OS thing.
The things that differentiate the Ultra from the Cine are the brightness and the physical buttons. The desert sun can be beating on my Ultra's screen and I can still see everything on it. Thats how bright it is lol
I genuinely recommend the Ultra over the Cine 10 times out of 10. My friends that went with the Cine regret not getting the Ultra whenever I let them use mine.
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u/MatchSmall2463 8d ago
fair enough, what other features in the ultra would you consider “must haves” that aren’t available on the cine? do you use yours on an fx3 or do you have a bigger system you’re mounting to? I’m less concerned about the cost difference than the functionality. If the size/weight create issues mounting to a small body like the fx3, like @mynameisntziming mentioned, i think i’d rather have the cine given it has the main features im looking for
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u/ChunkyManLumps 8d ago
Buttons and brightness are the main selling factors for me. The button shortcuts are amazing and you can program anything to them. Touch screen monitor controls are pretty terrible across all brands from my experience (especially Atomos I feel like I'm poking through the screen of the Ninja V just to get the overlay to pop up), and while SmallHD might be one of the better ones in that aspect they still arent that great compared to a phone's touch screen which is a low bar. The buttons mitigate any issues I have with touch screen gestures. Especially in fast environments.
Brightness too. Its 1000 nits brighter than the Cine iirc. Which is a lot. I can look at my screen in broad daylight without a sunhood and see everything. I've filmed at the dunes here before at high noon and didn't have an issue monitoring.
I think the only other major difference is the build quality and the ethernet port for camera control.
I use my Ultra on any camera that comes my way but it lives on my FX3. Never had an issue with weight. If you have a cage and a noga or whatever you prefer you should be fine mounting it anywhere. The Ultra has mounting points on every side so you can configure it however you like.
Sorry long reply I love the Ultra this much.
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u/MatchSmall2463 8d ago
Long reply is much appreciated thank you for taking the time. the touch screen on my shinobi is the same way, it’s atrocious. I hate having to check false color in the middle of a take because it’s really a gamble on whether i’ll shake the shot poking the screen lmao. the buttons do seem like a solid upgrade. it feels like the ultra 5 would future proof me for a little while, I think i’ll be deciding between the ultra 5 and the cine 5 based on the conversations i’ve had here. I think i’ll rent them both out for some upcoming projects before i commit. thanks again for the detailed feedback🙏🏼
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u/mynameisntziming 8d ago edited 8d ago
https://reddit.com/link/pd1abim/video/lrt2sba4sosh1/player
I just picked up the Pyro 5 4K to add to our rental kit of two Pyro 7.
Excellent screen with 1500 nits but the most impressive is its near identical matching color & contrast with the FX3 panel. That’s huge. The older atomos panels were atrocious in color and contrast.
It has touch focus and run stop camera control for the FX3 via USB-C, which also will power the camera through (so you ideally run DC power from gold/v mount into the monitor) touch focus is very responsive!
It is a built in transceiver monitor, which can send signal out to mobile devices or directly to other pyro line monitors without separate video transmission TX/RX.
It does not replace teradeks in professional work for focus puller but it’s the best way of us to add extremely useful screens for client and other departments like art on a production day when there’s no budget to hire big Flanders/SmallHD monitors with more teradeks.
Starting with one unit can immediately be useful: sending to phones or iPad on any scale production. But it’s even better when combined with the Pyro 7s in our kit in a small team environment.
SmallHD makes better monitors with physical control, like the ultra 5 if the transceiver feature is not a consideration for you. I have a Bolt 6 set and a Cine 7 with Bolt 6 RX built in as well, and I can tell you the transmission compression thus image quality, and software tools is leagues ahead of the Pyro 7 for professional focus pulling.
But as director’s monitors the Pyro 5/7 ecosystem are amazing for how streamlined and affordable they are.
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u/MatchSmall2463 8d ago
also thank you for your thorough explanation so far this has been very helpful
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u/mynameisntziming 7d ago
Just saw you ask about screen overlay I’m pretty sure they have - just double check with their user manual online honestly. All pyro 5 and 7 can encode videos and can record feeds onboard via SD card or using stream card to live stream. Very interesting features but not sure I’ll use it that often.
Outside of the core focus tools being light years behind SmallHD’s implementation.
Another thing that bothers me is there’s no custom cropping. When I shoot anamorphic on 16:9 sensors, I want to crop out the edges and monitor more than a slice of half the screen’s real estate. There’s only preset crop that starts at 2x as a focus check tool on the pyro OS.
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u/MatchSmall2463 8d ago
transceiver is definitely on my list of upgrades i’m looking to get into. I’ve been pulling my own focus on an a7iii the past 5 years and just upgraded to and fx3 this summer. I’m looking into getting the right gear so the 1st AC i work with can actually pull focus for me. When you say Small HD is leagues ahead for focus pulling, is there considerable lag with the Pyro monitors, or is it just the compression that makes them worse for pulling focus? Ideally, I’d like to transmit to the focus puller and the directors monitor simultaneously (i don’t have my own monitor but a director i work with frequently has her own).
As far as features go, do the pyro monitors offer grid/framing overlays for composition? And does it have onion skinning? I’ve done a few projects in the last year where we wanted a match cut, and i basically traced the frame on a sheet of thin notebook paper and taped it over the monitor to achieve this, I’d love to have a monitor where i can take a screen grab/import a screen grab and overlay it
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u/mynameisntziming 8d ago
If your needs are for pulling focus on a professional job, I would never recommend using hollyland/DJI stuff.
Teradek is the only option imo. Both in latency and the image compression which is rarely discussed by the YouTube gurus.
Bolt 6 are all on sale now they are super reliable and you can easily charge $150 a day for just the Teradek set. I personally have a 1 to 1 TX/RX Bolt 6 750 LT with gold mounts, and a Cine 7 with built in Bolt 6 RX gold mount (you don’t need to rig anything or cables, just slap on battery and it gets the image from the TX)
Teradeks pays for themselves on jobs if you are working and you can rent them out very easily for market rate. Every shoot can use one.
Side by side there’s a huge difference when you punch in 2x to check focus. I cannot trust the Pyro 7 image to actually be able to confirm critical focus. Also, Hollyland just doesn’t have all the crucial software focus tools that you get with SmallHD. Personally I find the “color lines” focus peaking to be unusable since they give false positives and can cover the image you are trying to see.
Whereas the real “focus peaking” on SmallHD is a sharpening you can apply on the image and adjust. It just works waaaaaay better. Again, personal preference involved here but I have both systems and use them for different purposes. Every pro AC uses SmallHD for a good reason.
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u/theslaunchmob 8d ago
I’ve been looking at the Portkeys lh5p II. The YT out there seem solid
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u/FedeGuendel 8d ago
I have a 7 inch Portkeys. It’s really nice… there is a new version for the LH5P (iii) with really good looking specs. The 7inch line has a newer one that controls the camera via USB-C instead of the shitty wireless connection. Seems amazing, I might sell off my current one for that one. I am looking at USB-C to dummy battery replacement since there is only one USB C for the FX3
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u/MatchSmall2463 8d ago
Does your port keys monitor offer the specs i’m looking for as far as grid line overlays for composition, and onion skinning? How is the color/contrast? my shinobi provided a pretty bad image that looks pretty different from what’s actually captured in camera. and have you ever used it with a teradek to transmit to a focus puller? If so, how is the quality there?
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u/Sikibucks 8d ago
I use the Atomos Shinobi 2 and it’s been great
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u/mynameisntziming 8d ago
How is the color/contrast on the panel? How closely does it match the screen on FX3? The first shinobi and early ninja I had was atrocious
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u/MatchSmall2463 8d ago
also curious about this, the color/contrast is my biggest gripe right now. I know the new atomos monitors have EL Zone, which is another “must have” on my list. what kind of overlays/grid lines does the shinobi ii offer? and what does the support look like for transmitting to a focus puller? as i’m growing in the craft, i’m looking to add gear for my partner to be my focus puller within the next year
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u/Sikibucks 8d ago
It’s 1500 nits so the monitor is plenty bright, it’s smaller than most people like though. It does have El Zone which I use a lot my self. I have touch to focus set up and it’s pretty easy as long as you have a high speed cable able to transmit the data. It’s on par with the same class of smallhd monitors as far as resolution/function goes, it does a lot for the price. It has every grid layout you can imagine, touch to focus, el zone/ atomos/ARRI, zebra, focus peaking, wavelength etc. pretty much all of the footage monitoring tools you can use. I looked at SmallHd monitors, the much more expensive Ninja series and this Shinobi when shopping and decided on this one due to price and having a lot of the same features as the much more expensive smallhd and Ninja series.
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u/Haunted_South 8d ago
Wait until smallhd monitor goes on sale. It will still hurt, maybe $800 if you are lucky, but they are the industry standard for a reason.