To monitor or not?

Focussing is the big thing. If you cannot see it, you cannot focus on it.

The blue peaking on the flip screen of the G9 is good at smaller apertures, but what about f1.8 on the go?

My likely get is the Freeworld FW 759 (aka Neewer 759 and others).

This is an old monitor, lacking some sex appeal, features and niceties like rotation switching, touch screen menus, power sharing or internal recording, but it is big, reasonably bright and sharp and importantly, there are a library of reviews out there. Latency, which is an issue with most monitors seems to be ok (for the money) and I will learn to cope, or use the camera screen for very fast moving scenes.

After reading a lot of the good “for the money” reviews, it keeps coming up as a good, not just budget, but good option. One reviewer, (who was golden), compared the screen to his Atomos Ninja V, allowing me to actually compare apples to apples and the Freeworld was a bigger, slightly less crisp, but acceptably crunchy apple.

The most important features, the things I actually need are;

• accurate and clear focus peaking (old school B&W with red fringe) and general clarity,

• a histogram display, which unlike a screen, cannot be fooled,

• NP Battery and 12v compatibility (have heaps for my video lights),

• a sun shade, which fixes most brightness issues (the 759 has a shallow and deep one)

This has them all with a 7” screen for $129au.

This will allow me to use the camera screen for general info and comparison, the monitor for composition, focus and importantly, to let me get the cameras flip screen out of the way.

My other option is a hack suggested by Neon Airship on DIY Photography. This only needs a few cables and a cheap adapter (ordered) to re-purpose my A12 Samsung as a monitor, but when the adapter comes, I am expecting to have something not go as planned, so a real monitor is still seriously being looked at.