HD Videographers - I Have A Question....
 

You guys who shoot HD, do you use an external monitor when you shoot? If so, what are you using? I've been looking at this. It has built in waveform monitor and lots of other great features.

We are shooting exclusively HD now and we love shooting almost wide open on our camera. This allows us to throw the backgrounds & foregrounds out of focus and gives us more of a film flavor. The downside of this is with the very limited depth-of-field...it's imperative to use an external monitor to constantly check focus. Those little LCD displays that are on the camera are almost worthless for our needs....except for viewing the zebras to monitor exposure. I was just wondering what you guys are using....if your using anything at all.

what camera are you using? There are some pretty decent on camera monitors out there also.

Those are standalone monitors. You'd be tethered to them (there's a way to make this wireless if you have the cash and patience) and it'll restrict your movements quite a bit.

A better option might be a mountable monitor like these:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...untabl e.html

or
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...t=Submit+Query

NOTE: before you buy any of those make sure it'll work with your camera.

I think your choice of a big 17 invh monitor is good for focus, it can be critical and very difficult to judge with the on board monitors. It doesn't have to be HD though as you can see the focus just as well on a SD monitor at a tenth the cost.

We use SD monitors with wireless transmision