The Verdict
 

Soooo, I'm thinking of getting the Ikan | V8000HDMI-S LCD Monitor Kit | B&H Photo Video when I started reading this thread. Any opinions on what I would be giving up with one over the other?

A lot of resolution.

The DP1 is 1280 x 720
The Ikan is 800 x 480

DP1 has 2.4 times more pixels.

Thanks Dean,

Another issue will be mounting, I have a very busy hotshoe, light and mic, so I'll need some type of other mountage. maybe a tripod mount for now.

I cant tell if you were asking about mounting solutions or if there is a difficulty mounting the ikan.

My favorite solution so far is a noga arm and a manfrotto QR

Noga | DG-1105 Locking Accessory Arm w/Shoe Mount | NO-DG1105-SA

and

Manfrotto by Bogen Imaging | 357 Pro Quick Release Adapter | 357

The quick release has threaded holes in the side that allow you to store your camera screws. Instead, you can thread the noga arm into that. I personally leave the whole QR assembly intact and put yet another qr plate beneath it. That way the screen can go with the camera if you want, or you can release the other plate instead and leave the screen behind.

Prolly a million ways to mount a monitor, but thats my fave at the moment. cheers.

Good response from DP1 folks
 

I emailed them with some questions, very nice and fast response. Decisions........hehe, I'll probably get it. Anyone have 800.00 bucks I can borrow.

Furthermore, Ikan is plastic, DP1 is unibody aluminum construction... so go figure ;-)

enjoy!

Hi :)

I received my dp1 today and have to say it's really wonderful.
Especially in conjuction with a 35mm adapter I can now really see what I am doing :)

Also the criticised menu navigation is absolutely no problem to me. It took maybe 5 minutes learning to use it.

The only thing that is a fact is the heavy color banding and noise in lowlight situations.
We discussed that already here and it might be a PAL-only thing. But it's definitely there.

No big problem to me as I am mostly shooting properly exposed footage.
Maybe it's really a software thing that could be fixed in the near future.

The battery system (like expected) is ok. But having to use that extra cable from the battery to the power in seems a bit unprofessional. Usually a batterybracked has the connectors integrated I would say. But again, no big deal. It's ok and VERY light :)

So I'll see tomorrow how the whole thing behaves in the field while shooting.

Thanks for all the help here with deciding to buy one :)

Peter

I will have to wait, they are backordered, out of stock till next week.........drat.

It took a bit of convincing for me to come around, but if you change the brightness up to 58, not only do the bands get almost totally minimized, but the tone of the blacks very closely matches the professional monitors I've put the dp1 against. It will absolutely look washed out in comparison to the superblacks of the default setting, but you end up with full details in the dark areas and a more accurate contrast. What finally turned me around was an engineer pointing out to me that 0ire doesn't exist in many places in the real world, and no places where you'd be shooting. If you try it, i recommend you make the setting change then go away and come back fresh, as its hard to get used to immediately after looking at the overly contrasty default.

I dunno that i'd go so far as saying "unprofessional". Its a bit fiddly, but I certainly see far wonkier things hooked to cameras on professional sets. One thing definitely unprofessional about the batteries is the price. $60 would barely get you an anton bauer sticker, much less a battery and charger. hehe. It was clearly a tradeoff between size/weight/price/standards. My big concern is losing that wee cable. Been trying out different solutions for attaching it to the battery or to the monitor. I plan to buy 3 more of the batteries, and hopefully that means 3 more of the wee cables so i can return to my normal state of losing things but having backups.

My batteries came with two cables each - a short and a long - so for two batteries I have three battery to monitor cables, and I only use one. If I happen to lose one, it's a non-factor in my opinion, but being as I've got it hooked to the monitor all the time I doubt I'll even lose one anytime soon!

Are you saying my car battery and 79 Chevrolet headlights are wonky? hehe. Sorry, it's funny and it went through my brain.

I'm not tried any "pro" monitors but to me the difference between the DP1 with brightness at 58 and what I see on my macbook is so far apart that using a monitor is counter productive. Yes you can focus with it, but you'd have to totally ignore the way the image looks in my opinion.

58 is far too much. I know it's recommended for the banding issue, but You're right.
You cannot really judge the image then.

So I'll stay with what the colourbars tell me to have in brigtness values.
And thats almost everything set to 50.

I hope the banding thing is fixed soon.
Although I am afraid, that the monitor then has to be sent back for upgrading. We'll see ...

Peter

Are there any news concerning the dark area blocking and banding issues? Other than that I've been very pleased with the quality of the image that the DP1 boasts off. It's so easy to get accurate focus when doing handheld. The dark blocky noise just ruins the image when shooting in low key situations. Of course the blocking is only on the monitor's image, not in the actual image but I bought the monitor to judge the images that I'm getting.

Like everything else you get what you pay for, while I really like the smallHD I do have some gripes. The glossy screen is a big problem shooting exteriors. The control buttons are a joke, The amount of times I have turned the monitor off while trying to adjust things is driving me nuts, The OSD controls block out what you are trying to see!... and the batteries give up without any warning.

However, for the price I'm happy.