Small HD Finally is here

[Paul Mailath]

I'm in Australia - it didn't take long, under a week I think. You should be able to work out the duty you will have to pay.

I didn't try it first, I watched and read all the comments from other users and then took the plunge.

[Dale Guthormsen]

curiously,

At this point has anyone arranged 12 battery set ups?

I would like to run it off a 12 car battery/ or somthing similar when setting in a blind for hours of continious run time.

info and pics would be great.

[Trevor Meeks]

Why not a Tekkeon MP3450 and the MP3450-10 extended pack? They'd run the DP1 for a LONG time. and much less bulky.

[Andrew Dean]

I haven't timed it, but with a mp3450 plus the mp3450-10 i've shot a long day with power to spare. I also had one die and refuse to charge again when it ran down, so i dunno.

A 12v car battery would be good for days if you don't mind lugging the car battery around. It would pay to check the freshly charged battery to make sure the voltage isnt over 14v or so, but as long as it isnt, you can easily make a battery->smallhd connector using off the shelf bits from any auto parts store. Just a battery clip to cigarette lighter adapter, then a lighter to the standard 2.5mm hole connector.

An option in between would be a 7.2ah sealed lead acid battery. They make bags for this size battery designed for "spotlighting" (shining a bright light on critters at night so you can disorient them as you shoot them), that are padded and have a cigarette lighter female jack on them. They also work a treat w/ the smallhd.

I've also heard a lot of positive feedback about the bescor prb-154atm, which is a 14.4ah (so, around 30 hours continuous operation w/ a smallhd) battery belt complete w/ charger for around $150.

Lotta options. 12v is extremely common and if you dont need to mount on the camera, (like in a blind), then you got every option in the world. Heck, you could probably get a solar panel to extend the range of any of the 12v batteries substantially.

[Hal Protter]

I have used several cameras to record HS Foootball and now use the EX-1. I addeded the Small HD Monitor this season and the result is a major improvment in the final video. For the first time I can see what I am shooting when doing wide shots. While the battery set-up could be improved, I highly recoment that anyone shooting sports with a good HD camera add a Samm HD Monitor.

[Trevor Meeks]

Just wanted to note that my 2nd SmallHD DP1 arrived a couple of days ago and of course I couldn't be happier! One just wasn't enough so I had to have two!

Actually, one will be dedicated to my new Glidecam X-22 rig, the other to tripod and handheld work. Now I just gotta wait for the X-22 to come in!

These are rockin' monitors guys - go get 'em!

[Paul Joy]

I had an interesting experience with a client last week involving the DP1. We were shooting in London and he wanted to review the footage while we were travelling to the next location on the tube. My client sat with the DP1 on his lap and when the EX1 fired up in the media mode showing the thumbnails he immediately started string to make them play by tapping on them with his finger.

I think it must be iPhone culture kicking in, but wouldn't that be a cool thing to have working! It would of course require Sony to externalise the UI controls, but man that would be cool thing for the next generation of solid state cameras.

Now I just have to get his fingerprints off!

[Dale Guthormsen]

Trevor,


thanks for the line on the Tekkeon MP3450 I will be acquiring a couple of them, and they are reasonably priced too!!

[Trevor Meeks]

Originally Posted by Dale Guthormsen

Trevor,


thanks for the line on the Tekkeon MP3450 I will be acquiring a couple of them, and they are reasonably priced too!!

You're quite welcome! I'm IN LOVE with mine (no seriously, I think my girlfriend may be a bit jealous!) Works great as a plug-in for the iPhone out on location as well, since it has a USB port.

My suggestion is to go on Tekkeon - iPhone/iPod Accessories, Mobile Power, Bluetooth Headsets and buy one of their 3-foot non-coiled cords as well, so you aren't as limited by the coiled one that comes with the 3450.

Enjoy!

[Stephen Armour]

We do all most all our work in early sunrise and golden hour light outdoors, and usually have pretty bright scenes, especially due to our location in northeastern Brazil.

One major prob we've run into with little HD monitors is reflectivity and difficulty even seeing them on crane and dolly. How does the DP1 stand up outdoors in the seriously bright sunshine?

[Trevor Meeks]

Originally Posted by Stephen Armour

We do all most all our work in early sunrise and golden hour light outdoors, and usually have pretty bright scenes, especially due to our location in northeastern Brazil.

One major prob we've run into with little HD monitors is reflectivity and difficulty even seeing them on crane and dolly. How does the DP1 stand up outdoors in the seriously bright sunshine?

Perfectly. Use the sun shade. I shot out in the bright sunlight all day today and I was never once left wishing for a different setup.

[Charles Papert]

Trevor, I think it's great that you are delighted with your monitor but I have yet to see a 300 nit monitor perform adequately in daylight myself. This is of course a subjective response to some degree, but it does depend on how one is using these monitors. For a situation where one's eye is always essentially fixed in position to the monitor, i.e. using it as a heads-up onboard monitor for a camera or director's monitor, a standard brightness display such as the DP1 can do the trick especially if you can "seal" your eye to the display via a hood.

For crane or Steadicam work, generally the orientation of the operator the monitor is in constant flux and it may be hard to use a wraparound hood, let alone the much more effective diagonal hood (Hoodman style). In these situations, the brightness, contrast, ambient light rejection and anti-reflective coating of the display become extremely important otherwise the operator may find themselves virtually blind.

Earlier this year I organized the "Great Daylight Monitor Shootout" where we tested some 15 monitors for their daylight viewability. I would be hard pressed to claim even the top of the line units ($8K) as being "perfect" in direct sun (again, sunshades are not always possible for all applications). However, there were a couple of standouts on the budget side--The Nebtek Solar 7 was a big hit, and the Marshall transflective model was a good contender. The latter being the least expensive display on the rotisserie but still $2200, this is obviously a different class of monitor than the highly affordable DP1 but I thought it worth mentioning. Again, what one might consider acceptable for daylight performance may not be shared by another.

[Paul Mailath]

Originally Posted by Stephen Armour

. How does the DP1 stand up outdoors in the seriously bright sunshine?

not that well from my eye, I ended up virtually sticking my head 'in the hood' to minimise reflection. It's not any better or worse than other monitors in that regard.

[Stephen Armour]

Thanks for the heads up on this. Charles, I figured anyone with much crane, dolly or steadicam experience would pretty much say what you said. The hoods are almost useless on location in the heat of the battle, so anything not specifically engineered for direct sun is going to be "more of the same".

I've been eyeballing the Marshall transflective for a while, but wish I could "trade in one of our Marshall HD's" for it! As a non-profit, we hate to spend more on something we already have...but if what you have doesn't do the job, then I guess there's no other way. Those little Marshall HDs in the sun are killers and if the angle is wrong, like you said, our crane operator has to work almost blind! Even tripod shots are hard with full sunshades and extenders on them (and black shirts on the operators), if the angle is wrong.

We do almost all our work from 6 am - 8:30 am (sun rises here at 5:23am!!) or a few late golden hours, and the combo of near-equator... some of the purest air in the world...and sand, sand, sand... makes for stacks of neutral density filters and lousy DOF...and blind cameramen!

All that to say...I guess we'll have to break for that new Marshall...sigh.

Thanks.

[Andrew Dean]

Down here in New Zealand, the hole in the ozone layer sits over us all summer long, and while i cant say if it alters the "brightness" of the sun, it lets in a whole lot more UV, and at least to my eye, makes things a whole lot "squintier" than an old fashioned Texas summer day. (as long as i'm making up words, its also a whole lot "sunburnier" too.)

My macbook is supposedly around 300 nits, and if i'm outside during the day (even in the shade), the backlight on the screen makes no difference on or off. Thats the same with the dvd player a friend bought for a framing monitor, a sony pro lcd I've rented and every field CRT we've ever shot with here. Even with sun hoods, its not uncommon to see a director to also be under an umbrella AND with a sound blanket/towel draped over the monitor and his head like an old timey photographer.

Not being transflective, i didn't expect anything different from smallHD. However, doing tests in the harshest afternoon sunlight, we were pleasantly surprised to find that you could actually see the image on the dp1. Now, i'm not claiming its clear as day or anything, but I've used it several times now on my advantajib in horrible lighting conditions and been able to see enough for framing, which surprised and pleased me.

The dp1 sunshade is pretty clever and makes a huge difference if you are up close to the monitor or trying to prevent sun spill onto the screen. However, like all sunshades, if you're on a steadicam or a jib that doesnt keep the monitor positioned, then sunshades are often more nuisance than help.

So, i concur that its totally subjective, but in my experience i found that the dp1 performs better in sunlight than other monitors in the same size/class. I considered the xenarc transflective before i got the dp1, and would be curious how it fares (i've heard conflicting reports).

The dp1 is very reflective and definitely works best outside with your head shoved into the sunshade to block reflections from behind, but for me where numerous monitors both cheap and costly have given me basically *no* image in sunlight, the DP1 gave me "some" image - enough for framing and sometimes focus, which saved my butt at least once. -- and when I have needed critical focus, having the dp1/sunshade on the camera has allowed me to move in and see what i needed.

I dunno if i'm a rabid fanboy or not, but i expected nothing in sunlight and got something I was able to use, so that was a big happy surprise for me.

Not that these tell you much, but here are a couple random shots i took of field test of the dp1 with and without the sunshade in full nz sun. As a funny anecdote, the next time i worked with Kirk, (the dp in the photos helping me review the monitor) I went to pull out my dp1 and he pulled one out too. He was impressed enough with our various tests that he bought his own. heh.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachme...1&d=1254645149
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachme...1&d=1254645149

questions or criticisms of what i said, please holler!

cheers,
-andrew