Out of the box, the colors and images coming out of the are totally off. So it’ll take you some time to get something I would call acceptable. Most on-camera monitors are set at 6500°K, but even with multiple tweaks, I had to put the Black Mini to 7500°K and make some brightness/tint adjustments by hand to get in a somewhat accurate ballpark. FEELWORLD F7 PRO Released – Affordable 7” Director’s Monitor.
Buy link: Z CAM E2-M4 Bundle Was: €2.415,84 Now: €2.219,24 (Savings: €195,84). Right side: an 8V power output port with a barrel connector and a 1/4-20″ mounting point.
Sony a7R II Camera Body with Free Accessories Kit – $400 Discount. Optimize the ratio options in the guide function, automatically adapt the deformation function, and add three ratio modes of 1:1, 16:9, 6:19.
CVP: Z CAM E2 4K Camera Body – Free PortKeys BM5 Monitor. The PortKeys HS7T can be powered by two hot-swappable Sony L-Series batteries. Source: PortKeys.
The PortKeys LH5P retails for $399.00/€449.00, and it is available now. Compared to other options in the market, I’ve been really impressed, and it’s a solid daylight-viewable on-camera monitors for under $400 if you don’t need SDI input/output ports. Out of the box, the colors and images coming out of the PT5 are extremely good, and I would say close to being 100% color accurate. I only lowered the saturation by 3-4, and that’s it. I was delighted by what I saw, and I would not be that surprised if Portkeys calibrate each monitor out of the factory. The image is crisp and clear, which is impressive for an entry-level product.
This update makes the Z CAM E2/Atomos a very capable lightweight combo capable of shooting 4K60P ProRes RAW for just under $2500.00, which is incredible. (Our friend and colleague Philip Bloom shot a short piece with this new setup. You can view it by clicking here). The monitor is color-calibrated out of the PortKeys factory, but you can adjust various settings like sharpness, chroma, brightness, backlight, display flip, tint, color temperature adjustments.
Also, don’t forget that you can put a light stand, a camera tripod, and two small LED tubes on the sides/front of the bag, as well as your gimbal and laptop at the back. It means that an entire shooting kit can fit inside/outside the Flexloader L. This product demonstrates the advantages of a semi-closed ecosystem. The Vitec Group has, over the years, picked up SmallHD, Teradek, and even Amimon – the company that manufactures the wireless chips underlying them all. By bringing all of these companies under one umbrella, Vitec opened the door to collaborative products like the Teradek 4K Monitor Module family.
The Volta36 batteries can’t be charged through the top handle, so it comes with a specific battery charger. As I mentioned earlier, the charger has a micro-USB port so that you can charge the cells via a USB wall adapter or even a power bank. On the right side of the Portkeys PT5, you’ll find an On/Off switch, a 5V USB Type-A port, and a 7-24V power input port. So you can power the PT5 in a lot of different ways.
The PortKeys LEYE is available now for $399. It comes with a right-angle HDMI adapter, a sponge eye mask, a USB thumb drive with the user manual, and a D-Tap to barrel connector cable. Now let’s take a quick tour of the monitor.
Also, dynamic range is limited to 10 stops and hindered furthermore by the fact, that the noise floor is cut off – hence, you cannot dig into the shadows to get that organic, flatter look – shadows are simply black with no information. Oups, this was not supposed to happen.
What I always liked about the micro four thirds format is the possibility to adapt almost any lens, including the option to use a speed booster (0.71x). The speed booster allows the use of Canon EF glass for example, while at the same time increasing the light sensitivity by one stop. B&H Buy link: Sony a7R III Camera Body with Free Accessories Kit Was: $2,798.00 Now: $2,498.00 (Savings: $300.00).
The offers you three 1/4″-20 mounting points at the bottom, top, and right side of the monitor. I think that it is enough for an on-camera monitor, even if, as always, I would have preferred 3/8-16″ mounting points with ARRI locating pins, which are more versatile. B&H Buy link: Sony a6000 Camera with two lenses and accessories Was: $998.00 Now: $598.00 (Savings: $400.00).
Sony a7 III is currently considered by many as the best Sony mirrorless camera for video. Its 24MP full-frame CMOS sensor performs really well in low light and its 693-point hybrid AF system also works well for video shooting. The camera can record up to UHD 4K30p video with HLG & S-Log gamma picture profiles. For more information about the camera, go ahead and read Johnnie’s Sony a7 III review. PortKeys Bluetooth Module for BM5 Monitors.
One SDI output and one HDMI output port with cross-conversion. The Z CAM E2 M4 is a new addition to the Z CAM line. It is basically the original Z CAM E2 without some functions in a new body and with a lower price tag. For more information about this interesting modular Micro Four Thirds camera, make sure to check my article from its launch. Besides the camera body, this bundle further includes the PortKeys BM5 MKII Monitor (which can control the camera) and Hawk-Woods DV-F990 Battery.
In addition to that, we are also looking for a writer who is particularly interested in “smartphone filmmaking” as we are planning to greatly extend our coverage in that area. Both news about new smartphone cameras and apps as well as reviews of these cameras are important for us. Now, this was a major deciding factor for me to take the Z CAM E2 cinema camera on my trip – 4k DCI ProRes HQ in a small but durable package – despite the risk of taking a new, unknown camera with me I just couldn’t say no.
Another feature is a gigabyte ethernet connection for control of the camera and live streaming. The WIFI (with the included antenna) of the cam allows the use of the Z CAM app that features a full-screen image view – essentially, if you accept some lag (see the video above) you can use your smartphone as a monitor. However, I found the small dividers not high enough. When you have small items (batteries or memory cards, for example) in a tiny space separated by a partition, they tend to move around in your bag, get out of their dedicated space, and end up hitting other items inside the bag.
Unfortunately, as you can tell, there is no anamorphic de-squeeze option. The Z CAM Universe – the Facebook Group, the app, and the Camera’s Menu.
Also, and this is not particular to this monitor, but something I still don’t understand, is why manufacturers only put 1/4-20″ mounting points – thankfully with locating pins on the LH5P – at the bottom of their products. The user interface consists of two pages. When you start the monitor, it shows you your image or the Portkeys landing page if no source is connected. If you touch the screen, the image scales down a bit and the Function settings page pops up on the sides of the display. All your monitoring tools are on this Function page.
Change your aperture, ISO, shutter, white balance settings. The design of the is quite simple, even though it has strong bezels around the display. The monitor’s dimensions are 5.12 x 3.35 x 0.71in / 130 x 85 x 18mm for a weight of 196g / 0.43lbs. It is not the thinnest nor lightest monitor, but it is okay.
When looking at the price of this camera, keep in mind though that you have to rig it up with a monitor and audio equipment – see the setup that I used for the sample footage below. For sound, I took a Sennheiser MKE 440 with me, using the 3.5mm audio input on the Z CAM E2 – mounted to the side, which was not ideal. Also, the recorded sound quality via the 3.5mm input leaves a lot to be desired. I hope Z CAM can improve on the audio part in the future.
Build quality and mounting points. The new monitor has a 7-inch touchscreen IPS display with a maximum resolution of 1920×1200. The 16:10 aspect ratio provides some extra vertical space for monitoring tools.
On top of the LH5H, you’ll find four customizable function keys, a power switch, and four buttons to access and navigate inside the menu. At the bottom of the monitor, there is one camera control mini-USB port (more on that later) and a 5-pin motor camera control port that doubles up as a DC 7-24V power output port. PortKeys BM5 Monitoring Functions.
Z Cam E2C rolling shutter for 4096×2160 25 frames per second: 36 [ms]. Overall, the PortKeys HS7T Metal Edition seems to be designed to meet both focus pullers’ and director’s needs, even though it would have been great to see an even brighter 7” option from this company. We’ll probably have to wait a little longer for that. Meanwhile, the PortKeys HS7T Metal Edition is available for purchase on the PortKeys website. Retail price is $399.
The PortKeys LH5P comes in a small box. When you open it, you’ll find a Pelican-style hard case. As I mentioned previously, the PortKeys LH5P has one 1/4-20″ mounting point at the bottom. This is the monitor’s only mounting point, which is a bit of a letdown. I like to have multiple options for rigging a monitor to my camera, at least one on the left or right side and one at the bottom. There is nothing but an exhaust vent on the monitor’s right side, so I guess it would have been probably possible to put another mounting point here.
Using a stabilized lens is a must – as I did for the sample footage (the Olympus 12-100 F4 IS Pro lens). Two SWIT compact V-Mount batteries (PB-M98S and PB-M45S).
The Z CAM E2 also offers an HDR mode, where it captures a second image with an 8 times higher shutter speed for the highlighted part and merges it into one video frame (to increase the dynamic range by additional 3 stops). Canon EOS 1DX Mark III Bundle – €481,91 Savings.
The display has a resolution of 1920 x 1080. It is a touchscreen with a maximum brightness of 2200nits and a contrast ratio of 1000:1. The battery is held at the back of the handle by a screw. As you can see, one end of the Volta Cinema Top Handle is fully open. According to the company.
I would suggest getting a case for transporting these batteries inside your camera bag. Maybe Volta Cinema will come out with a battery pack holder in the near future. You can activate multiple monitoring tools simultaneously to help you, but you can’t decide where they’ll be on the screen. For example, the waveform and histogram will always be on the bottom right of the screen.
Some tweaks to the footage are needed to make it look more pleasing – that was not the case with the sister model Z CAM E2 which offers very nice, out of the box colors using the same LUT’s. The currently retails at Amazon for $89 with the following Y2DWYGBM code. This special offer ends on October 5th,2021, at 23:59 PDT.
Some companies try to enter the EVF market with a monitor and a loupe attachment. It’s the case with products from SmallHD, with their SmallHD 502 + viewfinder attachment, and F&V with the SpectraHD 4 EVF. While these two solutions can be helpful, they are also quite bulky. As a bonus within this accessory kit you will also get a SanDisk 32GB SDHC memory card, and Lowepro shoulder bag.
PortKeys OEYE-3G EVF with 1080p Resolution Announced. CVP Buy link: Panasonic LUMIX G9 Camera Body Was: €1,100.86 Now: €941.78 (Savings: €159.09, Free accessories, Free 25mm f/1.7 lens, and Free 3-year warranty).
Sharpness, chroma, brightness, backlight, tint, color temperature adjustments. On the left side, the P6 features two HDMI ports (input/output) that accept 4K signals. Also, in the middle of the HDMI ports, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack output. At the bottom of the monitor, there is a DC 7.4-24V barrel input/output port that you can use to power the monitor or power your camera. Finally, there is a USB-A port for future firmware upgrade, loading your own LUTs, or charge your smartphone (5V output).
As I mentioned, the Portkeys PT5 does not have any physical buttons, and all the navigation is via the touchscreen. I’m glad there are only pages, as it is relatively easy to operate and understand, but there are also some drawbacks like the numerous fingerprints the screen will accumulate. User interface and its challenges.
To know more about the video capabilities of this camera, you can take a look at our Canon EOS R review. If you would like to use the EOS R as a B-camera to the Canon C200, check our article on the topic. the small front pocket could feature the same metal zippers pull straps as the main compartments ones, so you can close it with the TSA lock.
The screen has a viewing angle of 180°, a contrast ratio of 1200:1, and a peak brightness of 500 nits. This level of brightness is a little disappointing since it’s way too low to make the monitor usable under bright sunlight. Moreover, it only represents a 50-nits increase over the original F7. Fig. 3: The Portkeys BM5 monitor – bright (2000 NITS) and well built, however the screen is very reflective which can hamper the viewing experience outside.
PL to RF Revolva Mount Adapter with ND filters. Source: KipperTie. The PortKeys LEYE is very compact, with dimensions of only 106 x 70 x 78mm. Most of the device is made of plastic, except for the metal rear cover.
The Function button is next to the red power button. The buttons on top of the monitor are a bit rigid and clicky too. The battery fit at the back of the monitor is smooth, tolerances are good, and both Sony/Canon batteries go in and out smoothly; no issues here.
Z CAM E2-M4 Bundle – €195,84 Savings. In short, blacks are not black anymore, but more on the grey side, and the picture starts to be a little washed out. On the , even if it has a “low” maximum brightness of only 400nit, you can see that the image shifts quite a lot when the backlight is at 100%.
We are using a new test method based on a high frequency, quartz & microcontroller based strobe light at 300Hz. As the sensor readout happens from the top to the bottom, we are getting a sequence of black and white bars from the strobe. CVP Buy link: DJI Osmo Action Was: €319.18 Now: €241.56 (Savings: €77.61).
In the end, you’ll probably end up not using the case, which is a bit of a shame. I think most filmmakers would have preferred spending a little extra money to get a larger case that can fit a couple of accessories. But, this is a budget-friendly monitor, so I understand that PortKeys have to save money somewhere, and this is already nice to include a case for the price. B&H Buy link: Sony a9 Camera Body with Free Accessories Kit Was: $3,998.00 Now: $3,498.00 (Savings: $500.00).
Finally, on some pages, like the Settings page, you have various settings you can adjust at the bottom of the screen/menu. But, for some settings, there are two subpages. One weird thing is that you have to use the physical buttons to access the second subpage, which doesn’t make sense to me. The is a 5″ on-camera monitor / live streaming device with decent features: a 400nits touchscreen display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, one 4K HDMI 2.0 input port, and plenty of monitoring tools all in a very compact package. When I heard about its super low price at $89 (a special CineD price), I had to give it a try to see how it performs. Here are my findings of the most affordable monitor we ever reviewed on CineD!.
If you want to use this camera for live streaming, in a locked-down scenario which is not demanding in terms of dynamic range, it will work very well. The Manfrotto PRO Light Flexloader L zippers are amongst the best I’ve ever seen, period. These are YKK zippers, which are some of the world’s best zippers you can get.
Back then it was hampered by a weak codec (Full HD, AVCHD in 17Mbps) and the max. usable ISO value was 400, but the Voigtlaender lenses gave it the full frame look (e.g. the 25mm f0.95), and the hack of V. Kiselev at a later stage improved the bitrate to a stable 25Mbps. All in all, I loved the images – so much that I never sold it…. Although the LH5H is an “entry-level” monitor, it features tons of monitoring tools like its big brother, including.
The PortKeys KeyGrip has been shipping for a couple of months now, and filmmakers have been complaining about the lack of a power switch button. Indeed, there was no battery switch, which means the KeyGrip was draining power if you didn’t remove the batteries from the handle. Prices are not outrageous, starting at €15.00 per adapter, so it’s nice to buy these directly from Volta Cinema.
The battery fit at the back of the monitor is snug. The battery goes in and out smoothly; no issues here. There is a battery lock to keep everything nicely and securely in place. I used the LH5H for three months and a dozen shoots in various shooting conditions before writing this review. I can say that the image coming out of the LH5H and LH5P is excellent for the price, especially in an interior situation.
The monitor mount is not the greatest I’ve ever seen, some parts are made of plastic, but it gets the job done as the monitor is pretty lightweight. Buy link: Panasonic LUMIX S1 Bundle Was: €2,856,44 Now: €2,610,88 (Savings: €245,57).
We first reported about their Portkeys BM5 monitor in 2019, a 5-inch field monitor with SDI/HDMI input and output ports capable of controlling your camera. The company released an upgraded version, the PortKeys BM5 III WR, that boasts a bigger screen and a couple of new features. It supports Teradek’s “Broadcast Mode”, which means that this one transmitter can communicate with an unlimited number of receivers. And it can also pair with their Bolt App for iOS and Android, which will allow you to tune the 5GHz transmission channel and monitor for interference.
A monitor is a monitor, no matter its price, and I treat every product the same, so let’s get started!. PortKeys Bluetooth Module for BM5 Monitors Announced – Wireless Control for BMPCC 4K/6K Cameras.
Once you short press the power button, the monitor takes around five seconds to boot up until it is operational, which is pleasant. To celebrate our relaunch to CineD, our partner CVP prepared some special deals for our European readers. These include popular cameras from Canon, FUJIFILM, Panasonic, Sony, and Z CAM bundled with useful accessories. (All prices are including VAT).
When the battery compartment is open, all you have to do is align the stickers (if they are still here) of the battery and handle and push the battery inside. Jokes aside, even without the stickers, you can’t go wrong when you get used to the product. Put the connectors of the battery down, and there you go. I’m currently finishing our review of the PortKeys LH5H that will be released very soon, so keep an eye on CineD if you want to learn more about these affordable on-camera monitors.
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