Not all monitors are created equal, and the quality of the display behind them may vary significantly. A great on-camera monitor must be as color accurate as possible and close to “what you see is what you get” as possible. If your monitor colors are incorrect, you won’t see your footage the way it’s supposed to be.
you’re getting your name out there to thousands of eyeballs, and we can link to your personal site from your name in the news and review posts.
You’ll find a cold-shoe mount at the bottom of the monitor mount with a 1/4 “-20 threaded hole. The hex key is used to adjust the tension/friction of the tilt axis.
To me, being able to control the camera using a field monitor (like a RED Touch for example) is a big thing. If I can get a bigger monitor to mount on a Canon C200 or Sony FS5 and still be able to control the camera like the standard little screen, it’s a go-to.
However, they also closed the door on other monitors who might want access to the latest features from Teradek. BlackMagic, Atomos, PortKeys, and others will have to find their own solutions.
However, the resolution of the LH5H is FullHD 1920 x 1080, and it can take 4K HDMI signals. In front of the screen, they use tempered glass to protect the monitor from scratches and the harshness of set life.
Material Possession ltd, the company behind Volta Cinema, is a relatively new film industry player. The British company is run by Tudor Chirila, which first launched a non-successful crowdfunding campaign for the version of its Top Handle back in November 2019.
For example, when a monitor’s colors are wildly inaccurate, it can happen that you see orange when you’re supposed to see yellow or red. It can affect how you set your camera’s white balance or exposure, for example.
This is not that bad on the LH5P, and even at maximum brightness, the image remains viewable and usable. Keep in mind that this is a budget-friendly monitor, so comparing it to the big boys doesn’t make sense.
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.
As Jarred said, RED shipped the first batch of pre-stormtrooper Komodos in custom colors to few lucky customers. The first color seems orange to me, but RED calls it “Grossman Gold”. Every batch of these pre-release cameras that get shipped out will have a different color. It seems like the next one will be yellow.
If you remove the pouch that comes with the bag, you can put a monitor – in this picture, the PortKeys PT5 that I reviewed here – and some SSD hard drives.
Given the value of 36 ms, I was wondering how it can do 29.98fps at 4K – I measured the rolling shutter at 29.98fps and got a result of 31.3 ms interestingly. So obviously the readout speed changes with the different modes.
If you’re new to PortKeys, this company is specialized in affordable HDMI and SDI camera monitoring solutions. Recently, we talked about their LEYE viewfinder, the fully-featured SDI/HDMI BM5 monitor, and the affordable PortKeys P6. The company has just released a new 5.5″ HDMI-only monitor, the PortKeys LH5P. This product name may sound familiar to you, as it is the big brother of the PortKeys LH5H that was released last year.
As you can tell, even my iPhone 11 is more significant than this monitor! Indeed, the Portkeys PT5 has dimensions of only 136 x 72 x 17mm for a weight of 130g/0.28lbs. I was shocked at how light it is when I took the PT5 out of the box; it weighs almost nothing, mainly because the casing is made of ABS plastic.
proficiency in filmmaking – you know your stuff in one or more areas of filmmaking (producing, editing, directing, cinematography, post-production …).
Two little pins inside the handle make the connection between the battery and the D-Tap port. These pins slide back and forth inside the groove when you adjust the handle back and forth.
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 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.
I’m glad to see that Portkeys listened, and you can now store the PT5 with all its accessories inside the case as well – good job!.
However, even if I found the UI easy to understand, there are some things I did not like. First, when you open the menu, it’ll stay open for a certain amount of time that you can adjust between 10 and 30 seconds. But when you’re done, you can’t exit the menu and hide it. Instead, you’ll have to let it disappear on its own without touching anything for 10/30sec.
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!.
With these upcoming firmware updates, the Ninja V will be capable of recording ProRes RAW HQ/ProRes RAW at up to 4K60P from the HDMI port of the E2. According to Atomos, “additional frame rates will be added in the future.” Your footage will be recorded onto affordable AtomX SSD mini SATA drives in the Ninja V.
The PortKeys P6 is a lightweight – 0.28lbs/130grams – entry-level monitor for filmmakers looking for a compact on-camera display. The P6 features an 8bit 5.5″ 1080P display with a 500nit brightness and 1000:1 contrast ratio. This monitor is much more affordable than their PortKeys BM5 that is a workhorse entirely made of aluminum – the P6 is made out of ABS plastic.
Before we dive deeper, while I like the included hard case that does its job at protecting the monitor, there’s no extra space inside to put a battery – even if you attach a small Sony NP-F battery, the case doesn’t close anymore – or some spare HDMI cables. Even the antennas don’t fit mounted to the monitor inside the box.
Who is this monitor for? I think it can be a fantastic addition to your kit if you don’t need a daylight-viewable monitor nor the built quality of a product you can rent. For owner-operators that are shooting inside most of the time, or people that are making live streams, you can’t go wrong with the Portkeys PT5.
I guess that most filmmakers will be covered. It is also possible to connect the LH5P to a Tilta Nucleus N/M wireless follow focus to pull focus via the monitor.
A lot has been written about the FUJIFILM X-T3, and a lot of it here, on cinema5D. We’ve reviewed the camera (twice), and crowned it our best mirrorless camera of the year 2018. Currently, there is a nice discount on this camera in both B&H (including free accessories – memory card and bag) and CVP.
you consider yourself a filmmaker – maybe you are a creative young person starting out, or a professional in the industry who has worked for many years already, aiming to get more involved in the blogger / journalistic scene – becoming a writer for CineD sounds like the right thing to do for you.
The Volta Cinema Top Handle immediately caught my attention when I first saw it. From what I saw, I found this product brilliant, with a simple design and a clear mission: power your camera or accessories via the handle. Other companies have tried this, albeit arguably not as elegantly.
I found the Volta Top Handle’s build quality itself to be really decent. All the parts are made out of 7075 aluminum, and it feels solid. The Volta Cinema logo is kind of “engraved” on one side.
Then, this battery compartment is held in place by the round piece with the D-Tap port and NATO rail attachment. If you loosen the two “cinema-standard” screws – it’s important for the rest of this article – on the side, you have a bit of adjustment to slide the battery part back and forth inside the mount. This is nice to position the handle where it works best for you.
There are quite a few 5”/5.2” on-camera monitors available on the market, at various price-point. It doesn’t make sense to compare the LH5P to some of the big boys like the SmallHD 503 Ultra bright that retails for eight times the price of the PortKeys.
One thing to be aware of is the fact, that for ProRes no in-camera playback option is available (firmware version 0.86 at the time of shooting). I hope this changes with a future firmware.
Unfortunately, we had no cage available for the Z CAM, but the camera has various ¼” mounting points on top, bottom and on the sides. In conjunction with the Z CAM E2 I used an early prototype of the Portkeys BM5 monitor mounted with a magic arm, see the image below (the released version is black, the prototype had an anodized green surface finish).
The other part of the “proper” 3rd-party EVF market consists nearly entirely of Zacuto products. I will not mention the Wooden Camera modification kit for the Blackmagic URSA EVF. We recently reported about the new Zacuto Kameleon EVF, but they also make other EVFs like the Gratical Eye that we reviewed and the Gratical HD. These EVFs are amazing, full of features and build like tanks, but they are not cheap at all.
When you power on the monitor, it’ll display your image, but nothing else. If you swipe up/down on the left side of the screen, you can quickly adjust your brightness setting. On the other hand, if you swipe up/down on the right side of the display, it’ll change your audio output level. Now, if you swipe up in the middle of the screen, it’ll show you the menu. Also, you can access the menu by simply pressing the menu button.
During our cinema5D Virtual Show, we caught up with Dan Chung from Atomos to discuss the upcoming Atomos Ninja V and Z CAM E2 firmware updates that will allow ProRes RAW recording over HDMI. The Atomos Ninja V 5″ HDR monitor-recorder has been very popular for Z CAM E2 users because the camera doesn’t have a proper screen to monitor what you’re shooting.
But, you can put small LED lights – I put two Nanlite PavoTube 6C in one pocket with ease – or a compact slider, for example; it works.
As a direct frustration with Tilta’s Nano motor which required a very specific input to perform well, I decided to have a go at designing a solution. Oskar joined me again so this time we actually ended up launching an Indiegogo campaign. At the time we didn’t have much of a prototype but the idea was clear: Someone had to put some high-capacity cells inside a top handle since it was such a mandatory piece of kit. Why not us?.
But, the real advantage of the BM5 over its competitors – other than the incredible $499 price – is the control port at the back of the monitor. By connecting the monitor to your camera, you can control various functions like start/stop the recording, change your ISO settings, adjust the focus settings… etc.
Last week, we were the first to report about a new company named PortKeys and their BM5, a field monitor capable of controlling your camera. Ahead of NAB 2019, the company just announced another exciting product, the OEYE-3G EVF. Let’s take a look at this exciting new EVF.
To install a battery inside the handle, all you have to do is unscrew the front cap with a coin. The battery door threads on the inside are pretty short, and it only takes you half a turn to loosen it fully.
The BM5 III WR is now a little bit bigger than its predecessor, with a 5.5″ display compared to the previous 5.2″ one. Also, the monitor features built-in monitoring tools, including:.
However, I’ve been able to try the camera control features with my Panasonic GH5, and it worked flawlessly. I’m not a massive fan of big camera setups with tons of cables, so I tried it to see if it work, but I don’t see myself using it. It’s nice to have these camera control capabilities; it works perfectly fine, it’s great to have it, and I’m sure it’ll fit a lot of filmmakers’ shooting style.
Finally, there’s a 5-pin “aviation” power input/output port, as PortKeys calls it. You can use the included D-Tap to 5-pin power cable to power your monitor from a V-Mount/Gold Mount battery. Also, you could use the included 5-pin to barrel connector cable to power accessories, but I did not try it. According to the company, this port can feed a 7.4V camera accessory if you power the monitor with a Sony NP-F battery.
I like that you can still put the TSA lock in its pocket even when your bag is secured. You probably don’t want to catch unnecessary attention by walking around the city with a lock hanging on the outside of your bag.
But, as usual at CineD, we review every product equally and point out the things that can be improved. I have no doubts that the products and accessories will continue to get better over time.
In the photo above, you can see that the PT5’s case is bigger than the one included with the Portkeys BM5 III WR (pictured) or the LH5P. That was one of the main complaints I had with these previous small cases. Indeed, you could only store the monitor inside, which is a bummer, as you’ll always want to carry at least video cables or some accessories along with your monitor.
To mount the BM5 to your camera or rig, the monitor features a 1/4″ hole at the bottom and one at the top. Also, an “L bracket” – like the SmallHD Focus – to mount the monitor more easily to your camera is available as an accessory.
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