You wouldn’t want to Film something without looking at a monitor right? You probably don’t want to record audio for your film with out hearing it either. People are always looking for an audio monitoring solution for there DSLR cameras. Well if you are already in the market for a video monitor why not kill two birds with one stone?

Lets start with a few mid range monitors first. The Ikan VH7 (above) is a relatively new HDMI monitor on the market with a pretty good battery power option. For $399.95 you get an HDMI field monitor with a nice 1024 x 600 screen resolution(little bit better then the Lilliput monitor), a built in 1/4 20 mount, a power adapter plate for either Sony or Canon batteries, and the most important thing a headphone jack.

The HDMI Stream from your camera carries both the Video and Audio that your camera is recording. This monitor (along with the rest I’ll list) brakes out the audio and gives you a very handy headphone jack with volume control for audio monitoring.  This feature is handy for every camera in Canon’s line up even the 7d if you’re using an AGC disabling device like the Juicedlink DT454. The nice thing about this method is that you are monitoring the audio directly from the camera. If you were just monitoring the audio from the mic alone, you probably wont notice audio that peaks the camera recording levels until you start editing your footage.

Next up is the New Sony CLM-V55 5 inch monitor. The Sony CLM is only 5 inches which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the configuration of your DSLR rig. The resolution is a little less then the Ikan at 800×480. The package includes a shade hood,  cold shoe adapter, and an hdmi cable (batteries not included). It looks like Sony CLM is back ordered right now. You can get on the waiting list for the next dilevery date for a price tag of $352, which seems pretty reasonable for a Sony product and of course this monitor has a nice handy headphone jack just like the Ikan.

If all of that is to much for your budget, then this is probably the monitor for you. This clocks in at 7 inches, sports a 480×234 screen resolution, has a 1/4 20 threaded hole at the base, and of course it has a headphone monitor jack. The difference is with this monitor you use the RCA cables. The audio and video from your Canon AVC-DC400 cable (USB to RCA cable) plugs directly into the monitor, and of course gives you both a Video monitor and headphone jack with volume control.

This monitor probably isn’t the most elegant out of the list, as you’ll be left with a bundle of cables and need something like the batteries from that dirt cheap monitor project I posted awhile back to power it. But at a price tag of $52 you can’t really ask for much.

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