12Jul The dirt cheap monitor died. Meet its replacement, the Sony CLM v55.
I’ve been using that little dirt cheap monitor for a number of months,but it finally took a fall from 10 feet and abruptly decided to stopped working. The size has made it one of the most used monitors in my collection. Manly because it easily fits in my camera bag and runs all day on a single 6800 mAh battery. Even though it’s very cheap to replace I thought it might be time for an upgrade to something with a little more screen resolution.
I jumped on Amazon the other day looking around and they had one Sony CLM V55 5 inch monitor delivered by Amazon for $299. Same resolution as my Lilliput monitor, but with focus peaking and a number of other great features. I was going to hold out for a samllhd DP4 monitor but I couldn’t pass up the $299 price tag. I may still end up with either a DP4 or DP6 monitor in the future but I thought I’d give the Sony a try for the price.
The CLM v55 came with some nice extras, including the sun hood, adjustable cold shoe mounts, and hdmi cable, but I was disappointed that Sony decided not to include batteries or power cord with the monitor. Thankfully I have a number of spare batteries laying around from previous cameras that fit the monitor, but that could end up being a hidden cost for many people.
When you stack the dirt cheap monitor on the Sony CLM V55, there is only about a 1/2 inch difference around the edges between the two monitors. Also having a proper battery mount on the back of the CLM v55 and a nice 1/4 20 set of threads on the bottom makes it more convenient then the dirt cheap monitor.
The included sun hood is very handy and seems to be a great way to protect the monitor. It’s also nice to see that Sony included a rubber cap for the hdmi and headphone ports. Over all the build quality is good for the price, but i’m guessing the aluminum frame of the SamllHD DP4 might be a bit more durable.
Although the sun hood does seem handy, it just about doubles the thickness of the monitor. The hood (top) and Monitor (bottom) snap together with a few plastic clips around the frame. The small indents used for mounting the sun hood around the front of the monitor do look a little strange when you look at it from the side.
One other thing that is a little disappointing is that there is no way to upscale the output of the t2i in record mode to full screen on the monitor, but I knew that going in. Over all the Sony CLM v55, so fare, seems to be a pretty good bargain for the price. Once I get a chance to spend a little more time with it, I’ll post a full review.
July 12th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
Please post a photo of the monitor in action showing just what you meant about the uprez of the T2i signal. How did you get it for $299 when it is listing for $399? Also, what battery does it use and how does it mount? Have you compared what the cost would have been if the Sony had come with all the stuff the DP4 does? Thanks for the info.
July 13th, 2011 at 7:06 am
I’ll try and post some more photos this weekend. For some reason the price of the Sony CLM v55 jumps up and down, at the beginning of this year It was about $350 new. I found it on amazon with one in stock for $299, all the rest of them were $400. It looks like Amazon has a few for $360 right now. It uses Sony FM500H batteries. The DP4 includes a YPbPr Breakout Cable, power cable, and a screen protector other then that both monitors come with about the same list of stuff. You still have to buy batteries for either monitor. I might have a demo DP4 on the way, if it shows up I’ll do some side by side tests.
July 13th, 2011 at 2:29 am
The Price is $399…
Also Could you compare with this?
http://bit.ly/oCsaNV – there is a version with hdmi out.
This monitor has headphones as well, but missing peaking
This monitor is half of the price of sony.
What do you think?
July 13th, 2011 at 5:47 am
I think the one amazon sent me was a return, because the box looked like it had already been open. The small lilliput monitor looks great for the price and you can easily live without focus peaking. I wanted peaking as a guide when working with people who aren’t as good about checking that kind of stuff, but I probably wont need it when it’s just me running the camera.
July 13th, 2011 at 5:06 am
Why would you blow $300 on a monitor that tiny? It seems barely larger than the LCD screen already ON the camera. Isn’t your Lilliput working?
July 13th, 2011 at 5:41 am
My lilliput monitor works fine, but most of the time I don’t need the large screen I just need the adjustablity and I need it to be small enough that it fits in my camera bag. I perfer to travel with a single camera bag if I can and a small monitor travels better for me.
July 13th, 2011 at 9:12 am
Deejay – I too am going the smallHD route, but cannot decide on the 4 or 6 ….obviously the 4 with the EVF has its advantages …. but do you see your see running the 4/EFV on a shoulder rig? The EVF will work great on a tripod, but I question how well it would work over the shoulder … it seems to me the best evf on that setup would have to be more firmly mounted to the camera.
Appreciate your thoughts.
July 13th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Honestly Joel, I don’t care for EVF’s at all. Putting a magnifying glass on an LCD screen always seemed kind of silly to me. That’s only my personal opinion a lot of people love them.
As far as mounting goes, you’d have to have a very secure adjustable arm to mount the DP4/EVF combo on or it’ll probably end up coming loose while running around with a shoulder rig. I’ve had this happen to me with regular field monitors and i’m sure the force applied when looking into an EVF would only add to the problem. The people I’ve talked to that like EVFs usually prefer to offset the shoulder bracket on there rig and directly attach the EVF to the camera. That way the force applied to the EVF’s eye peace is on the whole rig, not just a thin adjustable friction arm.
Hope that helps.
July 13th, 2011 at 10:16 am
That’s what I was thinking …. thanks for confirming.
Think I will go with the DP6 with a sun hood … larger screen real estate, and hopefully enough shade to see in sunlight when outdoors. But in my case, 90% of my shooting will be indoors anyway.
Thanks bud!
July 13th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
I bought the Sony myself but returned it. On the 60D it takes about 7 seconds for the image to show on the screen once I hit record.
Once you hit record the image shrinks to about 3 inches which makes it pointless since the cameras own screen is 3 inches.
The peaking functions is pretty bad. Works soso indoors and fails miserably at times. If you shoot with CineStyle the peaking will have a hard time registreing anything at all. These are all issues specific to canon, with a Sony camera this monitor should be great.
July 14th, 2011 at 6:06 am
That sounds horrible. I’ve only had a chance to use it 3 or 4 times so far on my 7d and t2i. I really haven’t had much time to test the peaking out yet. I’ll probably put together a video review once I have a good solid day to play around with it. I also have a SmallHD DP4 on the way, I think a side by side comparison is in order.
July 14th, 2011 at 7:45 am
Will you have a review for that shoulder rig you bought off of Ebay a few weeks back?
July 14th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
It’s on my list of things to do. Still getting caught up from last month. I should have it up in the next few weeks.
July 19th, 2011 at 10:34 pm
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June 6th, 2013 at 1:34 pm
DeeJay,
Thanks for all you do. Longtime subscriber.
I’ve been using the V55 since January. Do you know of a firmware hack or an update that adds cinescope aspect guides? I’ve been looking online, but without success.