14Jul Empty monitor space on the Sony CLM v55 with Canon DSLRS.
I finally had a some time this evening to run a few proper tests with the Sony CLM V55 monitor and go through the menus. I will admit that I have a little bit of buyers remorse. Although the image is crisp and the colors look very good the monitor has no stretch or adjustment options for the image. The picture above is of my Canon T2i in record mode with the Sony CLM V55 and as you can see you have empty space on either side of the image. Even though the empty space isn’t that big it’s still a little annoying that the monitor has no option to fill the screen.
There is also no way, that I’ve found so far, to avoid the monitors blink as the camera changes resolution when you press record. I timed the blink and its just over 1.2 seconds. Although the blink is shorter then a lot of monitors I’ve tested it’s still a step back from my Lilliput monitor.
I was expecting better results when I attached the monitor to my Canon 7d. The results are better, but the output of the camera still doesn’t fill the whole screen, and since there is no way to adjust the image, you are again left with black space on either side.
I decided to grab a proper video camera and try it out. It works great and fills the whole screen no problems at all. I can’t really blame Sony for this problem when the fault is with Canon. I still think the Sony CLM v55 is a nice monitor for the price, but I’m going to wait and see how it stacks up against the Smallhd DP4 that shipped out to me on Tuesday.
In fact I don’t really think the short comings are enough for me to return the monitor or get rid of it. It’s just disappointing that Sony decided not to include the proper adjustments to deal with the inherent problems canon has added to their DSLR camera lineup. If you have a proper video camera this monitor will be a great addition to your line up. If you have a Canon DSLR, be aware that this monitor wont correct for Canon’s poor choices.
July 14th, 2011 at 10:58 pm
Do you know of any affordable monitors that do have full screen video? If not, what is the best option? 60d is the camera.
Thanks
July 15th, 2011 at 8:34 am
The 7″ lilliput monitor I’ve used for a number of years will stretch the image to full screen. I guess their 5 inch version probably has the same option. The stretched image does look a little odd. Or you can display it the same way Sony’s monitor does.
July 29th, 2011 at 9:52 am
When you hit the zoom (+) on the back of the camera does that 5x or 10x image show up on the monitor? I’m just unsure if that button controls the entire video signal including hdmi out or just the internal screen.
Thanks. Keep up the good work.
July 29th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
When you hit the 5x and 10x zoom on the camera the signal out of the camera is adjusted accordingly. You’ll see the same thing as you would expect to see on the camera’s screen.
August 2nd, 2011 at 3:11 pm
How is the focus peaking on the monitor? For me this would be the deal breaker. TO get a monitor with focus peaking for that price point, it seems you’r getting a lot of bang for your buck?
August 2nd, 2011 at 4:22 pm
I haven’t had a chance to really mess around with focus peaking. I guessing it’ll probably work best on the Canon 7d. I think the monitor would really shine on something like the GH2 that puts out a true HD signal in record mode. I’ll put together a post on it once I’ve really had a chance to properly test it.