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.


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