GEAR MINI TESTS
We try out a super-affordable on-camera monitor, a wireless transmitter set, Manfrotto’s newmotorised gimbal and a funky tripod called Tommy!
WORDS ADAM DUCKWORTH
PNBE 7-INCH MONITOR £179/$199 pnbe.org
It’s hard to believe, but at just £179/$199, you can buy a seven-inch, LCD colour HDRmonitor that’s very bright, takes battery or mains power and is made in Europe. Yet that’s exactly what the PNBEmonitor offers in a reasonably well-built package. The new company offers field monitors in a range of sizes and specs, and we tried the seven-inch, 2000-nit HDMI only model. There are six-inch, 3000-nit Ultra-Bright versionmodels and a flagship seven-inch, 2500-nit version that also adds 3G-SDI, a touchscreen and offers waveforms. This costs just £276/$290. The low price owes to PNBE’s status as a non-profit organisation launched by European cinematographers, whose mission is to sell products to filmmakers at cost price. It’s a worthy mission, of course, and these monitors are the first products to hit the market. We tried a prototype unit with no branding and an early firmware. The monitor comes with a decent fitted carry case, instructionmanual, cold shoe monitor mount, a full-size tomini HDMI cable and a 3.5mm jack cable that you have to solder up yourself. That’s a bit unusual. The screen is a seven-inch 1920×1080 IPS LCD panel with a contrast ratio of 1200:1 and a viewing angle of 160°. You can change the colour temperature of the display, as well as the HDR or gamma settings. The monitor takes up to two of the standard NP-F fit batteries or can be run off the included AC adapter. It fits onto a hotshoe or a rig with the includedmount. We also used it with a longer monitor arm and it worked
well. There are quarter-inch 20 screw mounting points on all four sides, too. The build quality is decent and, for something that’s so affordable, we have no complaints. The screen is very bright too, ideal for outdoor use. However, the menus are definitely not very user-friendly and take a combination of button presses tomake changes, which can be confusing. It all works OK, but in an age of smartphones and icons, it feels a bit like it was designed 20 years ago. The monitor offers lots of professional tools, such as histogram, false colour, peaking, zebras and lots more but, unlike the six-inch monitor, no waveforms. You can zoom in on the screen in 1.5x, 2x, 3x, and 4x magnifications and upload up to six 3D LUTs via a USB drive. There are also eight preset LUTs, including S-Log2, S-Log3 and S-Log3-Cine+709. There is also a specific DSLR setting for the Canon EOS 5DMark II and Mark III. The Mark IV version came out in 2016, and there are nomirrorless cameras, so it’s hardly cutting-edge. But for the money, it’s a simple seven-inchmonitor that is bright enough for outdoor use and has lots of customisable settings and effective monitoring tools. The image quality is good and we had no banding or odd colour issues at all in the cameras we tried it on. Just plug it into your camera’s HDMI socket and it works. PROMOVIEMAKERRATING: 7/10 It’s incredibly cheap for filmmakers on a budget who want a no-frills but bright monitor. Pros: Bright screen, very affordable Cons: Not touchscreen, no recording
ABOVE The PNBE monitor is really affordable and a decent performer, too
SPECIFICATIONS Display: 7in, 1920x1200 Brightness: 2000 nits HDMI formats: Up to UHD
4096x2160, 24p/3840x2160,30p Input/output: 4KHDMI video Colour space: REC. 709, ST2084 300/1000/10000, HLG Monitoring tools: Level meter, histogram, false colour, usermarkers, focus peaking, zebras, hue/saturation, aspect ratio, zoom Connections: 3.5mmaudio output jack, USB for uploading 3D LUTs Power: 7-24VDC or 2x Sony NP-F fit batteries Dimensions (WxHxD): 225x155x23mm/8.8x6.1x0.9in Weight: 450g/0.99lb
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PRO MOVIEMAKER
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