Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Recommendations for a good quality monitor  (Read 7975 times)

Stidik

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8
Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« on: December 12, 2016, 01:48:09 am »

I am currently using a 10-year-old 23 inch Apple Cinema display along with a 2012 Mac book Pro retina 16 GB of memory and 500 GB of SSD, I use LR and Photoshop and print on a large-format canon IPF 8400 printer. I'd like to upgrade my monitor but there are many vastly different choices. Two fairly conventional high-end options are the NEC PA 302W-BV-SV 30in $2,250 and the Eizo CG 277-BK 27in $2,280. Another unconventional option would be to buy a new 27 inch iMac with retina 5K display upgraded to 16 GB memory and 512 GB flash storage, that runs $2,400. A fourth option is that LG is partnering with Apple to produce new MacBook Pro compatible 5K ultrafine monitors with thunderbolt 3, $1300 for the 27 inch model. I doubt that it would be compatible with my old MacBook Pro from 2012. It may however be the future. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated, maybe I should wait another year.
Logged

BradSmith

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 772
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2016, 03:28:57 pm »

Addressing only the Monitor......Most highly touted brands/models are NEC and Eizo with their models that cover almost 100% Adobe RGB color space.  I use 27 " and I have no desire for 30" or 32".   For 27" example, NEC PA272 with Spectraview Software and Calibration Puck about $1200 US.  Eizo's are notably more expensive.   Also a real bargain and relative newcomer to the 100% RGB world is the BenQ SW2700PT (about $600) with calibration software and hood, but you have to buy the calibration puck separately (X-Rite i1Display Pro about $200).  The BenQ was reviewed very positively here on this site.  https://luminous-landscape.com/benq-sw2700pt-27-inch-adobe-rgb-monitor-review/

Brad
Logged

brianrybolt

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 625
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2016, 10:35:19 am »

Benq is excellent.  I bought about a month ago the SW2700pt.  I'm very happy with it.  It's extremely good value for the price.

Brian

Arlen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1707
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2016, 05:38:29 pm »

I have the NEC PA272 with Spectraview that Brad described, and am very happy with it. I also didn't see any need to pay another $1000 to get the 30"; for me, 27" is plenty big enough.
Logged

Ken Bennett

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1797
    • http://www.kenbennettphoto.com
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2016, 11:02:58 am »

Another vote for the 27 inch NEC PA272 with the puck.  It calibrates well, and I like the matte finish.
Logged
Equipment: a camera and some lenses. https://www.instagram.com/wakeforestphoto/

Peter McLennan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4690
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2016, 11:14:24 am »

I have the NEC PA272 with Spectraview that Brad described, and am very happy with it. I also didn't see any need to pay another $1000 to get the 30"; for me, 27" is plenty big enough.
+1
And superb service from NEC. They fixed mine over a holiday weekend.
Logged

sbay

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 225
    • http://stephenbayphotography.com/
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2016, 01:44:32 pm »

There's also the Benq SW320 (4k + adobergb): http://www.benq.com/product/monitor/sw320/

News sites are reporting it should be available in Jan. No price that I could find.

Christopher Sanderson

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2693
    • photopxl.com
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2016, 04:02:41 pm »

I looked closely at the BenQ 4K monitor at PhotoPlus and was very impressed. High quality and good price.

davidgp

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 758
    • davidgp fotografia
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2016, 03:29:17 am »

There's also the Benq SW320 (4k + adobergb): http://www.benq.com/product/monitor/sw320/

News sites are reporting it should be available in Jan. No price that I could find.


Some sites are reporting around 1500€ http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/benq-flagship-photographer-monitor-sw320-has-10-bit-hdr-and-precise-colors.html , but we will probably know for sure next month around CES


http://dgpfotografia.com

Osprey

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 102
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #9 on: December 16, 2016, 06:38:00 am »

Unorthodox at this juncture I'm sure, but several months ago I bought a NEC Display MultiSync EA244UHD which is a 24 inch Adobe RGB space nearly 4K (3840) monitor. I use it with Spectraview and an i1 display which I purchased separately. The monitor is less than $1k.  I find it to be quite good and it seems easy to profile, I've been very happy with prints I've prepared using the screen.
Logged

Robert DeCandido PhD

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 271
    • http://www.BirdingBob.com
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #10 on: December 17, 2016, 09:28:14 am »

Look for refurbished sales directly from NEC...I picked up the 302 monitor last December (2015) for less than $1000 USD with a free lens hood...

here is a good deal for one used in mint condition: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1460115

For years I used 27in or so sized monitors...a 30in monitor is in a different league and a very nice experience for working on photos and video.
Logged

Stidik

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2017, 01:25:51 am »

I greatly appreciate all of the above excellent advice. I think that UHD 5K monitors are the future but I'm afraid my 2012 MBP graphics card and its connection cables may not be compatible with a new 5K monitor and I'm not ready to upgrade to a new MBP at this time. The BenQ SW2700 Monitor looks like the best value for the money. But I think I've narrowed my choices down to the NEC PA 272 with SpectraView ($1377) and a newly released Eizo color edge CS 2730 27 inch monitor with EX3 calibration tool which list for $1267. I'm leaning towards the Eizo since it is a brand-new design, where as the NEC is a three-year-old design. Although the NEC seems to have a lot of very happy users. The NEC and Eizo seem to be very similar, is there any reason to purchase one over the other? Thanks again for everyone's help.
Logged

Hans Kruse

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2106
    • Hans Kruse Photography
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2017, 09:30:52 am »

I looked closely at the BenQ 4K monitor at PhotoPlus and was very impressed. High quality and good price.

I have written in several threads about the issues about using a 27" or larger 4K monitor with MacOS. I do not recommend to use a 4K monitor unless you accept either large font rendering with a "looks like" 1920x1080 or incorrectly scale graphics in larger "looks like" resolution. It seems that almost nobody is aware of this issue. For 27" 5K is the way to go.

Christopher

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1499
    • http://www.hauser-photoart.com
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2017, 03:17:29 am »

Man, am i happy I don't depend on a mac. With my windows I don't have to fiddle around it just works with any display ;)

However, I have to admit that I currently don't want the 4/5k stuff. Just prefer to see actual pixels.. at least till I'm on a phone or iPad.


Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk
Logged
Christopher Hauser
[email=chris@hauser-p

Hans Kruse

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2106
    • Hans Kruse Photography
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2017, 06:01:54 am »

Man, am i happy I don't depend on a mac. With my windows I don't have to fiddle around it just works with any display ;)

However, I have to admit that I currently don't want the 4/5k stuff. Just prefer to see actual pixels.. at least till I'm on a phone or iPad.


Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

Macs and Windows work pretty similar for low DPI screens. Both have scaling options for higher DPI screens on laptops and monitors. They do it in different ways. I would say that after seeing no pixels anymore on my devices there is no way back :) As mentioned on the Mac it is pretty simple that you set the scaling resolution to exacty half of the physical screen resolution. UP and until the MBP 2015 this was also default for the laptop screen and for the iMac 5K as well. I prefer to know how things work.

Bart_van_der_Wolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8913
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #15 on: January 14, 2017, 09:18:06 am »

Macs and Windows work pretty similar for low DPI screens. Both have scaling options for higher DPI screens on laptops and monitors

Hi Hans,

Having read your recommendations for MAC OS and 4K or 5K displays, so unless I'm misunderstanding something, it seems to me that Windows (8.1 and certainly 10) is easier to get right. Caveat, I've not tried it myself on a 4K or 5K display, so others should correct me if I'm wrong.

On Windows 10 there is a clear separation between fonts/icons and screen resolution. They can be set seperately to optimal values. The Screen resolution should be set to the display resolution (so images will display 1 on 1 per pixel), assuming that the Graphics card supports that. The text/icons/etc. can then be scaled independently on the operating system level. Applications since 2015 have mostly become High DPI aware, and will use the OS level settings, unless they offer additional/alternative settings, so unreadable tiny controls that take an effort to click on, should not be an issue anymore and there is no need to emulate a lower resolution and show blurry icons.

Quote
They do it in different ways. I would say that after seeing no pixels anymore on my devices there is no way back :)

I can imagine. We're getting close to the Human Visual System's acuity limits, especially when we view from slightly more than normal reading distance.

Quote
]As mentioned on the Mac it is pretty simple that you set the scaling resolution to exacty half of the physical screen resolution. UP and until the MBP 2015 this was also default for the laptop screen and for the iMac 5K as well. I prefer to know how things work.

I agree. I do assume that the exact half physical screen resolution (to avoid having interpolation at fractional pixel positions) is needed because the specific MAC display drivers do not support the actual display resolution? Otherwise, why not set to the exact same resolution as the display?

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

Hans Kruse

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2106
    • Hans Kruse Photography
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #16 on: January 15, 2017, 08:02:58 am »

Hi Hans,

Having read your recommendations for MAC OS and 4K or 5K displays, so unless I'm misunderstanding something, it seems to me that Windows (8.1 and certainly 10) is easier to get right. Caveat, I've not tried it myself on a 4K or 5K display, so others should correct me if I'm wrong.

On Windows 10 there is a clear separation between fonts/icons and screen resolution. They can be set seperately to optimal values. The Screen resolution should be set to the display resolution (so images will display 1 on 1 per pixel), assuming that the Graphics card supports that. The text/icons/etc. can then be scaled independently on the operating system level. Applications since 2015 have mostly become High DPI aware, and will use the OS level settings, unless they offer additional/alternative settings, so unreadable tiny controls that take an effort to click on, should not be an issue anymore and there is no need to emulate a lower resolution and show blurry icons.

I can imagine. We're getting close to the Human Visual System's acuity limits, especially when we view from slightly more than normal reading distance.

I agree. I do assume that the exact half physical screen resolution (to avoid having interpolation at fractional pixel positions) is needed because the specific MAC display drivers do not support the actual display resolution? Otherwise, why not set to the exact same resolution as the display?

Cheers,
Bart

It is not a limitation on display drivers per se. It's a design decision on how to support HDPI screens back when the original MBP was launched with a 2880x1800 display. The MBP before that had a screen resolution of exactly half that in each dimension, 1440x900. The MacOS at the time was enhanced with scaling for the new screen such that fonts, text, menues, etc. was scaled (but rendered in the full screen resolution) to look the same size on the new retina screens as on the older MBP's lower resolution screen. New API's were made for retina aware applications as non-retina aware appliscations were simply scaled up and therefore did not look as sharp as it could (1 pixel from the application was mapped onto 4 pixels on the screen). There was also introduced a scaled option so you could choose a different size for the fonts, menues etc. (aka. "looks like" resolution) that could be set to e.g. 1680x1050. You could not choose any resolution you would like and only the ones presented in the scaling options. The "looks like" 1440x900 was the default which it has been on MBP's until the new 2016 model where the default strangely enough was changed to 1680x1050. There have been complaints about this since there is a tiny fuzzines introduce3d since the virtual screen would be 2x1680x1050= 3360x2100 which would be scaled down to 2880x1800.

Now with 4K and 5K monitors this approach has been continued so for a 4K monitor you can choose a "looks like" at 1920x1080 which will map into a virtual screen resolution of 2xfull hd= 4K (3840x2160). This maps then perfectly to the 4K screen resolution and is completely sharply rendered. But on a large monitor like a 32" monitor the fonts and menues, etc. look quite large although the images pixels will be rendered exact. So if you choose 2560x1440 to scale the fonts to the more correct size then the virtual screen will be 5120x2880 which will be mapped on the 4K screen so therefore looks a little unsharp. It's not a lot, but if you zoom into 1:1 in Lightroom to judge sharpness you will see a slight unsharpness. If thats ok 4K screens are fine on Mac's. But notice that the virtual screen resolution in this case is exactly 5K! SO using a 5K monitor the mapping is perfect. That is the reason that Apple chose the 5K resolution for the 27" iMac (I should that I believe so since I have never seen a statement from Apple that this is in fact the case). When using a 4K screen you can also choose "looks like" at 4K in which case everything is mapped to 4K exactly, but then the fonts are pretty small. When using a 4K monitor there is also another option: For normal e-mail and web browsing use a "looks like" scaling at 2560x1440 which  looks good for that and keep the monitor preference open at all times. Then switch to Photoshop or Lightroom (or any other image processing app) and switch to the monitor preferences and choose 1920x1080 and then switch back to the image processing app. The the image pixels will map perfect 1:1 to the 4K screen and visual elements like text will a bit larger but maybe ok. Since the MacOS scan change resolution while all apps are running this is a workable solution although one I didn't like too much.

So you could call this a limitation, but really it is a design choice that Apple made. We can argue about this choice and if this is the best choice or not, but that does not change anything :)

Although not very detailed here is a description of the Windows scaling options https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/windows-10-display-scaling/ and the scaling of the fonts and menues etc. It says that you have to log out when changing the size which is different from the Mac where this is not needed. See above about this. I assume this logout is needed to render all fonts in the new chosen size so they don't look fuzzy.

So don't get me wrong. 4K on the Mac does look good, but if you really want to have perfect rendering of images in 1:1 you need to know how it works.

Stidik

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2017, 09:10:03 pm »

I greatly appreciate all the above comments. Do you believe that using a 5K high resolution monitor helps you to produce better prints? My goal is to produce the best prints that I can make. I know that looking at a 5K monitor is very cool. But my big question is will it help me make better prints. Buying a 27 inch  NEC or Eizo Monitor with 2560 x 1440 resolution, wide color gamut, and color correct calibration will pair with my older MBP very easily. Upgrading to a 5K monitor will likely be difficult because of the graphics card and possibly the connection cables as well.  So what are your thoughts? Thanks for your help.
Logged

Hans Kruse

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2106
    • Hans Kruse Photography
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #18 on: January 17, 2017, 06:50:32 am »

I greatly appreciate all the above comments. Do you believe that using a 5K high resolution monitor helps you to produce better prints? My goal is to produce the best prints that I can make. I know that looking at a 5K monitor is very cool. But my big question is will it help me make better prints. Buying a 27 inch  NEC or Eizo Monitor with 2560 x 1440 resolution, wide color gamut, and color correct calibration will pair with my older MBP very easily. Upgrading to a 5K monitor will likely be difficult because of the graphics card and possibly the connection cables as well.  So what are your thoughts? Thanks for your help.

Your old MBP cannot drive a 4K screen and the 5K only works on the MBP 2015 model and it is not clear that it works completely correct on the LG 5K (officially not in the list of supported MBP's from Apple).

I don't believe your prints would be better because of a 4K or 5K screen. It's just a lot nicer to look at :)

Josh-H

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2079
    • Wild Nature Photo Travel
Re: Recommendations for a good quality monitor
« Reply #19 on: January 18, 2017, 04:12:57 am »

Quote
I don't believe your prints would be better because of a 4K or 5K screen. It's just a lot nicer to look at

Agreed. Screen resolution will not improve your prints or your printing. It can allow you to see flaws in a file you might have otherwise missed (that potentially might show up in a print) but it will not make you a better printer or produce better prints.
Logged
Wild Nature Photo Travel
Pages: [1]   Go Up