Monitor quality and need- What am I missing?

[vindibona1]

I've needed a new 4k monitor for some time. Native resolution for 4k monitors (27") seems to be universally 3840 x 2160. Most decent monitors claim to have 90%+ RGB, but there are other claims to having 100% Rec 709 compliance and "factory calibration". Some have USB-C ports, etc. I guess what I'm asking is, for my needs, which features are needed and which are overkill? I guess I'm asking if I need to return the monitor I recently purchased and "upgrade" to a more expensive monitor. or not? The comparison current is a Dell S2721QS retail $399 vs an ASUS ProArt PA279CV retail $499. Were it only $100 difference there would be no question.

When shopping at Micro Center, there was a Dell S2721QS open box for $271 (out the door w/tax $300). The monitor with all the bells and whistles was the ASUS, which would be $450 w/tax. Is the $150 meaningful? In the larger scheme no, but does it have anything more I need for the extra money?

I own an i1Profiler colorimeter and software and dutifully calibrated the monitor. The RGB controls needed a very minor tweak and reference images show blacks as black and whites neutral, though the brightness in my experience has much to do with the brightness of the room. Brightness and contrast seem ok as the whites seem bright enough and with similar settings my other Dell monitor (FHD) which is duplicated (and also calibrated) shows a little highlight blooming in skin highlights where the new one is still retaining detail. The 2721 is showing more detail definition than the FHD Dell, which would be expected and seems to be even corner to corner. At least if there is any discrepancy I'm not seeing it. . It has display port and HDMI ports. I don't see a need for USB-c.

I guess what I'm asking is, will spending more money on the ASUS or other monitor bring me any increase in detail or color accuracy that I would see? I know that in terms of monitors the prices can get ridiculous if I went with a higher end BenQ or an Eizo or some others. I'm not doing high end production and most of what I produce is going to mostlly be consumer level stuff, the most intense probably doing some real estate work in the furture (except it pays bubkes around here).

So tell me what you guys think? Exchange for the Dell for the ASUS or aim at an even higher price point? If so, why?

 

[adcimagery]

I guess it depends on your needs - a more expensive panel should have better uniformity, retain a more consistent color, etc. I don't think there's going to be a huge difference between the two models described, but it's also just a $150 difference. Part of that cost difference is going to come down to things like the stand, USB-C support, input support. It looks like the PA supports gamut adjustment, which can make it easier to switch between tasks, so it might be slightly better if you're doing a mix of work.

If you're not worrying about high end color grading, a calibrated, decent monitor is still going to be way better than what 90% of your clients are using.

One suggestion is to consider a larger 4K monitor. I like 32in at 100% scaling, as it gives a ton of room to work while still being clearly readable. Otherwise, you might want to check out an ultra-wide, if you're looking to spend more - the extra space is nice.

One note on brightness - it shouldn't vary, if you're looking to calibrate. Ideally you should be at 100 or 120 cd/m2, and then be controlling your ambient light levels.

 

[Dave Maine]

It is hard to give a definitive answer, as it really depends on the target output. As you mention, ambient light makes a very big difference, both for prints and video.

100 or 120 is commonly used for print making. This works well for gallery work for good lighting.

Most computers and TVs are much brighter than that, coming in at 400-500 nits. A video corrected at 120 nits will look too light on these devices.

 

[vindibona1]

I guess it depends on your needs - a more expensive panel should have better uniformity, retain a more consistent color, etc. I don't think there's going to be a huge difference between the two models described, but it's also just a $150 difference. Part of that cost difference is going to come down to things like the stand, USB-C support, input support. It looks like the PA supports gamut adjustment, which can make it easier to switch between tasks, so it might be slightly better if you're doing a mix of work.

If you're not worrying about high end color grading, a calibrated, decent monitor is still going to be way better than what 90% of your clients are using.

One suggestion is to consider a larger 4K monitor. I like 32in at 100% scaling, as it gives a ton of room to work while still being clearly readable. Otherwise, you might want to check out an ultra-wide, if you're looking to spend more - the extra space is nice.

One note on brightness - it shouldn't vary, if you're looking to calibrate. Ideally you should be at 100 or 120 cd/m2, and then be controlling your ambient light levels.

Thanks for your input. My new Dell is calibrated at 120 cd/m2 and I have the option of leaving the colorimeter (i1Profiler) in "room monitor" mode, essentially acting as an incident light meter and adjusting the brightness depending on the room, should it change. Until 2 years ago when I started flying drones and filming I was only concerned with still photographs and with my older Dell monitor, calibrated the same way found my prints to be pretty much spot on.

I'm lucky that my favorite computer store, Micro Center in Chicago is close by and has a 30 day return policy. I'm tempted but oscillating to go buy the Asus today and put it side by side with the Dell and make a decision. Actually I miscalculated in my earlier post and the difference is $250. The Dell, with tax was $300 (seemingly a good bargain with retail price being $399, $440 with tax) while the Asus out the door will be $550, almost twice as much as the open box. In my mind I balked at the Asus, largely because this has been an expensive month having purchased a Mini 3 and a prosumer espresso maching in the same time frame. So my monkey brain was thinking I could save $250 with similar results.

 

[Lokinator]

Hi
This going to be a touch off topic - I am a colorist, have done the monitor profiles, press finger printing, retouching etc for most of Chicago's top advertising firms. Alot of very expensive high end work. Back then printing was super expensive and the main form of advertising, you needed something to hold the printers accountable for color, so a color-calibrated proof set to one of several standards and sent with print jobs. My career progressed into broadcast TV. The rec 709 being the safe color profile for viewing/proofing. Now with printing going mostly by the way side and the cell phone being where 65 percent of content is consumed, as long as your gray balanced and holding highlight and not plugging the shadows how much emphasis is put on color these days? Or is it mostly what we used to call "pleasing color"? which was safe for mass consumption. Esp in the field where unless your viewing in a color controlled environment it would be nearly impossible to hold it to any standard other than "it looked good when we saw it on set". Obviously, they sell the monitors for it, but was curious how much does it matter as everyone's TV/Cell phone all view differently based on brands/age/tech. Most of which is not calibrated to anything or changed based on user preference? Dont get me wrong a good monitor is a must-have, was just curious about the theory behind it as it pertains to color and specifically drone work. I have a few mid-level Benq's for production and dropped the super high-end monitors years ago. The fact was when we looked at them side by side in our color-controlled environment the difference between the high-end and mid-level was very hard to see for any of my colorists yet the price tag was significant. And if you notice there are ALOT fewer companies making high end color monitors now....just something to think about. My suggestion if you don't see a need don't bother with the more expensive ones.

 

[vindibona1]

Hi
This going to be a touch off topic - I am a colorist, have done the monitor profiles, press finger printing, retouching etc for most of Chicago's top advertising firms. Alot of very expensive high end work. Back then printing was super expensive and the main form of advertising, you needed something to hold the printers accountable for color, so a color-calibrated proof set to one of several standards and sent with print jobs. My career progressed into broadcast TV. The rec 709 being the safe color profile for viewing/proofing. Now with printing going mostly by the way side and the cell phone being where 65 percent of content is consumed, as long as your gray balanced and holding highlight and not plugging the shadows how much emphasis is put on color these days? Or is it mostly what we used to call "pleasing color"? which was safe for mass consumption. Esp in the field where unless your viewing in a color controlled environment it would be nearly impossible to hold it to any standard other than "it looked good when we saw it on set". Obviously, they sell the monitors for it, but was curious how much does it matter as everyone's TV/Cell phone all view differently based on brands/age/tech. Most of which is not calibrated to anything or changed based on user preference? Dont get me wrong a good monitor is a must-have, was just curious about the theory behind it as it pertains to color and specifically drone work. I have a few mid-level Benq's for production and dropped the super high-end monitors years ago. The fact was when we looked at them side by side in our color-controlled environment the difference between the high-end and mid-level was very hard to see for any of my colorists yet the price tag was significant. And if you notice there are ALOT fewer companies making high end color monitors now....just something to think about. My suggestion if you don't see a need don't bother with the more expensive ones.

Thanks for your detailed reply. You make a lot of sense.
I'm a (mostly) retired photographer and had a brick an mortar studion in Highland Park (you know, near Chicago . Back in the day 2004-2010 I did a lot of catalog work )4 color press) and never seemed to have an issue with color reproduction. At the time I had (I think) and 26" NEC monitor, the first LCD (?) coming from CRT's (not today's politically charged term) . In spite of an Xrite colorimter and software and a $1300 cost it was much harder to get neutral tones on that beast.

I've been mostly retired from photography for some time and did a few years teaching middle school after closing my studio so current technology wasn't an important interested until I started flying drones and filming in 4k. I went on B&H's website and looked up the BenQ monitors' specs and didn't see much dissimilarity from the Dell s2721QS monitor on my desk.

Is the Rec 709 color wide color gamut important? What do the ProArt Preset and ProArt Palette do and how do they help, other than complicate things? I suspect with a colorimeter I'm getting Delta E<2 accuracy or very close. When the color temp was set to D6500 my final reading was within 50°K of 6500. How are the bells and whistles of the ASUS helpful? It seems they complicate things that should be simple. It would also seem if you're going to color grade film it comes down to the eye of the editor and the viewer, especially when we introduce neuro adaptation where how we judge color (or sound, or smell or touch ) based on what we recently previously experienced.

Below are the ASUS ProArt specs followed by the Dell s2721QS specs, which only claim 99% of sRGB color space. Is there enough of a difference to matter?

• 27-inch 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) LED backlight display with IPS 178° wide viewing angle panel
• International color standard 100% sRGB and 100% Rec. 709 wide color gamut
• Calman Verified with factory calibrated for excellent Delta E < 2 color accuracy
• Extensive connectivity including DP over USB-C with 65W Power Delivery, DisplayPort, HDMI, USB hub
• Adaptive-Sync technology (40~60Hz) to animated content with fast action and eliminate screen tearing
• ASUS-exclusive ProArt Preset and ProArt Palette provide numerous adjustable color parameters

General
Display Type
LED-backlit LCD monitor / TFT active matrix
Diagonal Size
27"
Viewable Size
27"
Adaptive-Sync Technology
AMD FreeSync
Panel Type
IPS
Aspect Ratio
16:9
Native Resolution
4K UHD (2160p) 3840 x 2160 at 60 Hz
Pixel Pitch
0.1554 mm
Pixel Per Inch
163
Brightness
350 cd/m²
Contrast Ratio
1300:1
Color Support
1.07 billion colors
Response Time
8 ms (gray-to-gray normal); 5 ms (gray-to-gray fast); 4 ms (gray-to-gray extreme)
Vertical Refresh Rate
40 - 60 Hz
Horizontal Refresh Rate
130 - 137 kHz
Horizontal Viewing Angle
178
Vertical Viewing Angle
178
Screen Coating
Anti-glare 3H hardness
Backlight Technology
WLED
Bezel Type
Flat front
Features
LED edgelight system, 99% sRGB color gamut, Dell Easy Arrange, HDR Ready technology, 3-sided bezeless

 

[Lokinator]

My humble opinion...the presets complicate it and is marketing BS. It you want to colorize then do it but it needs to based off of netral grey Your a color guy, grey is grey 125,125,125...hold it up to something you know is actually 100% gray (like a Color card) balance from there. I go for resolution, refresh rate and contrast ratio. Things like viewing angle only matter if you have a room full of people viewing color from multiple angles. Screen coating, dont care, bezel, dont care. We joke all the time if you actually understand the numbers and theory you could color correct on a black and white monitor. Gray needs to be gray. In the end does it look good, is it accurate and dependable. Does it drift? Everything thing else is mostly marketing fluff. Go with the cheaper model. Hell if you really want to have some fun buy both. compare, and return one. Thats what we did.

 

[vindibona1]

My humble opinion...the presets complicate it and is marketing BS. It you want to colorize then do it but it needs to based off of netral grey Your a color guy, grey is grey 125,125,125...hold it up to something you know is actually 100% gray (like a Color card) balance from there. I go for resolution, refresh rate and contrast ratio. Things like viewing angle only matter if you have a room full of people viewing color from multiple angles. Screen coating, dont care, bezel, dont care. We joke all the time if you actually understand the numbers and theory you could color correct on a black and white monitor. Gray needs to be gray. In the end does it look good, is it accurate and dependable. Does it drift? Everything thing else is mostly marketing fluff. Go with the cheaper model. Hell if you really want to have some fun buy both. compare, and return one. Thats what we did.

Again, I have to agree with you. I don't need complicated. I just need standardized. I took a snapshot of my three currently active monitors. The one on the left is hooked up to an HP 4k laptop with 4k Oled display and the laptop and the monitor agree pretty closely. I don't recall if I calibrated the laptop's screen. While the left monitor looks brighter than the other two, hooked up to my Alienware tower, the angle of view makes it look a little brighter than the others, but all three monitors, plus my laptop are extremely close. The difference is that the middle monitor is the new one in 4k, but bumping the sharpness a bit on the right-most monitor helps a bit to get it closer in look to the 4k monitor, but the detail in the Dell 4k is crisper and more defined, but not earth-shatteringly different. I pulled up several reference images and didn't see any color bias and the monitor held both whites and blacks well. At least well enough.

Someone suggested I get a 32" monitor, but I don't see the need or expense as side-by-side gives me all the working real estate that I need if I put it in extended mode. The upper monitor, not turned on was my second monitor in an over/under configuration. I think I'll keep the computer monitors side by side and use the upper, my poorest quality monitor, dedicated to the TV box, also on my desk that I hadn't really ever used as it was exclusively for extending the main monitor.

You might find interesting, in the lower right corner of the image are my old Kodak Color Print Viewing Filters. I just pulled them out to see if they were any help. These guys got so much mileage in my studio when we were still using film. We were really fussy about how the lab color corrected our prints. My last roll of film expired in 2001.

Images part of @zenhoho recently posted video of Hong Kong. I hope you don't mind, Zen.

 

[Lokinator]

Sweet setup. I agree I dont want the expense of the 32 inch monitor and I am not a fan of the "curved" feature. I went with 3 - 27" Benqs. For me I generally use one of my monitors as a TV. The other is a main and the one on the right for Palletes/secondary programs like off and outlook.

I am sure its a prefernce but I like the 3 monitors over the long one...in my head it helps me organize it. With a larger monitor to me it would be like crap everywhere. Now I move things monitor to monitor or workspace to workspace if you will.

Great Kodak filters. I think I was part of the last generation that generated film consistently. I was working for 2 years and the "digital files" started to appear. Our film strippers hated it. We are talking Photoshop 2.0. I never forget one guy asking in a demo "great its digital what the hell do I do with that"...we are talking pre-desktop publishing. I am very old. But some things dont change.....gray balance is still crucial to any color process.

Loved the Drone shot you had on your monitors!!

 

[vindibona1]

Sweet setup. I agree I dont want the expense of the 32 inch monitor and I am not a fan of the "curved" feature. I went with 3 - 27" Benqs. For me I generally use one of my monitors as a TV. The other is a main and the one on the right for Palletes/secondary programs like off and outlook.

I am sure its a prefernce but I like the 3 monitors over the long one...in my head it helps me organize it. With a larger monitor to me it would be like crap everywhere. Now I move things monitor to monitor or workspace to workspace if you will.

Great Kodak filters. I think I was part of the last generation that generated film consistently. I was working for 2 years and the "digital files" started to appear. Our film strippers hated it. We are talking Photoshop 2.0. I never forget one guy asking in a demo "great its digital what the hell do I do with that"...we are talking pre-desktop publishing. I am very old. But some things dont change.....gray balance is still crucial to any color process.

Loved the Drone shot you had on your monitors!!

View attachment 152598

Interesting how we seem to be from a similar era and have similar thoughts and approaches. Yeah.. Photoshop 2. They had a tutorial disk with that one which is where I initially learned Photoshop. A friend said "get yourself a lunch and watch the video". I did, and it worked. I was on the way with PS. While I have a subscription for Photoshop currently I still prefer the older versions, CS3 being my favorite. On CS3 I would be quoted "If I can think it I can do it". I never had use for all the extra bells and whistles. FWIW, from around 1984 until I wrapped up the wedding photo thing around 2001 I shot approximately 400 weddings and events a few of the last ones full digital, and figured I'd had my quota, changed the business name and mostly only took commerical shoots and portraits.

My other half is an event planner, mostly higher end stuff, which is where I met her years ago. As a matter of fact is doing a wedding right now. She recommends other photographers and I get to see their stuff. I suppose if you shoot 2000-3000 shots with auto focus, auto metering, a monitor on the back of your camera and 10fps with no cost for the extra exposures you've got to come up with something good. I chuckle at that, having done most of my weddings with a Hasselblad kit and film 24 shot film backs; no AF, no zoom, no in camera meters, no previews. Fast focusing was largely done buy guesstimating the distance to the subject and setting the lens from the markings on top of the lens barrel. And oh-yeah... a Metz 60 on a bracket with a battery side pack for indoor stuff. Film rated at ISO 100 or later on 400 rated at 320. You just had to know what you were doing because the results wouldn't be in for a week. I dunno... I find watching today's event photographers entertaining. Even now I think my Canon 5DmkIII only shoots single shots .

But getting back to this other nonsense... I''ve kept up on the drone technolgy, but unfortunately paid little attention to the computer side of things but lucked out on the desktop and laptop computers I selected as being up to the task of video. Adding a good monitor was/is the last step in the upgrade. Thanks again for your input and the opportunity to reminisce.

 

[zenhoho]

Again, I have to agree with you. I don't need complicated. I just need standardized. I took a snapshot of my three currently active monitors. The one on the left is hooked up to an HP 4k laptop with 4k Oled display and the laptop and the monitor agree pretty closely. I don't recall if I calibrated the laptop's screen. While the left monitor looks brighter than the other two, hooked up to my Alienware tower, the angle of view makes it look a little brighter than the others, but all three monitors, plus my laptop are extremely close. The difference is that the middle monitor is the new one in 4k, but bumping the sharpness a bit on the right-most monitor helps a bit to get it closer in look to the 4k monitor, but the detail in the Dell 4k is crisper and more defined, but not earth-shatteringly different. I pulled up several reference images and didn't see any color bias and the monitor held both whites and blacks well. At least well enough.

Someone suggested I get a 32" monitor, but I don't see the need or expense as side-by-side gives me all the working real estate that I need if I put it in extended mode. The upper monitor, not turned on was my second monitor in an over/under configuration. I think I'll keep the computer monitors side by side and use the upper, my poorest quality monitor, dedicated to the TV box, also on my desk that I hadn't really ever used as it was exclusively for extending the main monitor.

You might find interesting, in the lower right corner of the image are my old Kodak Color Print Viewing Filters. I just pulled them out to see if they were any help. These guys got so much mileage in my studio when we were still using film. We were really fussy about how the lab color corrected our prints. My last roll of film expired in 2001.

Images part of @zenhoho recently posted video of Hong Kong. I hope you don't mind, Zen.



View attachment 152583

Nice setup! I hope I could do my video editing on this