Monitor Use

[sharksdelight]

I have often wondered why so many DSLR and standard camcorder users do not use a hot or cold shoe monitor when taking topside video or photos to supplement their underwater shots. When filming underwater most everyone I know uses an external monitor rather that the camera's small LCD screen so why, when those DSLR LCD screens do not really enable you to see as well as you could, do users not bring along a nice 5 or 7" HD monitor to shoot with.

 

[casts_by_fly]

For the most part, a 3" LCD is more than enough for stills. On a big video rig you're often talking about shallow depth of field and manual focusing. In that case you need to have the focus right on and for that you need a bigger screen to look at. For anything requiring extremely critical focus, a still camera is on a tripod and you can just live-view, zoom in and check focus. It would be a real pain to try and walk around with (effectively) an ipad mini in the hotshoe. If you really need to see it, you can wifi to a computer or ipad via an SD WifI card or traditional tethering and check it that way. For most people, that is way too much faffing about.

rick

 

[James R]

I don't use my LCD for shooting photos with my Nikon DSLR...just the viewfinder with external magnifier on the housing. I do use the LCD a little bit to preview images in order to confirm the settings I am using are working they way I expect, but that's about it. An external monitor wouldn't be very useful to me.