What monitor to buy?

[iowa_jim]

My monitor is going out - I'm getting this blue vertical line and it seems to have grown to two pixels wide. So now I'm looking.

What's a good monitor for the photo enthusiast? Are there brands that cater to the color accuracy better than others? Longevity?

Thanks

Jim

[Ordo]

Some info here:

http://forums.steves-digicams.com/co...d-monitor.html

[BDD]

See here...

http://www.flatpanelshd.com/
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews.htm

If you have they budget then get an EIZO. One of the best around for graphic artists, CAD people and of course professional photographers (enthusiasts). Be prepared to shell out roughly $2500.00 for a 24" and around $4500.00 for a 29".

Though, there are cheaper alternatives from Dell like the Uxx11 series. Great reviews. Can handle almost 100% of the Adobe RGB gamut and I think over 100% of the sRGB. Fairly accurate out of the box too. Though, I'm sure you'll be calibrating it with a colorimeter.

I was just talking about monitors and color management with JimC. I'm fairly new to monitors geared to photographers myself. Just learning. Will be buying in the new year (though, not sure if I'll go with a 27" iMac or a 27" Dell Uxx11/Mac Pro).

Best of luck.

[TCav]

I prefer NEC and Viewsonic, but some of Dell's monitors are very good. Eizo Nanao monitors are excellent.

[peripatetic]

At the bottom end of the "good" market is something like the 24" Eizo Flexscan, at very reasonable prices.

Color accuracy for the fist time in my life - Sure does make a difference to the prints!

[TCav]

I remember Nanao before they merged with Eizo. They were nice, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one. Eizo was always very good, but way too expensive for me. Eizo Nanao still has stuff that's way out of my price range, but I've been impressed with the ones I've seen.

I'm not in the market quite yet. My NEC MultiSync FE990 is still doing quite well, thank you.

[iowa_jim]

I looked at some of the recommended monitors and was surprised by the prices. I will have to stick with the run-of-the-mill stuff for now, at least until I have a business need for such performance.

Thanks for the help all the same!

[BDD]

If you could choose "the best" 24", 27" or 30"...cost was not a concern...which one would you buy and why?

The LaCie have a few models that have a 100%+ NTSC & Adobe RGB gamut. For a lossless workflow. Quoted from local camera shop website...

Lossless Workflow
Up until now, the monitor has always been the bottleneck of the professional workflow. Because its gamut was significantly smaller than that of professional cameras and print processes, some captured colors were impossible to display. These colors needed to be either ignored or mapped to a smaller gamut. They could easily be damaged during the retouching process because the colors being retouched were not the original colors. Or worse, they could be totally lost. Another consequence of the smaller monitor gamut was the difficulty of displaying reliable softproofs.

Giving us more saturated photos http://www.vistek.ca/store/DisplayLC...bit-whood.aspx). Displaying the whole Adobe RGB gamut.

I don't think any of the EIZO can do this. So does this make LaCie "the best"?

[TCav]

LaCie monitors are excellent. Eizo Monitors are excellent. If you want to call one "the best" based on a single specification, and that's the specification you want to go with, then, yes, that LaCie monitor is the best.

[BDD]

The LaCie and EIZO are too pricy for most of us I think. Especially if we're not making a living as a photographer and shooting for the fun of it. Making a batch of prints once in a while.

I myself will just be looking for a "good" fairly priced monitor like the Dell 27" U2711 (good price at $880 CAD, relatively accurate out of the box, great reviews). Or a NEC Multisync PA271W ($1700.00 CAD...is it worth double the Dell? Hmmm...). A monitor that will give me a respectable match with my future calibrated photo printer. I guess you can't get an exact match unless you have a monitor like the LaCie.

Which you can't do with an iMac since they only do sRGB and even then only 70 odd % of the sRGB color space.