[Leica] Quick Monitor Question

["Tom Lianza" <tlianza@sequelimaging.com>]

Hi to all,

As someone who knows a bit about display calibration I would make the
following comments.

1. The higher end monitors from Sony, Mitsubishi(in the US it is
NEC-Mitsubishi), and LaCie are quite good. (We design calibration systems
for these companies and others) The sony 520 series is excellent as is the
Mitsubishi 2070u, the NEC 2141, or 1375, the lacie blue eye III products in
the 21 inch area are quite good.  Your Colorvision product should work well
with these products.  All the modern flat faced tubes that I have tested use
either diamondtron or trinitron tubes.  These tubes will have two very faint
wires running horizontally across the display face at about 1/3 and 2/3 down
the face. Some folks are really annoyed by them.  If you fit into that
category, you'll pay a lot less for a display with a curved face, but it
will not necessarily perform as well.  I use a Sony CPD 520 at home and a
Mits 2060U here at work.  Both displays are quite good.  The LaCie units are
based on the Mitsubishi chassis, but they have slightly different
specifications in Bandwidth (higher) which can account for a bit more price.

2.  Be very careful with LCD's if you are trying to judge color and
contrast.  I get nearly every new LCD in for testing and I certainly haven't
found one that I would use for critical proofing.  The apple cinema display
is really "just" acceptable for critical work.  As a quick check of a
display, put up an image and look at how it changes from side to side and
top to bottom as you reposition your head.  If it looks good to you buy it.
Don't expect the spyder to a good job accurately calibrating a low end LCD.

You will find quite a few people who are happy with LCD's.  If you are
working at home, not doing work critical work for clients that involves
multiple media types ( web based images, books, and original prints) you
might find an LCD useful.   A professional level LCD is going to cost from 3
to 5 times more than one of the top of the line monitors.  A very good
display like the Mitsubishi LCD 1850 or the LaCie Photon LCD (not sure if
that ever hit the street,,,,) produce good looking images at a price that is
near the high end of the monitor world .  It's very fatiguing to use them
because of they require rather strict positioning to maintain tight visual
control.  Finally, if you are working in a high illumination environment,
despite all their failings, you are probably better off with an LCD.  In
that case the NEC-Mitsubishi 1850 is a great choice.

Hope this helps.

Tom Lianza
Technical Director
Sequel Imaging Inc.
25 Nashua Rd.
Londonderry, NH 03053

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