It has been three months since I received
my ViewSonic VP2468 monitor designed especially for photographers like me. It
has now become permanent part of my editing process. I used to edit a lot on my
laptops which provides the flexibility of editing during spare time on my
travels. These editing were mostly for social media posting, and hence used to be
in small resolutions, typically around 1200px on longer side at 100dpi. Small
sizes allow you to get away with many flaws. But whenever the images were to be
sent for printing, or to some competition in large sizes, then the flaws of
laptop editing became obvious. Believe me, when you blow up, the colours that
looked OK in your FB or Instagram post, may look terrible. Colour is one of the
factors that can make or kill your image.
A typical LED monitor we use in desktop
generally produces about 60-70% of sRGB colour space. Laptops fares worse. This
means, despite shooting in Adobe RGB, we were losing 30-40% of colours in
editing, which is substantial for quality print. As a nature photographer, the
variations in shades of green and greys are very important in my images. If you
are not able to see the grade variations, then at time you lose on impact the
image could have made. In my next upgrade, I wanted a monitor that can match my
output requirement, preferably one made for photographer.
On exploring market, most of the monitors
targeted at photographers were found to be exorbitantly priced. Often as a
photographer you feel like spending that kind of money on things like upgrading
your on accessories or save for your next lens. The monitor, despite being of
such importance is forced to take a back seat. We tend to forget that monitor
is that key link that is going to reproduce what one had seen and captured in
camera. Once you understand the gravity of this, you are bound to go for a
photographer’s monitor. And there sits the ViewSonic VP2468. A very affordable
monitor meant for photographers that produces nearly 100% of sRGB colour space,
and comes factory colour calibrated along with test reports.
When I got the opportunity to work on the
ViewSonic VP2468 monitor, my first reaction was wow. Images were just popping
up. Colours are so vibrant as if it enthuses a new life into images. My
immediate reaction was to reopen some of my earlier edited images. I started
hating some of them as colours were way off. I started re-editing them on the
VP2468. Here is an example.
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| Difference in colours editing in ViewSonic VP2468 vs Laptop |
The VP2468 has many functionalities which I
am yet to explore. The basic controls are enough for me as a photographer. Let
the monitor take away many of my worries and concentrate on getting that
perfect moment. VP2468 comes with a host of ports on its back. I have connected
it to my Dell workstation with a HDMI cable. Another outstanding feature is the
Auto Pivot where you can rotate the monitor to view vertical frames in full
screen. There is an auto pilot software to facilitate this rotation. Despite
some great feature, few ergonomics are missing in the design. You can expect small
flaws at this price point. If I am missing something as of now is an inbuilt
speaker. But it does what it is meant to deliver – true colour. The VP2468 is
going to stay put in my table for a long time.
