Choosing a monitor

[SFL]

I am reaching a stage where I will soon need to upgrade my aging 2013 iMac 21” (High Sierra with LR 6 & PS CS6).  I am not particularly familiar with hardwares available in the current market, therefore, I would like to seek some advice.  (I am going to ask a separate question with regard to migrating from PS6 & LR6 to the current versions of PS & LR, ie, subscription.)

 

At the moment, I am considering a Mac Studio mainly for its connectivity, which needs a monitor too.

 

I am interested in 24” Eizo monitors as I used one (18 or 20”) years ago and I liked it and found it reliable.  My budget is up to £700.  The main use is photography editing, maybe video but no games.

 

1. Can you please tell me what is the difference between Eizo ColorEdge & Eizo FlexScan a part from prices?  Can you detect difference visually?
2. Can you recommend any particular model(s) and what features I need to look for please?
3. Will I be able to change brightness, contrast, etc on the monitor itself?
4. Or any alternative monitors by other manufacturers?  
5. Where would you buy it?
6. I have a Spyder 4 Pro colorimeter.  Will I be able to use this to calibrate these monitors, connected to a M2 Mac Studio?
7. Not a monitor question but I also have an Epson V700 Photo Scanner for my film photography.  Will I be able to use it with a M2 Mac Studio?

 

I will be very grateful for any advice and/or suggestions.

 

Many thanks

 

Sung

Edited February 19 by SFL
Rephrased a question

[MDM]

A lot of questions Sung and some depend on the answer to others but here are a few tips.

 

Flexscan are Eizio's office range and ColorEdge the creative professional range - see the Eizo website. Get a ColorEdge for photography.

 

Get a 27' if you can. BenQ is a decent alternative make. Not as good as Eizo but good generally.

 

Get a monitor that has hardware calibration if possilbe so that it holds the calibration settings in the monitor. It doesn't have to have an inbuilt calibrator.

 

Whether your existing calibrator works will depend on whether it is compatible with the latest macOS. Similarly for your scanner. 

 

Wex  is always a good place to buy anything for photography. They have a big range of monitors and a lot of local stores now so you can probably go and see for yourself.

 

Best of luck. 

 

Edited February 19 by MDM

[MDM]

Singular piece of advice: don't skimp on the monitor. This is what you will view your images on for the next 10 years or more. 

Edited February 19 by MDM

[SFL]

15 minutes ago, MDM said:

A lot of questions Sung and some depend on the answer to others but here are a few tips.

 

Flexscan are Eizio's office range and ColorEdge the creative professional range - see the Eizo website. Get a ColorEdge for photography.

 

Get a 27' if you can. BenQ is a decent alternative make. Not as good as Eizo but good generally.

 

Get a monitor that has hardware calibration if possilbe so that it holds the calibration settings in the monitor. It doesn't have to have an inbuilt calibrator.

 

Whether your existing calibrator works will depend on whether it is compatible with the latest macOS. Similarly for your scanner. 

 

Wex  is always a good place to buy anything for photography. They have a big range of monitors and a lot of local stores now so you can probably go and see for yourself.

 

Best of luck. 

 

 

Thank you, MDM.  As always, you give good advice.  I suppose I need to revise the budget.

 

 

Sung

[MDM]

9 minutes ago, SFL said:

 

Thank you, MDM.  As always, you give good advice.  I suppose I need to revise the budget.

 

 

Sung

 

No worries and happy to help when you narrow things down. I was looking at the Wex website and there is not a lot of BenQ about at Wex but lots of Eizos. This Eizo is probably what I would suggest for photography if you are happy to spend a couple of hundred extra over the £700. 

Edited February 19 by MDM

[SFL]

Great, @MDM, and thank you for your suggestion.  That might be it!

BTW you said 'a monitor that has hardware calibration', can you elaborate a bit more?

I think I saw somewhere some Eizo have built-in self calibration censor.

 

Sung 

[MDM]

1 hour ago, SFL said:

Great, @MDM, and thank you for your suggestion.  That might be it!

BTW you said 'a monitor that has hardware calibration', can you elaborate a bit more?

I think I saw somewhere some Eizo have built-in self calibration censor.

 

Sung 

 

Hardware calibration as I understand the term is where a monitor can hold a calibration or set of calibrations in its own software as LUTs (Look Up Tables), independent of a computer. There will be a number of factory calibration presets such as AbobeRGB, sRGB, Rec709, Rec2020 and so on. There will also be the facility to hold user calibrations which the user performs with a calibrator. The one I linked to has hardware calibration.

 

It is not the same as having an in-built calibrator which some of the Eizos have but these monitors tend to be more expensive. The more recent ones are really accurate but this would probably add quite a bit more to the price.  It is generally best to do your own calibration rather than rely on factory presets. An external device such as a Calibrite (was X-Rite) would be a cheaper option if your Spyder is not compatible. 

 

EDIT - a big advantage of hardware calibration is if you are using the same monitor for a desktop and a laptop. As long as you have the computers set up correctly,  the same image should look the same on both computers. I think most high end monitors nowadays will have hardware calibration. 

 

Edited February 19 by MDM

[SFL]

Thank you, MDM for your explanation as well as your time. 
Sung

Edited February 19 by SFL

[Allan Bell]

You mentioned the Mac Studio. When I changed from my 27" iMac late 2013 edition I looked at the alternatives and opted for the Mac Mini Pro as it has more connections as well as 32GB memory and bigger storage to order.

 

The Studio model was too much in specs for what I do.

 

Just saying.

 

Allan

 

[MDM]

1 hour ago, Allan Bell said:

You mentioned the Mac Studio. When I changed from my 27" iMac late 2013 edition I looked at the alternatives and opted for the Mac Mini Pro as it has more connections as well as 32GB memory and bigger storage to order.

 

The Studio model was too much in specs for what I do.

 

Just saying.

 

Allan

 

 

Sure - the 32GB  Mac Minis are excellent from what I read. As I advised you at the time, I wouldn't buy any Mac now with less than 32GB for future proofing for image editing, because none of these Macs are upgradeable. The other thing worth thinking about is a MacBook Pro with XDR screen which opens up a whole new world of HDR image editing as I've mentioned in other threads. These MacBook Pros are immensely powerful but again there is that minimum memory thing to consider (24GB would be the absolute minimum I think). 

Edited February 20 by MDM

[SFL]

2 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

You mentioned the Mac Studio. When I changed from my 27" iMac late 2013 edition I looked at the alternatives and opted for the Mac Mini Pro as it has more connections as well as 32GB memory and bigger storage to order.

 

The Studio model was too much in specs for what I do.

 

Just saying.

 

Allan

 

 

My main reason was connectivity.  After you comment, I had another look, now at the Mac Mini Pro.  Yes it has the same number of port/connections at the back.  

The Mini Pro with 32GB & 1TB SSD is £2,299 and the M2 Max with 32GB & 1TB SSD is also £2,299.  Is there something I am missing?

 

 

[MDM]

59 minutes ago, SFL said:

 

My main reason was connectivity.  After you comment, I had another look, now at the Mac Mini Pro.  Yes it has the same number of port/connections at the back.  

The Mini Pro with 32GB & 1TB SSD is £2,299 and the M2 Max with 32GB & 1TB SSD is also £2,299.  Is there something I am missing?

 

 

 

It's surprising but I can't see any difference in specs for the same price. All else being equal, I'd definitely go for the Studio Max, as it is far better endowed with graphics cores (effectively a much more powerful GPU) at the same price as the Mini. The more powerful GPU will allow it to handle new stuff that relies on graphics power with greater ease. This would easily handle high spec video as well. 

[Allan Bell]

3 hours ago, SFL said:

 

My main reason was connectivity.  After you comment, I had another look, now at the Mac Mini Pro.  Yes it has the same number of port/connections at the back.  

The Mini Pro with 32GB & 1TB SSD is £2,299 and the M2 Max with 32GB & 1TB SSD is also £2,299.  Is there something I am missing?

 

 

 

I had to delve into my filing system (note to self - tidy it up) to find how much I paid ------ £1,799 all in. Bought from SELECT. 3 year warranty FREE. 

 

Apple M2 Pro chip, 10c CPU, 16c GPU, 32GB memory, 512GB Storage. 

 

Of course if you are wanting more storage etc then cost goes up. I store all my stuff on separate memory storage keeping the in house storage for operating system and programs (software).

 

Allan

 

[Allan Bell]

OH! I also purchased a 27" eizo monitor. Great bit of kit which is on level pegging with your Apple monitor on your iMAC.

 

Easy set up too, I just plugged it in and it was ready to go straight from the factory, so to speak. Bought from WEX.

 

Allan

 

[SFL]

1 hour ago, Allan Bell said:

 

I had to delve into my filing system (note to self - tidy it up) to find how much I paid ------ £1,799 all in. Bought from SELECT. 3 year warranty FREE. 

 

Apple M2 Pro chip, 10c CPU, 16c GPU, 32GB memory, 512GB Storage. 

 

Of course if you are wanting more storage etc then cost goes up. I store all my stuff on separate memory storage keeping the in house storage for operating system and programs (software).

 

Allan

 

Hi Allan. 
Thank you for the info. 
When did you buy it? I guess it is quite recent. 

The situation is very similar. My iMac houses only OS & apps. All my data are stored in external HDs.

Sung

[Gervais Montacute]

I would consider getting a 27 inch retina 2019 iMac Pro on Ebay checking out the sellers thoroughly. 

[Allan Bell]

14 hours ago, SFL said:

Hi Allan. 
Thank you for the info. 
When did you buy it? I guess it is quite recent. 

The situation is very similar. My iMac houses only OS & apps. All my data are stored in external HDs.

Sung

 

May 2023

 

Allan

 

[Steve Hyde]

Hi Sung.

 

A lot of ifs and buts with this however….If you were thinking of going down the Eizo route and visiting the Photography and Video show at Birmingham, 16th - 19th March, you might find Eizo offering show discount prices. They are on this years exhibitors list.

 

I bought my Eizo monitor that way although it was quite a few years ago. The order was fulfilled by Calumet who have since been taken over by Wex. I made quite a good saving on the retail price at that time.

 

You might not be going and Eizo might not have any offers but if you are it might be something to consider 🙂

Edited February 21 by Steve Hyde

[MDM]

14 hours ago, Gervais Montacute said:

I would consider getting a 27 inch retina 2019 iMac Pro on Ebay checking out the sellers thoroughly. 

 

In that case, you would be buying into 5 year old Intel Mac technology that will probably not be supported by Apple for more than a few more years. Already there are features emerging even in Apple's own apps that require the new silicon technology to work properly, if at all. The graphics card may not be capable of supporting the latest developments in Photoshop, Lightroom and other photo editing apps. You would also have no idea how long the monitor itself might last as well as the fact that monitors deteriorate over time with usage. Overall a terrible idea for photographers. 

[M.Chapman]

On 19/02/2024 at 18:04, MDM said:

EDIT - a big advantage of hardware calibration is if you are using the same monitor for a desktop and a laptop. As long as you have the computers set up correctly,  the same image should look the same on both computers. I think most high end monitors nowadays will have hardware calibration. 

If all combinations (laptop + internal display, laptop + external monitor, desktop + external monitor) are separately profiled (with X-rite etc.) and the correct generated profile selected for colour management on each system then matching images can achieved without needing a monitor to have inbuilt "hardware calibration". The Mac laptop will switch between the internal display and external monitor profile automatically.

 

Mark

Edited February 21 by M.Chapman

[MDM]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

If all combinations (laptop + internal display, laptop + external monitor, desktop + external monitor) are separately profiled (with X-rite etc.) and the correct generated profile selected for colour management on each system then matching images can achieved without needing a monitor to have inbuilt "hardware calibration". The Mac laptop will switch between its inbuilt and external monitor profile automatically.

 

Mark

 

I was just trying to answer Sung's request to elaborate on what hardware calibration is all about. Most decent modern monitors have hardware calibration as far as I can see anyway, so It can also be a sign of a quality monitor. Anyway this is the BenQ take on it. I'm convinced about the advantages.  

[M.Chapman]

I'm also starting to consider replacing my 2017 27" iMac Retina with an M series Mac Mini with a 27" display (possibly by hacking my iMac). I've recently done a bare metal install on a 1TB NVMe external disk and speed has improved, but PS and especially LR are getting slower and slower. With respect to the limited connectivity and upgradeability of the Mac Mini, does anyone have experience of hub/extenders like these? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enclosure-Multiport-Docking-Adapter-Micro-Silver/dp/B097QRS4DQ

 

Mark

[M.Chapman]

15 minutes ago, MDM said:

Anyway this is the BenQ take on it. I'm convinced about the advantages.  

Thanks for the link. One thing you may be able to answer, I believe your monitor can swap between sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces? If you do this whilst connected to your Mac, does the Mac realise that the monitor has been swapped and automatically select the right display profile? (Settings>Display>Color profile).

 

Mark

[MDM]

52 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Thanks for the link. One thing you may be able to answer, I believe your monitor can swap between sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces? If you do this whilst connected to your Mac, does the Mac realise that the monitor has been swapped and automatically select the right display profile? (Settings>Display>Color profile).

 

Mark

Yes of course. I use Eizo's Color Navigator app to control the monitor. It can also be done with the buttons on the monitor.  Switching color mode which is what Eizo call the LUT in the monitor  shows the corresponding ICC profile in the Display settinga. I'm on Sonoma. 

Edited February 21 by MDM

[M.Chapman]

9 minutes ago, MDM said:

Yes of course. I use Eizo's Color Navigator app to control the monitor. It can also be done with the buttonsmon the monitor Switching color mode which is what Eizo call the LUT in the monito through shows the corresponding ICC profile in the Display settinga. I'm on Sonoma. 

Great, thanks.

 

Mark