Shopping for an external monitor for my Sony A1. Nauticam housing with an open M24, what would you suggest?

Hi Vitaly,

We have a pinned thread updated with nearly all the monitor's out there.

Personally, the latest Weefine checks all my requirements.

Hi Davide,

I saw the list, but there are just too many options to figure out what’s best. I’ll check out Weefine, thanks!

Regards,
Vitaly

Well, it partly depends on your needs (video or photos) and partly on the camera you use.

In my opinion, brightness and weight are basic factors to start from. The 500 nits of past generations are absolutely insufficient for working at shallow depths and strong lighting typical of tropical waters. I have a similar old monitor and was forced to build a huge sunshade to see anything. A reduced weight is equally important since mirrorless camera bodies are very small and, consequently, so are their housings. For video, it's important to have a balanced setup, not just a neutral one. Managing to balance the whole kit with a monitor that weighs almost a kilogram and is placed on top of the housing is a real mess.

Then it depends on whether the monitor must have or compensate for features that the camera lacks: focus peaking, histograms, waveforms, and LUTs. From this point of view, I have a Lumix GH5M2 that has everything, so fundamentally, I'm just looking for an excellent bright image.

Moreover some cameras have limitations on the image format and the features that are transmitted via HDMI. To give one example: many monitors now advertise that they can accept a 4K@60p signal. With Panasonics, I have always set the downscaling to 1080p directly in the camera but some cameras actually transmit a signal via HDMI that is identical to what is being used.

So these are some thought to start with.

Ciao

On 8/25/2025 at 6:15 PM, Vitaly said:

Shopping for an external monitor for my Sony A1. Nauticam housing with an open M24, what would you suggest?

It's tough to suggest as there are various criteria more or less important to anyone. Like do you shoot video? HDR? Need to switch quickly foto/video? Battery life?

I shoot A1 and need all of the above so it's really tough and up until now the only solution was $5k+ Nauticam/SmallHD Ultra5. Now there are some viable options in $1k range although more or less bricks.

I went Shinobi/Nauticam route as Ultra5 wasn't available at the time. If I accept shooting stills in Slog3 PP I can switch fast. Just disregard ISO reading, it's meaningless on A1 as 100000 in Slog3 is about the same as 10000 with PP off as far as noise goes. I did found some differences in color rendition in shadows topside at 800% but in real world not much to see. But ultimately I will switch as soon as I find something.

New Weefine 5Pro looks nice but no HDR seems to me. Also a big question mark about battery life. These nits will consume quite a bit and it only has 5000mA battery. Will not last long and changing batteries between the dives is no highlight... Personally I think 1000 HDR nits on Shinobi is very sufficient and 1500 will be even better. But no need to go higher as the battery life will suffer. I am quite glad Shinobi sips the power and NPF970 lasts whole day 4 dives on a live aboard and then some. The same will be for Shimbol, also HDR with good YouTube reviews. But the SeaFrog housing has truly idiotic cable positioning. If only there would be an L shaped Out.

So I would recommend Shinobi and Seafrogs for battery life, buoyancy and screen qualities. Fotocore MR6 and MR5.5 seems to check all/most boxes but don't know about cables qualities. But there is access to all settings underwater at least.

Why flip is important to me - so I can use EMWL without relay.

Why is HDR important to me - because UW videos look 10x better in HDR on good screens and with overexposing the log you won't see much highlights even on 3000 nits monitor. Without HDR tone mapping highlights will turn to big mess and 709 zebra will not help and you shoot blind.

I put some updated table to ultimate monitor thread for reference and inspiration. Cheers.