New monitor

Seems like I'm adding pieces here and there lately.

I'd just discussed with my wife the impending failure of my old, refurbished Gateway 19" CRT monitor the other day and told her that I'd been doing some research on some of the newer color accurate, wide viewing angle LCD panels. I told her how the bottom of the price range for a monitor that is supposedly acceptable for image editing is around $400 USD (based on several threads on FredMiranda.com). I was trying to broach the subject of me "investing" in a new LCD panel sometime in the next six months. Now I wasn't suggesting one of the $6000 EIZO LCD's (and no, you won't find their prices online - call a dealer). I wasn't even looking at a $2000 Samsung or LaCie. I was down in the $400-600 range. The stuff that the pros say is the least acceptable equipment.

Fast forward to today and I got home to find what? Yep. You guessed it. The trusty old refurb that I've been using for about 4 years now just lost its gun or something. The text was so badly distorted that I couldn't even read what was on the screen. It was pretty bad. Ahhh . . . so much for my plans to just wait and get it later. I have an old CRT upstairs on the server but I think that it was manufactured with lead. The proposition of carrying that thing up and down the stairs to work or carrying it with me to an event shoot (such as the "Kids with Santa" at my employer's holiday party) put me in a bad frame of mind. It isn't as though I don't have a small fund where I save up a little at a time so that when something like this does go wrong I can deal with it.

I'm the proud owner of a Sony SDM-HS74P. It's a 17-inch LCD and its pretty impressive. 160 degrees of viewing, its sharp, has great contrast and seems to be accurate in its color rendition (I haven't calibrated it yet, though).

Well, just thought I'd blog it.

Thanks again for reading,

Kev