Hello everyone, welcome to this update.
Today's protagonist is the new PT6 camera monitor just released by Portkeys Aiken. It costs less than 1,000 yuan. It seems to be a positioning and entry-level monitor and found that it is really not simple. It not only has a high-quality 100% P3 color gamut IPS touch screen and rich shooting assistance functions, but also has professional functions such as 3D LUTs, deformation lens correction, and RGB oscilloscopes that can only be seen on high-end monitors in the past. It not only meets the creative needs of video bloggers, but also is suitable for live broadcast users in various fields. As for why video creators need to add a monitor to assist in shooting during the advancement process? And what convenience can it bring to us? Next, I will share it further.
Portkeys Aiken PT6 monitor
First of all, the packaging is relatively simple. The black-bottom packaging box has a color picture of the product appearance. The upper left corner is the English logo in Aiken, and the lower left corner is the PT6 model logo and main functions introduction.
Open the inner paper box and don’t directly see the PT6 monitor body. The one that appears in our sight is a safety box with a very good texture.
PT6 monitor and light shield are stored in the middle of the safety box, and are protected by sponges on the top and bottom, which can play a considerable anti-compression and earthquake, and also saves the trouble of trying to store the monitor later.
is the attachment part on the lower layer of the security box, including a full-size HDMI video cable, a Micro HDMI adapter cable, a gimbal bracket and a paper manual.
Design details
Portkeys Aiken PT6 monitor has a volume of 150.7*77.8*8.5mm and a weight of only 170g. It is a small specification in the camera monitor.
Compared with mobile phones, it is not difficult to see the compact appearance of the Portkeys Aiken PT6 monitor. Such a lightweight design is very low for carrying or loading and using, which is very friendly to individual video creators who fight individually. On the left side of the monitor are HDMI input interface, 3.5mm monitoring headphone interface, screen touch lock switch, and USB-A interface for firmware upgrade and loading 3D LUT files. The bottom center of
is a standard 1/4 interface. Expansion accessories such as snail gimbal or magic arm can be installed to enrich the installation of monitors on different devices. At the same time, a large-area honeycomb heat dissipation hole is provided at the bottom, which is conducive to air circulation and improves heat dissipation efficiency. On the right side of
is the HDMI output interface, DC7-24V power supply interface and power switch . The battery hanger on the back of
supports Canon E6 and Sony NPF series batteries. We can choose NPF550~970 specification batteries according to the shooting intensity. It is recommended that light users choose smaller E6 or NPF-550 batteries to reduce the overall weight of the equipment.
st standard monitor special hood is very practical when shooting outdoors with strong sunlight. This seemingly simple hood also adopts the design of quick-removing bayonet, which is very simple to disassemble and assemble.
actual experience
After understanding the design details of PT6, I will start the computer to further demonstrate the main functions and operating logic of this monitor for you.
When installing the battery, I found that Aiken's designer deliberately placed the battery lock switch on the side. This design must be praised because most monitors are designed on the top of the card slot. If you have disassembled the battery and squeezed your hands, you will definitely understand the benefits of this design.
The screen is lit for the first time and the delicateness of the PT6 is really beyond the expectations for a thousand-yuan monitor. This screen is a 5.2-inch anti-fingerprint coating IPS touch screen from Sharp . The resolution is a standard 1920*1080, the contrast is 1500:1, the color depth is 10bit, and the factory has been colored by professional hardware. The horizontal and vertical viewing angles are 178°. The maximum brightness is 600nit. It doesn't look outstanding, but the actual outdoor appearance is comparable to the level of mainstream mobile phones. As shown in the figure above, with the assistance of the sunshade, the outdoor scene with strong sunlight can also be easily seen clearly.
operation logic is very clear and it is very difficult to get started. Touch the screen on the standby interface to call out the menu and enter the system settings page. Strict touch operation without delay.
In the bottom bar of the system settings page, you can set the basic parameters such as screen brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity and hue according to the shooting environment.
slides right on any page and call out the monitor function page. Here we can customize and add common function switches. In terms of the various shooting assistance functions of the
monitor, the options given by PT6 are very rich in similar products. In addition to the familiar functions of grid, peak, zebra crossing and histogram, even the more professional functions of RGB oscilloscope, brightness waveform diagram and false color are standard in the menu. We can also add our commonly used functions to the settings page, which is convenient for quick operation when used later, which is very user-friendly.
Next we connect PT6 to the camera to further understand the various functions of this monitor through actual use. Installation can be completed using the HDMI cable and snail gimbal that Aiken has equipped this monitor with the factory standard. Users only need to bring their own battery without purchasing additional accessories.
When inputting the picture taken by camera lens to the monitor, you can see the difference very intuitively. The screen of Sony camera has always been criticized by everyone, with no details at all and is famous for color cast. The picture directly viewed on the body screen above is very grainy. Don’t talk about the details of the costumes, if you don’t enlarge it, even the young lady’s facial expression is difficult to see clearly.
Then we look at the picture presented by the PT6 monitor. The details are completely qualitative improvement, especially the lace texture on the young lady's skirt can be seen very clearly. When we need precise focus when shooting videos, only in this way can we truly be assured of the security of the material when seeing the focus details from the monitor screen.
In terms of the common function of assisting focus, this monitor uses Aiken's latest peak focus algorithm to help improve the accuracy of manual focus . As shown in the above animation, we can present more focus, reduce the probability of running out of focus when using follow-focus or manual lenses, and freely set the peak range.
The most basic exposure assistance function is the same histogram in the lower right corner of the monitor and on the camera. Through the histogram, we can understand the brightness distribution of the picture. This is a must-have skill for all photography enthusiasts.
In addition to the brightness histogram we are familiar with, we can also view more detailed exposure situations through the brightness waveform diagram.
RGB oscilloscope display can help us more accurately judge the light and darkness, contrast, and color differences by displaying the intensity comparison of brightness, red, green and blue channels.
Zebra crossing function can prompt whether the highlight part in the picture is overexposed.
and even PT6 also support more advanced false color exposure control functions. After turning on, the screen will be displayed from darkest to brightest, and dark blue, light blue, cyan, yellow, orange and red in turn, so that the lighting levels in the scene can be visually observed and calculated.
In addition, the functions of auxiliary composition such as grid, picture stretching, and picture deformation are standard on most monitors, so I won't go into details here.
For the important part of radio reception during video shooting, PT6 provides real-time level display and black level switches. Through the stereo audio column, we can help us grasp the volume input of the radio equipment, so as to avoid the irreversible embarrassing situation after the shooting is completed.
It is particularly worth mentioning that a new vertical shot stretching long legs function is added to the PT6 monitor, which is a great blessing for shooting videos for the young lady. As shown in the figure above, when the monitor turns on this function, a red start line will appear to divide the screen area, move the line to the young lady's legs and adjust the appropriate stretch value. The proportion of the lower half of the screen will be stretched and deformed to show the effect of long legs.
and the effect of stretching long legs can be directly output to the live broadcast device through HDMI. In this way, local stretching during early shooting will deform the proportion of the entire picture more realistic and natural than later, and the picture quality will not be lost due to cropping the picture. It is especially suitable for live broadcast scenes such as street photography, dance and clothing display.
When it comes to live video, you only need to connect to the live broadcast device through the HDMI output interface and rotate the standard gimbal stand 180° to switch to selfie mode, and you can easily grasp your position in the picture. This operation is of course also applicable to Vlog selfies.
Finally, the 3D LUT real-time loading feature that was previously only configured in expensive high-end displays. As shown in the above figure, when we turn on the image configuration file on the camera, such as Slog2, Slog3, HLG, etc. Although it can present a higher dynamic range, the overall gray saturation contrast display is relatively low. In this case, it is difficult for us to predict the final filming effect after the final application of the restored LUTs.
In this case, we only need to enable the LUT preview function of PT6, and the final effect after the color adjustment of the later application and style LUTs can be displayed in real time on the monitor.
Intuitive comparison The gray picture on the left of the picture above is the effect of turning on SLog3 directly from the camera, and the right is the monitor to use SLog3 to restore the color of LUTs. During shooting, the effect after color adjustment is previewed to facilitate the correct lighting and parameter adjustment in the early stage. PT6 also supports importing any creative LUTs files, helping us preview different picture effects according to our color grading habits and style tendencies.
Also, the screen after applying
D LUT on the monitor can also be directly output to the live broadcast device through HDIM. The audience can directly see the best screen effect without the need for color adjustment at the same time. This is equivalent to eliminating the color adjuster workflow that can only be found in professional live broadcast rooms. This is simply too convenient for small live broadcast teams and individual anchors.
Here, the content about Portkeys Aiken PT6 monitor is over. It costs less than 1,000 yuan but it has built-in most of the auxiliary functions required for video shooting. All functions can be controlled through touch screen, saying goodbye to the anti-human operation logic of traditional monitors that only use a small number of physical keys to operate a large number of functions greatly improve shooting efficiency. In addition to the peak focus, zebra crossings, and histograms that are essential for camera monitors, Aiken PT6 also has built-in professional functions such as RGB oscilloscope, brightness waveform diagram, and pseudo-color to meet the needs of advanced users. In addition, the real-time loading function of 3D LUTs is very prominent. Through the USB flash drive, users can easily import custom LUTs files and monitor the restored picture in real time during shooting, avoiding the possibility of incorrect judgment of exposure when shooting using Log or HLG. You can also apply creative LUTs to directly see the effect closest to the output film in the early stage of shooting. The vertical shot and long legs mentioned in the last article are indeed a very fresh experience, and it is a great blessing for photographers and female video creators who often take videos for young ladies. If you are choosing a camera monitor and your budget is around 1,000 yuan, then Portkeys Aiken PT6 is undoubtedly an extremely cost-effective choice.
or above is all content in this issue.
Thank you for your patience. See you next time
