tsiklonaut
Well-known
Been looking at Eizos for longer than I remember and I'm finally close to buying one since I'm getting sick of reflecting (non-glossy, O why o why they stopped making glossy coated monitors?) Apple monitors no matter how good I calibrate them, they just aren't good enough for color-critical work. IMHO at least.
For Eizo so far I see there's basically only one competitioner: Nec SpectraView series, those are very-very nice monitors, but at the same price here in Europe while not so top notch stand and frame build quality in comparison, 14bit LUT (vs 16bit on Eizo), no hood included, and the main thing putting me off Nec - the calibration. Nec needs all sorts of specal software and hardware at additional cost while Eizo's do not, in fact CG277 I'm looking at self-calibrates. Considering they're the high-end of monitors I know both mean surprisingly lot of dosh, but I'm expecting the thing to work for me for many years to come (well, 5+ in computer terms is already long) and live through multiple computers so I see it as a long-term investment.
Maybe I haven't done my homework enough, what do you reckon, are there any better wide-gamma and color-critical monitor options than the Eizo's latest ColorEdge series?
For Eizo so far I see there's basically only one competitioner: Nec SpectraView series, those are very-very nice monitors, but at the same price here in Europe while not so top notch stand and frame build quality in comparison, 14bit LUT (vs 16bit on Eizo), no hood included, and the main thing putting me off Nec - the calibration. Nec needs all sorts of specal software and hardware at additional cost while Eizo's do not, in fact CG277 I'm looking at self-calibrates. Considering they're the high-end of monitors I know both mean surprisingly lot of dosh, but I'm expecting the thing to work for me for many years to come (well, 5+ in computer terms is already long) and live through multiple computers so I see it as a long-term investment.
Maybe I haven't done my homework enough, what do you reckon, are there any better wide-gamma and color-critical monitor options than the Eizo's latest ColorEdge series?
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
I've been on the fence for over a year, I order a black Eizo CG277W two days ago and expect delivery sometime next week. A review states that the self calibration is good and works well. A 5 year warrentee is better than NEC's three years, and I would say the Eizo is the premium product. I would of bought a 30 inch version if available, and I selected the 27 Eizo over a 30 inch NEC.
I paid $2309.00 and established a relationship with a dealer in N.J. who is the biggest Canson dealer in the U.S. Buying from him saves me from paying NYC sales tax (8.875%). I expect to use this dealer as my paper supplier because I like Canson papers.
The hood is bundled with the monitor. BTW I love your work, and I say you should have the best. The problem I have with the Apple monitors is that they are mucho bright. I want about 85 Lux so that I can simulate the light relecting off paper. There are only two real choices for a hardware calibrated monitor and that is an Eizo CG series or a NEC Spectra vue.
Cal
tsiklonaut
Well-known
My thoughts are along the same lines as well. I've just put in an order as well. Pity the high-end monitors market has so few choices, but such is life I guess... 
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
My thoughts are along the same lines as well. I've just put in an order as well. Pity the high-end monitors market has so few choices, but such is life I guess...
I think the quality I see in your work requires the best. Not everyone needs, utilizes or requires the extream high end of performance, but in your case I see it as required.
For the past 7 years I've concentrated on just image capture (both film and digital) with no regard to printing. To me if you want to be a great photographer one must shoot a lot. Printing is another art form that needs the same focus and discipline. I always wanted to print big for exhibition. Also I adopted technics borrowed from large format for that long tonal scale and fine detail, even though I only shoot small format and medium format.
I intend to use the high resolution offered by Piezography and eventually contact print using digital negatives. I don't think the Eizo will be underutilized. I only do B&W.
Cal
Paddy C
Unused film collector
Since you've already ordered I guess this won't be of much use but…
I bought an NEC 26" Spectraview some years ago (I want to say it must six now). Came with the Spectraview calibration software and dongle and I added the hood. IIRC, with taxes, this came to something $1,800 CDN. It was much less then any Eizo at the time. They all seemed to be very expensive. But it looks like they are priced a bit better now.
At any rate, one of the best equipment purchases I've ever made. Wouldn't hesitate to do it again. As far as I can tell the monitor is performing as well as it did when I first got it. When it comes time to buy a new one I will certainly look at the Eizos.
I bought an NEC 26" Spectraview some years ago (I want to say it must six now). Came with the Spectraview calibration software and dongle and I added the hood. IIRC, with taxes, this came to something $1,800 CDN. It was much less then any Eizo at the time. They all seemed to be very expensive. But it looks like they are priced a bit better now.
At any rate, one of the best equipment purchases I've ever made. Wouldn't hesitate to do it again. As far as I can tell the monitor is performing as well as it did when I first got it. When it comes time to buy a new one I will certainly look at the Eizos.
Good for you Cal... should be awesome.
NY_Dan
Well-known
Eizo CG277W -- I had a chance to work with one of these for 3 months and it is one item I would like to buy for myself at some point. I have nothing but good things to say about it. And Cal is correct -- the bundled hood is great.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
John,
Thanks. Got delivery yesterday. Called Christian as my help desk to negociate off the desktop displayed to Lightroom. Mucho more highlights and shadows, and so much more detailed than my high end Macbook Pro. Next to buying my Monochrom the Eizo is the best money I ever spent.
I was really surprised (shocked) by the image quality, and now it is looking like my Epson 3880 is too small a printer. Looks like I might need a 24 inch printer... because the IQ is remarkably high.
I'm really excited to print a lot this fall and winter. Seems like heaven.
Cal
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
Dan,
You deserve the best, and I think the Eizo 227 is the best. I have a dealer in New Jersey that sold me mine for $2309.00 and that includes shipping. Of course that means no sales tax for us New York residents. The rich say, "No one ever got rich by paying taxes." Let me know when and if you need any contact information.
Printing is going to be fun. Having a huge backlog to print and waiting to have the money to do things right I think will have a great pay off.
Cal
That would be nice... I might have to buy a print made at Cal's Ink Jet Printing and Vintage Camera museum in Harlem...
NY_Dan
Well-known
Cal -- I agree I deserve the best (that I can afford) Maybe in late 2015. I do look forward to seeing one of your large prints someday. I'm sure they will be great. Speaking of large prints, I went to the Salgado show yesterday -- too much to take in -- my biggest criticism was ICP not using the no-reflection museum glass. I know that costs more -- but without it... And downstairs the red and green walls, and brown frames -- not my fave. But I definitely got my $14 worth -- and some large prints were fantastic. I would love to know your thoughts on the printing.
Maybe in late 2015. I do look forward to seeing one of your large prints someday. I'm sure they will be great. Speaking of large prints, I went to the Salgado show yesterday -- too much to take in -- my biggest criticism was ICP not using the no-reflection museum glass. I know that costs more -- but without it... And downstairs the red and green walls, and brown frames -- not my fave. But I definitely got my $14 worth -- and some large prints were fantastic. I would love to know your thoughts on the printing.
Going to that show tomorrow Dan... should be great.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
That would be nice... I might have to buy a print made at Cal's Ink Jet Printing and Vintage Camera museum in Harlem...
John,
The cost would be for the paper and ink, meaning "no-money." LOL.
Cal
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
Cal -- I agree I deserve the best (that I can afford)
Dan,
I had some work museum framed by A.I. Friedman and its easy to drop 5-6 hundred dollars for a large photo. That museum glass weighs a lot also and trying to get two framed peices home presented a problem since it was in the afternoon rush hour and cabs did not want to head into my neighborhood.
Interesting that you mention the Salgado show because I eventually intend to pursue using Piezography to make digital negatives and contact printing on "AZO" silver cloride paper. AZO is known for its long tonal scale and is favored by the large format community. I think Salgado's process involves making a digital negative, but using an enlarger to wet print.
Anyways printing digitally will be my "hard-proofing," but for exhibition it will be silver prints. Currently the state of the art with Piezography is a turn-key system to print digital negatives for contact printing on Ilford FB number 2 graded paper.
There is a limit of 20X24 in AZO, and of course contact printing will require a vacuum frame. Anyways this is what I plan on doing when I retire or whenever I can get the money together.
Even though I only shoot small and medium format I always admired the extream quality, the detail, and the tonality of large format. Always wanted to see how crazy I could get and how close. Large format for me though is less shots, and like you I love shooting.
Cal
WJJ3
Well-known
FWIW I find SpectraView II really good. You can customize parameters and make several profiles easily. One important parameter for soft proofing is brightness intensity which is easily set in SVII...
marameo
Established
One question about fine art exhibitions; do the galleries have to actually print the images again thru a lab or do they just deal with framing and mounting?
Thanks
Pioneer
Veteran
My Eizo is one of the best photo related dollars I have ever spent. If mine dies I will be fixing or buying another quickly. Even if I have to mortgage something to do it.
NazgulKing
Established
Don't you need a professional grade graphic card to take full advantage of such a screen? The best it may be, but you are tossing out the 10bit color and what not just to use such a screen.
tsiklonaut
Well-known
I got mine as well, Eizo CG 277, been working for some time with it now. Nothing much to say but: superb! From every level, built like a brick, thick-strong materials, superquick warmup, amazing tonal and color-critical drawing properties and very capable yet easy-to-use software.
Although color and tonal managing isn't as giant leap "ahead" as I though it will be, but probably it's because I really took care of the Apple original monitor with very frequent calibration, working at the right brightness and minimizing external reflections. Eizo's a big leap "ahead" none-the-less, i.e. it self-calibrates, I don't have to mess with surroundings that reflect light that much as before, i.e. my warm-toned walls that reflected off from my Apple monitor messing up critical color control. Matte coating and the hood is just God-sent for me. Color accuracy and tonal continuation is up to the legendary Eizo's standards. With color there's no competition but surprisingly B&W photos are much better to edit and look nicer too vs my Apple screen.
Worth the money? If it works longer than 3-5 years for me: absolutely yes!
Most modern cards give you sufficent data at full res without much degradations if you use DVI/HDMI (avoid VGA), only older cards couldn't cope with high 2560x1440 resolutions (creating a "lagging" effect). Only if you do gaming or 3D-rendering or video-rendering or just few functions in PhotoShop (blur and some others) use internal-graphiscard-processing, then you need a "capable" (CPU- & tech-wise) graphics card. But unless you use some chinese $50 graphics card then picture quality-wise it's not an issue since you calbrate the computer output anyway.
The problem with cheaper monitors is the "misfitting" (relatively speaking) hardware components and the internal-processing of the signal to suite it for the speciefic LCD matrix hardware that draws the picture for you. One weak link in the "chain" will make the whole chain weak. High-end manufacturers such as Eizo or NEC have sorted this out by carefully choosing the best hardware palette to mach and making the "chain" to work in harmony in the strongest way possible (according to the price you pay for it) to draw you the most color- and tonal-precise picture for the price, this means also high-end dedicated software support from the computer-side (both Eizo & NEC have their own software). I.e. 10bit-intput-to-16-bit LUT processing happens inside the monitor not on your graphic card, contrast on Eizo matrix is just 1:1000, a less than the modern standard to make you see the midtones etc, so most of it is happening on the hardware level.
Although color and tonal managing isn't as giant leap "ahead" as I though it will be, but probably it's because I really took care of the Apple original monitor with very frequent calibration, working at the right brightness and minimizing external reflections. Eizo's a big leap "ahead" none-the-less, i.e. it self-calibrates, I don't have to mess with surroundings that reflect light that much as before, i.e. my warm-toned walls that reflected off from my Apple monitor messing up critical color control. Matte coating and the hood is just God-sent for me. Color accuracy and tonal continuation is up to the legendary Eizo's standards. With color there's no competition but surprisingly B&W photos are much better to edit and look nicer too vs my Apple screen.
Worth the money? If it works longer than 3-5 years for me: absolutely yes!
Most modern cards give you sufficent data at full res without much degradations if you use DVI/HDMI (avoid VGA), only older cards couldn't cope with high 2560x1440 resolutions (creating a "lagging" effect). Only if you do gaming or 3D-rendering or video-rendering or just few functions in PhotoShop (blur and some others) use internal-graphiscard-processing, then you need a "capable" (CPU- & tech-wise) graphics card. But unless you use some chinese $50 graphics card then picture quality-wise it's not an issue since you calbrate the computer output anyway.
The problem with cheaper monitors is the "misfitting" (relatively speaking) hardware components and the internal-processing of the signal to suite it for the speciefic LCD matrix hardware that draws the picture for you. One weak link in the "chain" will make the whole chain weak. High-end manufacturers such as Eizo or NEC have sorted this out by carefully choosing the best hardware palette to mach and making the "chain" to work in harmony in the strongest way possible (according to the price you pay for it) to draw you the most color- and tonal-precise picture for the price, this means also high-end dedicated software support from the computer-side (both Eizo & NEC have their own software). I.e. 10bit-intput-to-16-bit LUT processing happens inside the monitor not on your graphic card, contrast on Eizo matrix is just 1:1000, a less than the modern standard to make you see the midtones etc, so most of it is happening on the hardware level.
PaulDalex
Dilettante artist
I use since many years ago an Eizo semi pro FlexScan SX2462W.
I am very happy with it. And it costed less than half the price of the same size pro series.
But then I am an amateur and I am not fanatic about color management
To me it is important only the color that pleases my eyes.
In that respect I would recommend reading the book by Marc Ebner "Color constancy".
One day I will buy a personal copy (it is expensive).
And may be I will post about some scientific bases for my color management skepticism.
My two cents
I am very happy with it. And it costed less than half the price of the same size pro series.
But then I am an amateur and I am not fanatic about color management
To me it is important only the color that pleases my eyes.
In that respect I would recommend reading the book by Marc Ebner "Color constancy".
One day I will buy a personal copy (it is expensive).
And may be I will post about some scientific bases for my color management skepticism.
My two cents