Critical Focus and the SmallHD DP4
I just got this bad boy in time for MLG Raleigh, and decided to share my thoughts on this new addition to my kit. If you’re unfamiliar with Major League Gaming, MLG is the governing body for eSports in North America. Now that isn’t to say there isn’t competition from smaller leagues, but I would consider them to be the NFL of competitive video games. I’ve been doing contract work at their events for about 5 years. The games on the Pro Circuit are Halo: Reach, StarCraft 2, and Call of Duty: Black Ops. This event also saw a sneak peek at Gears of War 3, as well as the addition of League of Legends.
I wasn’t planning on buying the DP4 just yet, but I caught a great deal on eBay and I’m very glad I bought it. It’s changed my quality of work in several ways. I’ll be discussing those first, and then getting into the strong points of the DP4 and the ways it falls short. It’s a great piece of gear, but definitely not perfect. I leave it to you to make your own decision.
That being said, it was a dream to work with this past weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina. MLG events take up a huge convention hall, and things move pretty fast. There’s no opportunity to get the important shots more than once – getting critical focus, how you frame your shot are usually split second decisions when they really count. I shoot a variety of footage there, but it all revolves around StarCraft 2, one of the biggest games in the world for eSports. I shot on the Canon 7D, so thankfully there was no down-rezzing when I would hit record. The 5DMKII and T2i both downrez to 480p and it looks horrid. Even with the problem of down-rezzing with my T2i, I found doing some quick testing that right out of the box it was much easier for me to get critical focus. I know some people swear by the LCD and have never touched an external monitor. My vision is not 20/20 so this monitor has been a huge help to me.
I’m constantly analyzing things throughout an MLG event, how I’m doing, what I could be doing better, and what would enable me to get better shots in the future. The DP4 was absolutely invaluable when getting critical focus. We also rented different lenses this event – the Canon 24-70L and 70-200L IS II. MLG events are not brightly lit so having f/2.8 available helped me stay at lower ISO’s when in the past I’ve had to resort to as much as 3200 ISO(yuck). The lenses and the addition of the SmallHD DP4 enabled me to get my shots in a much more effective manner. At the end of the match, I’m tasked with getting reaction shots of the winner, and anything he might do after. For example, Korean pro player Nada won a very tough StarCraft match on the main stage during Raleigh. Nada’s reaction was great, and then he came out of his soundproof booth and celebrated a bit on the main stage. These type of moments are fast moving and I can’t afford to not get those shots – they happen only once. These moments tend to be extremely fast moving and I also make my best effort to stay out of our broadcast cameraman’s way. Without the DP4 I do not think I could have maintained focus as much as I did. It can look quite amateurish to have shots go in and out of focus.
One thing I was surprised at was how little I used the extra features of the DP4. The false colour, peaking, focus assist – I used none of them. The DP4 did what I needed it to do – help me maintain focus, or grab it very quickly. Another surprise for me was how heavy the DP4′s EVF loupe was – the thing was not light. Eventually it proved to be more an annoyance to me than a help. The optics were not bad, it just didn’t fit in with the environment I was tasked to shoot. The quality of the loupe was not an issue, however when I needed to do higher shots the loupe tended to fall down back onto the monitor and block my view of the shot. Honestly I don’t see myself using the EVF loupe much, if at all. Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown accustomed to the back of an LCD, but I just prefer seeing the DP4 without looking through an eyepiece.
The screen protector was great to have, and I did an unintentional drop test. The included hotshoe mount for the DP4 that I had was terrible. It felt like unless I tightened everything with all my might, the hotshoe mount would be loose. At one point, thankfully not at a critical moment, everything I had mounted on the hotshoe fell off and hit the ground. The DP4 was unaffected, as was the Rode Videomic Pro and LitePanels MicroPro I was using. I don’t recommend mounting that much stuff on a DSLR hotshoe. The build quality of the DP4 didn’t have me worried before, and after that little mishap I was even more confident in it. Battery life was good, I had 2 LP-E6 knockoff batteries from Opteka on it at all times. I got hours of use out of it, but never timed it precisely so I’m not sure exactly how much I got out of it.
Maybe if I had a shoulder rig or wanted it in a more ENG style configuration the EVF loupe would come in more handy for me – but it doesn’t. There are many different kinds of shooters, whose lenses all capture different types of stories. The types of stories I capture through my lens will not need the EVF loupe for the most part. As I said before, the build quality of it wasn’t flimsy, or bad – just not right for me. I will say the 2 second delay between shooting and reviewing shots on the DP4 is quite annoying. However, SmallHD has said that a fix is coming via firmware updates. I haven’t used Marshall or any competing monitors, so I can’t really tell you if this one is better. One thing I have heard about the DP4 is that it runs a bit hot, and I can confirm that is true. However, it was never a real issue for me. I would be more annoyed if it impeded the operation of the monitor, but it doesn’t, and therefore isn’t too much of a concern in my book.
What you see on your DP4′s screen matches what you will see on your computer pretty closely. I didn’t modify many settings on the DP4, just some slight tweaks to contrast and brightness. My need with this piece of gear was the ability to grab focus quickly and have a larger viewing screen. The SmallHD DP4 has more than met that need for me, so why not check out the SmallHD DP4 and see if it meets your needs?
