Dual SmallHD DP6 monitoring

One area where I use my DSLR’s a lot is for interviews. Because the cameras are so small and portable I’ve been shooting a lot of two camera interviews by myself. Up until now I’ve tended to hitch one camera to my Marshall monitor and treat that as my main shot with the other camera set up and then left largely un-monitored during each take. With their ability to achieve a such shallow depth of field any movement on the part of the interviewee can result in the focus needing to be adjusted so only being able to monitor one camera is a bit risky.

Another problem I’ve found is that finding complimentary angles can be tricky when you can’t see the shots side by side, to this end I decided to have a go at setting up a monitor configuration that would allow me to monitor both cameras side by side. I think it’s important to be able to judge both shots under the same conditions too so for it too work well I’d need two monitors of the same type with the same settings.

Enter a pair of SmallHD DP6’s. I have two at the moment because SmallHD are trying to troubleshoot the yellow tint I found in my first unit so couldn’t resist using them both at the same time. These are perfect because of their superior resolution, the mounting points on every side and because although they are rugged they are actually very light. Another very important reason to use DP6’s is that they handle the 5D’s resolution change so gracefully. With a 7D on one and a 5D on the other both monitors still displayed an equally scaled image.

I connected the two DP6’s together with a simple threaded bar that had a tightening ring in the middle to allow me to align the monitors and have them both snuggly attached to each other. Ultimately it would be better to have two securing rings but it worked okay. I mounted the right hand monitor to a Cine-Arm which is fitted to a Manfrotto Superclamp on my tripod. The setup works really well and would certainly be a big benefit in an actual interview situation instead of my kitchen!

Now to find some longer HDMI cables.

To find out more about the SmallHD DP6 visit www.smallhd.com

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2 Responses

  1. Bernard says:

    Wow Paul, the dual SmallHD’s are awesome, I hope you’ll get to test them in an interview soon so that you can write about how it fares in real usage. But I’m sure it would be fine.

    Hhmmm, does this mean you have a long HDMI cable running from the other camera to where your 2nd one is?
    Or is this mainly for interviews where one camera is a close up and the other a wide for the same interviewee?

    • Paul Joy says:

      Unfortunately I had to send the second DP6 back to smallHD but after playing with the dual setup I’ll probably be investing in another at some point in the future. Yes it meant running a longer HDMI cable from the furthest camera, but in most 2 cam interviews I’ve done there’s not usually a huge distance between cameras anyway.

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