images are properly exposed. It also ensures your camera
audio is recorded at the proper levels—for example, the basic
on-screen toolset Waveform, RGB Parade in black and white,
Waveform with RGB, Vectorscope, Vectorscope Zoomed,
Histogram, Histogram With RGB, Zebra, several Frame
Crop modes and more.
The Shinobi SDI has two ¼-inch 20 mounting points, one
on top of the screen and one on the bottom. Unfortunately, the
Shinobi lacks the same ARRI accessory mount that the Ninja
V has: a mounting system that has anti-rotation pins to keep
the monitor from rotating once mounted.
On recent shoots, with the monitor mounted on our gim-
bal, we found that the anti-rotation function is sorely missed
The screen on the Shinobi has accurate colors, and with
the addition of HDR and LUT support, you get what
seems to be a fairly accurate representation of what your
images will look like back in the edit bay. In my opinion, a
camera monitor should be close to broadcast accurate, but
I also know that a real, broadcast-accurate monitor for an
edit bay can easily cost $20,000. So I’m realistic about how
color/gamma-accurate a $500 camera monitor will be.
I loaded in two LUTs for our Fujifilm X-T3 for when we
are shooting F-Log and three different LUTs for our Canon
C200. The Shinobi’s intuitive and simple menu system makes
it quick and easy to choose between the LUTs you want to
apply to your signal. The LUTs are loaded into the Shinobi
via an SD card slot on the right side of the monitor. The pro-
cess was simple and painless.In The Field, Battery Life, Menu System And Analysis Tool
The Shinobi SDI screen is a full 1920x1080 at 427 ppi. The
HDMI input can accept a 4K or 1080 signal, but the SDI
input is only 3G SDI, not 12G, so it only accepts a 1080 signal.
When it’s in use in the field, I find that you don’t gain any-
thing by feeding a 4K signal to a 1080 monitor screen. It looks
fully detailed and precise enough to judge focus with a 1080
input signal since it’s just a 1080 native screen.
In a 5.2-inch display, even if it was a true 4K screen, it
wouldn’t matter; you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. (If
you haven’t seen it, this online TV monitor viewing distance
calculator, stari.co /tv-monitor-viewing-distance-calculator,
is a handy reference guide for where resolution and distance
converge and are a factor in the degree of sharpness apparent
in a monitor.)
Battery life on the Shinobi SDI is excellent. Using one of my
large Sony 7800mAh NPF970 batteries, the monitor ran for
about eight to nine hours.
Navigating the Shinobi menus and tools is a pleasant, intui-
tive experience, and it’s one of the primary reasons I chose the
Shinobi over either of the PortKeys monitors. With the Shi-
nobi, all of the functions are accessed through two screens of
icons at the bottom of the screen. It’s very much like perusing
the controls on your phone. It feels intuitive and natural in
comparison, and I could easily do it while holding the gimbal
without having to put it down.
The Shinobi has a new “Analysis” tool that I find handy
for a quick “all systems” check. You tap it and instantly see aLeft: The ¼-inch 20 sockets on the top and bottom of the Shinobi SDI
work, but the ARRI anti-rotation connector that the Ninja V features
would have been far superior. Right: Up top, eight different LUTs can
be loaded into the Shinobi SDI’s memory via this SD card slot on the
right side of the monitor.
This Shinobi SDI features a 3G SDI input with loop output, meaning it
supports 1080 but not 4K input.
The Shinobi SDI menus were intuitive and simple to navigate and the
locations and implementation of the various functions made sense to me.58 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com