Camera Labs

It seems that every six months or so, a new graphics card comes out that makes all current cards obsolete (slight exaggeration). But all of that extra power is being used to push 1080p or 2560x1600 at slightly higher frame rates. TV technology tends to push towards larger sizes. It seems natural to me to think there would be some demand for an extremely large, extremely high resolution monitor with middling frame rates. Not everyone is a gamer. Wouldn't photographers/graphic design professionals find a use for, say, a 42", 8MP, IPS display? (This would be approximately 3600x2250. At roughly 100ppi, this is not higher density than existing 30" IPS monitors.)

Such a monitor wouldn't even have to be that expensive. If a 30", 100ppi, IPS monitor goes for roughly $1000, then this hypothetical 42" monitor could be priced around $3000 and still expect to sell to a small market of professionals.

There's probably some natural upper limit to the reasonable size of a monitor (unlike a TV), since you sit so close to it. But I'm sitting in front of dual 23" monitors, and I could go for some more space. So I don't understand why monitors stop at 30".

This didn't come out of nowhere, by the way. I was reading this Tech Report blurb about a GTX 550 Ti 4GB graphics card. They point out that the 4GB of memory are silly on a graphics card that can only play games acceptably at a resolution of 1680x1050. But those 4GB wouldn't go to waste if you had an extremely high resolution monitor and didn't care about gaming.

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Body: Canon Rebel XS, Canon EOS 7D
Lenses: Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.0 OS HSM DC Macro, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS II, Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM, Canon EF 85mm f1.8 II USM

I think screen sizes on monitors can only get so physically big before you get a case of tennis watching neck from turning your head so often.

Personally I'd like to see them go another direction: increased depth (both resolution and dynamic range). Imagine a 16 bit per channel display in the mainstream, not this 8 bit that we've had since... around the early 90's?

I also think it would be useful if you increase the pixel density further. I'm running 1920x1200 on a 24 inch display, and even at normal viewing distances I can just about make out the pixels if I look for them. If you double that linearly, I think that would make it imperceptible while still being easy to pixel bin down to 1080. Operating systems would need to be a little smarter about drawing the interface though...

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Increased pixel density would mean a new manufacturing process and, probably, lower yield. I don't know what 16 bits per channel would require. Don't get me wrong, these would also be welcome changes to current monitors. I picked the size of the monitor because the technology exists and the manufacturing process is already capable of it. (Large TN/IPS panels are manufactured and then cut into the appropriate sizes. So the only change would be in the cutting process.)

As for the tennis watching neck, my current monitors side by side are about 42" long. I don't think I'd want anything longer than that, but a 42" (diagonal) monitor would be shorter.

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Body: Canon Rebel XS, Canon EOS 7D
Lenses: Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.0 OS HSM DC Macro, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS II, Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM, Canon EF 85mm f1.8 II USM

My 15 inch laptop screen is 1080p, so they can certainly go higher density than most current bigger desktop displays. If the laptop screen were scaled up to 24 inch for example, we're looking at around 3072x1728. I nice boost I think.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

That's a good point. A 15" 1080p display has something like 150ppi. Scaling that up to a 30" display would give a resolution of 3920x2205, an 8.6MP display that's still no larger than current largest monitors. Or, taking this one step further, a 42" monitor with a 16:10 aspect ratio could have a resolution of 5344x3340. At 17.8MP, this would allow most DSLR owners to view images at or near 100%.

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Body: Canon Rebel XS, Canon EOS 7D
Lenses: Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.0 OS HSM DC Macro, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS II, Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM, Canon EF 85mm f1.8 II USM

My friend has the 27" imac and when I use it I get lost. I honestly think its too big. I can understand going higher in ppi but 24" is the perfect number. I think industry professionals value color accuracy over resolution and top of the line monitors are already at the 2-3k range so I don't think $3000 is a reasonable price point for a proffessional monitor of that size.

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Canon 40D + 70-200mm f/2.8L IS + 50mm f/1.8
Manfrotto 055CX3 + 496RC2
www.thomaslowe.com