I bought this just after purchasing my Sony EX-1 to allow my clients to see what I was filming and to give me peace of mind that my colour balance was correct. It runs of a 12v power supply that slips onto the back using a V connection.

I bought two 14.4 volt Lion batteries and a charger which seem to run the monitor all day. It has various connections…  Composite (BNC), S-Video, component (3 x BNCs) and HD-SDI (BNC). I was a bit miffed at the 4:3 screen but if you are inserting footage into an older 4:3 edit you do have the option to view it. I have not filmed or edited 4:3 for over two years now and the screen shows 16:9 with the press of a button.

So why did I go for the 9050 when most cameramen plum for the 9030?  Practicality and better screen resolution; I needed to view the HD-SDI signal coming out of the camera.  Before I bought this monitor I used an LCD monitor using the cameras component-out lead and, take it from me, that’s a messy way to monitor your pictures. The camera takes an SDI lead out of the HD-SDI BNC into the HD-SDI input of the 9050 which is the only one of three models to have this input, the other reason was the screen resolution — 1024 x 768 — the 9030 being 640 x 480.

The top-of-the-line LMD-9050 further provides a variety of digital progressive SD and HD formats through its HD-SDI interface. These include 480/60P and 576/50P and high-definition 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 720/50P, 720/60P as well as 1080/24PsF. You can buy the Sony LMD-9050 from Preston Media for £2242 (Tell John the HD Warrior sent you and you will get a further discount) www.videokit.co.uk