colorimeters. which one?

[philbyuk]

hi all
been looking to get a colourimeter for moniter calibration. Can't decide between the spyder2 pro and the eye-one 2 also been looking at the monico easy colour.
would like your opinions on these before i purchase one. let me know the pro's and con's
thanks

[mickle]

Can't really give an opinion on all of them, but I can say that I have the Spyder2pro and it is a great bit of kit.
I wouldn't be without it now.

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[JMHPhotography]

The Spyder gets mixed reviews. I've heard good things about them(mostly from people on the boards) and I've heard bad things(mostly professionals and independant reviewers). I personally own a Monoco Optix XR and it's spot on. I bought it based on the fact that the professionals and independant reviews all say it's one of if not the best, compared to the the rest in it's price range. I only paid $179.95 for mine at B&H through the psjan online catalog. I personally have no experience with the Spyder so I won't say that it is a bad way to go. Scott Kelby uses it in fact so I suppose it must be somewhat viable... but I just don't like to take chances. I went with the one that has NO bad reviews. I'm happy with it.

reviews:
http://shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wc026a.htm

more info on the Spyder:
http://shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wccvx.html

[DavidW]

I'm using Monaco OPTIX XR Pro here, and am very happy with it.



David

[jfrancho]

I think many of the poor reviews of the Spyder involved the original version, not the Spyder2 currently offered.

[philbyuk]

thank you for the replys still undecided but may go with the monico optix theres also a bundle with printer calibration s/w with it

[JMHPhotography]

I think many of the poor reviews of the Spyder involved the original version, not the Spyder2 currently offered.

I'm sure that is the case, but like I said, I didn't want to take any chances.


David,

I almost opted for the pro version but I cheaped out. I know the one thing the Pro version does is let you verify the profile... how does that work?

[jfrancho]

It's hard to tell just from reviews, if you've never used one of these tools if they're actually griping about the product, or just incapable. How many times have we seen people that can't take sharp pictures with a 20d and the kit lens, and blame the camer/lens? I have been using a Spyder2 (not my own) to calibrate my monitor, but I may go with the Monaco system, just haven't decided yet. I'm sure they all work well at that price point.

[JMHPhotography]

It's hard to tell just from reviews, if you've never used one of these tools if they're actually griping about the product, or just incapable. How many times have we seen people that can't take sharp pictures with a 20d and the kit lens, and blame the camer/lens? I have been using a Spyder2 (not my own) to calibrate my monitor, but I may go with the Monaco system, just haven't decided yet. I'm sure they all work well at that price point.


LOL... well, if you follow the link I posted to the bad review you would see that incapablility isn't an issue with that particular reviewer. But as someone said... that was probably the first Spyder and not the Spyder2 they were talking about.

[jfrancho]

Hmm...psjan brings up Optix XR for $219. The Getreg-MacBeth and Colorvision units are $199 using the code.

[DavidW]

I almost opted for the pro version but I cheaped out. I know the one thing the Pro version does is let you verify the profile... how does that work?
The colorimeter reads a pre-defined set of colours (which, unless you change them, are the colors in the Gretag Macbeth ColorChecker). You get a dE value (which you can think of as an error value) for each patch, and an overall dE value for the set. Any colours that are out of gamut are flagged. This is how I know that three of these colours are out of gamut on my laptop.

Other things that Pro gives you are the ability to use D illuminants (so you can calibrate to D65, rather than just 6500K), and the ability to calibrate to a 99 patch set and produce a table based profile, as an alternative to the 35 patch set to produce a curve based profile. The table based profile is likely to be a little more accurate.

However, for many people these are relatively minor points, and Pro is a fair bit more expensive.



David

[JMHPhotography]

Hmm...psjan brings up Optix XR for $219. The Getreg-MacBeth and Colorvision units are $199 using the code.

Interesting... I guess I got a really good deal. :)

[jfrancho]

I figured it out - you add it to the cart and get the good price.

[guitarman3]

I'm with Forkball. Got the Optix XR system and it works like a charm. Unfortunately, I think I paid closer to $200 but I'm still glad I got it.

[jfrancho]

Do you have any side by side experience/comparisons to recommend it over the other models from Greteg MacBeth or Colorvision?

[mbze430]

I have used the colorvision, Display Eye One, and now I am using the Macbeth Spectrophotometer.

I originally got the colorvision spyder, because it was cheap, and a few people on the HT forum was using them to calibrate HDTVs. but soon enough I figured that its very limited for what I do (your mileage will vary).

At the time, and probably still is, Macbeth is in the color industry. So I opt for the higher priced Display Eye One, ended up being the same damn thing as the Colorvisoin Spyder. the only difference I saw as the the Macbeth maybe about 100 Kelvin more accurate.

So comes what I have now. the Eye-One Pro spectrophotometer. Which is so powerful it's scary. Paired up with ProfileMaker v5+, it is unbelieveable powerful (after spending 3.5k)

Like I said earlier, it depends what you need it for. For most home photographer not going "pro" getting your monitor calibrated is good enough. But if you have gallerys and pre-press printing, you got to have the full package.