Being a solo YouTuber means you not only need to be on camera you also need to control the camera. While the Canon D80 and Canon M50 are brilliant cameras, they both come with tiny screens that are hard to see at a distance and that’s where the Neewer F100 Field Monitor comes in very useful.
Neewer have included a lot of useful accessories with the F100 kit. As well as the monitor there were 2 HDMI cables, battery and charger, sunshade, ball head adapter, HDMI fixing plate, audio cable and a mounting arm.
It was a smart move to include 2 HDMI cables, one is HDMI to mini the other is HDMI to micro and I use both as the Canon M50 and 80D have different HDMI out ports on them.
Setup is very easy, the monitor can be mounted on top of your camera or on to a tripod. Attach the battery, plug in the HDMI cable and switch on both the monitor and the camera. The camera detects the monitor and starts feeding the signal out to it, you’ll be able to see everything on the monitor you’d see on the tiny camera screen.
One thing to keep in mind is this isn’t a touch screen. When the camera detects and outputs it’s signal to this monitor it also turns off its inbuilt screen, meaning you’ll be unable to use touch screen controls. You can still use the cameras button controls to control menus and settings.
The picture quality is very good, it makes a big difference when filming solo if you can see a larger screen. I’ve found it especially useful for spotting items in the background I’d normally only spot when I load the footage into my video editor.
There are various display modes and settings, such as picture mode, brightness and function keys. I’ve not made use of these, I’ve found the F100 works perfectly for me out of the box.
Battery life is very good, I can film a number of YouTube videos before needing to charge it. If you don’t want to use a battery the F100 does have a power input, but no plug is supplied.
Overall this a great kit for a reasonable price for those who want a clearer view of their filming, just remember to keep your eyes on the lens when recording rather than looking at yourself on screen!
