Photography

Dell U2412M

The Dell U2412M combines an E-IPS (‘Enhanced In Plane Switching’) panel with a fully adjustable and remarkably solid stand design that allows height, swivel, tilt and pivot adjustment of the screen. The WLED backlight provides coverage of the sRGB colour space (standard gamut) whilst the IPS panel ensures excellent colour consistency, shade variety and viewing angles. Despite the relatively low price this monitor is suitable for many types of colour-critical work and also brings a rich and varied image to games, movies and webpages. The 1920 x 1200 resolution also gives the monitor a bit of extra vertical real-estate which is useful for productivity. For those who enjoy a bit of play with their work the well-implemented pixel overdrive and very low input lag will also come as welcome news, making this Dell a highly capable all-rounder.
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Dell U2711

The U2711 features a WCG-CCFL (Wide Colour Gamut Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) backlight to offer a stunning range of colours and an IPS panel with 8-bits per subpixel colour support (12-bit LUT) to deliver them with excellent accuracy. This monitor is suitable for working in extended colour spaces but also standard gamut work as an effective sRGB emulation mode also features. These qualities are welcome for photography, design, CAD/CAM and other such purposes – but this model also provides an immersive and colour-rich gaming and movie experience. With a super-high 2560 x 1440 resolution the 27” large screen is brimming with pixels and is ready to capture every detail. The stand is also extremely solid and offers tilt, swivel and height adjustment whilst connectivity options are broad and include HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI and USB ports.
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AOC i2353Ph

The AOC i2353Ph stands out from the crowd with its looks alone. It has a stunningly thin screen and offers an attractive brushed aluminium stand which can be tilted back when upright or folded back to allow wall-mounting via the base of the stand. The enclosure is also attractive with a brushed aluminium bezel and a flat glossy plastic back – it simply oozes quality in a way you simply wouldn’t expect at this price. But looks alone don’t make a monitor – with its LED-backlit IPS panel it is efficient whilst offering a great colour range and consistency.

A simple trip into the OSD to lower the brightness, change gamma to ‘Gamma 3’ and colour temperature to ‘Warm’ is all it takes for very respectable sRGB colour accuracy and gamma tracking. The monitor’s haze value is also a little lower than on most IPS panel monitors to help improve image clarity and vibrancy.
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What makes these photography monitors?


The majority of modern PC monitors use the Twisted Nematic (TN) panel type. These are relatively cheap to manufacture, provide good all-round performance and are generally very responsive (and thus good candidates for 120Hz output technologies). They are limited by their viewing angles and colour reproduction, however, and are currently fairly restrictive when it comes to resolution. Even when viewing them from directly in front colours will shift noticeably across the screen and any given colour will appear a different shade depending on its position on the screen. These problems become even more pronounced on larger screens making them completely unsuitable for photography and any other tasks requiring a good degree of colour accuracy.

The monitors featured in this section contain panel technologies such as In Plane Switching (IPS) and Plane to Line Switching (PLS). These panel types are much more consistent when it comes to colour accuracy and viewing angles making them much stronger recommendations for photography, CAD/CAM and other colour-critical work. With these panels you aren’t always restricted to a ‘Full HD’ resolution either. The common resolution on 24″ screens is 1920 x 1200, on 27″ models is 2560 x 1440 and on 30″ monitors is 2560 x 1600. Some modern IPS and PLS variants also contain similar pixel overdrive technologies to those used in their ‘faster’ TN counterparts and have surprisingly low input lag. Going against the grain of their traditional counterparts, this makes them suitable for tasks involving fast motion such as film-editing and gaming.

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