First Impressions With The BenQ SW2700PT Wide Gamut Monitor
There comes a time inevitably in every creatives life where they are introduced to a color managed workflow. Veteran professionals will tell you of the vast improvements and quality of life options that come with working with a color accurate display and the importance of using a color managed workflow. No matter if you are printing your work or just shooting for the web the importance of understanding how color spaces and gamuts work in relation to your photography and the pixels we push around with all of our sliders is incredibly important.
I was someone that never used a color accurate monitor and rarely gave more than a few moments time to color theory. I could tell you how to save a photo in a certain colorspace, that Adobe RGB was “good” and why CMYK conversions would go wrong on the occasional magazine cover. But actually working through a fully color managed workflow and the importance of that was something I always thought was for color nerds. Enter the BenQ SW2700PT Monitor and all I can say is holy **** I should have done this years ago!
I am not an Apple fanboy with a giant 30-inch 4k retina display pixel peeking everything I shoot. I learned from a young creative age that Apple displays are fairly mediocre and not very good for color work as they are quite color inaccurate. I used a cheap Korean knock-off IPS monitor I purchased online 5 years ago. The only thing I knew about it was that it was not even close to color accurate and that I knew all the subtle ways I could “tweak” my images to get what I wanted out of them despite what they looked like on my display.
Right out of the box you can feel this display means business. Its base is very heavy and stable, everything clicks and moves with such ease and precision that the monitor just feels like a professional surgical tool compared to a standard office monitor. I love how easy it is to get this monitor into the perfect position for my work. Initially did not attach the hood that goes on the monitor because yet again I felt like it was unnecessary for me, I never had one before why start now? Color me surprised! The hood really does make a big difference in my ability to sense and adjust contrast and color. The pure black void the felt on the inside of the hood creates is simply magical and having no extra light spilling onto my screen has been such an incredible change. If you get this monitor please use all of the included accessories, you will not be sorry.
One final thought on the packaging and physical aspects of this monitor that I really liked was that they included all of the cables needed plus a few extra. They give both a dual-link DVI cable and Display Port cable alongside their power cable. With monitors in the past I know I have had to purchase a cable separate aside from the power cable and that is just extremely annoying so a big thumbs up to BenQ for including them.
Initially using the monitor returned quite poor results as out of the box there is no calibration other than a conformity test at the factory. You must calibrate the panel with their recommended sensor and software. I ordered mine with i1 Display Pro Color Calibrator that writes a 3D LUT directly to the monitor and sets the calibration at the hardware level. This is very important as if you elect not to buy this sensor you will basically just be buying an expensive heavy monitor that won't get you any closer to your goal. The calibration takes about 15 minutes to complete and once done displays incredibly accurate results with beautiful backlighting control.
Working with this monitor has opened up another world of color and contrast for me. At first, it was hard to use it because so many colors looked “off”. This is because I am used to my old monitor that really oversaturated colors or displayed many out of gamut colors incorrectly. But starting a new edit from scratch has quickly shown off this monitor's true power and the sheer level of control you have over your images. Whereas adding 5 points of saturation would have done barely anything on my old monitor the BenQ you can actually see all the colors and contrasts reacting. The range of colors is so much more vivid and full, the contrasts no longer seem to be so extreme and I can see all the very subtle changes that I make to my images even down to the +1 increment mark.
Printing was even more of a shock as I was not expecting what I sent to my large format printer to be near indistinguishable with what my monitor was displaying. Sure there was maybe a little blue that was undersaturated in the print as opposed to the monitor but if you have ever printed anything before and compared with your screen you know what I am talking about. This print was almost a mirror image of the monitor, even the brightness! I usually go round after round after round trying to get my color, brightness, and contrast to match what I am seeing on my screen. I would print 6 to 10 prints if not more just to dial in the color, something this monitor hopes to change. The sheer amount of time, ink and paper I will save is enough to justify this purchase on its own.
If you made it this far and can’t tell that I am absolutely blown away by this monitor and what it has done for my workflow then let this be your conclusion. I love this monitor. It has made editing and working with my photography an absolute joy and something that I am more excited about now because I can push the limits in my photography without any uncertainty. Printing your work will always be a pain, there is no getting around that but this monitor can streamline that process for you. If you are on the fence about pulling the trigger on one of these monitors or you just don’t think you need one, trust me when I say this monitor is worth it.
