What’s going on everyone, welcome to another epic video. Today we are going through 5 things under $500 for beginner colorists. I prioritized this list in order of importance. We are going to start off with our need, then all the way to want.

        The first thing that any colorist needs is a monitor. I recommend the LG UL650

Now do know that any monitor under $500 is going to have its limitations. This is a 27” monitor. I have used this monitor for years and I can tell you that even without calibration, the results were pretty good.

        But that leads me to the next item. A color calibration tool, specifically the X-Rite i1 Display Pro.

The beautiful thing about this calibrator is that the software is free, but also super self explanatory and it shows you exactly what you need to do. After calibration, your monitors will be so much better.

        Moving onto our third item, the BlackMagic Design Ultrastudio Monitor 3G IO Box.

Having an IO box is major for two reasons. If you are sending a clean feed to a monitor from your computer, you are using your GPU to do all the heavy lifting. If you have an IO box, you are bypassing that. There is no stress on your GPU which can be used for all the OFX. Number two, is that a lot of the times you are in DaVinci Resolve, you have your display profile applied, so your OS display profile will show you one image, but an IO box bypasses that and gives you the truest image.

        The fourth item is a control surface, in particular the Tangent Ripple.

You all know I am a huge fan of the control surface, I mean you see the advanced panel  behind me in my intros. A panel is something that you have to have to realize the value in it. This one will give you the taste of what it’s like to work with a panel, for the low cost.

        Now that brings me to the last item, the Elgato Stream Deck.

This is the perfect companion to a control panel as well. I recommend the XL version, but there are obviously many versions. You can map anything that is a keyboard shortcut to these keys, but you can also create folders that hold even more keys. The possibilities are almost endless with this. There was an argument that having a mini panel with multiple stream deck XL’s was better than having the $30,000 advanced panel. I don’t believe it, but you can come pretty close to having everything you need in a small package for a fraction of the cost.

        So there you have it. 5 things under $500 for beginner colorists. I hope this was helpful.

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