An in-line 600 watt dimmer is an inexpensive, fast, reliable way to get a practical to the brightness you need.

Very helpful. Many monitors have waveform monitors built into them. Now I know how to use it with a green screen. Also, angling the cloth to make it easier to light is brilliant.

He mentions setting the shutter to 90 degrees so the edges are sharper with less motion blur. Had not thought of that.

I like running my GH4 in degrees of shutter angle instead of fractions of a second so the shutter is always at the right "angle" regardless of frame rate. Keeping the shutter at 180 degrees when moving between 24fps, 30fps, 2fps fast motion or 96fps slow motion means the motion blur is always correct. I also like how the GH4 allows you to put the shutter speed control on either the rear (default) or front adjustment wheels. As I keep the shutter at 180 most of the time, I moved its control to the less-used front wheel and control f/stop with the much more convenient wheel under my thumb.

The Sony FS700 can also read out in degrees.

ya know, you can study this stuff for years and still screw up. Today I needed to record audio into a Nikon D800's unbalanced stereo lo-z input using a JuicedLink RM222 fed by a line level out Sound Devices 302 mixer. Darned if I didn't leave the JuicedLink in Mic-in (from a previous shoot) and overdrive the input with the line level output of the 302!

Bad audio kills more shoots than bad video. Believe it.

This is the curse of small-crew shoots. There's a reason an audio guy who does nothing but audio should be on your shoots.

Hmmm...should save up to buy one fabulous Zacuto eyepiece, or _all five_ Veydra M43 CinePrimes? Which will produce a better picture?

The age of your Lilliput and its capability may be part of the problem. Many of our older HD monitors -- even expensive ones -- can sync only to 720p or 1080i, but not 1080p, which didn't even exist at time of manufacture.

If in the HDMI downconvert setting you have 4K set to downconvert to 1080p, and your monitor cannot resolve 1080p, nothing shows.

Try setting your camera to record to various frame rates, codecs and resolutions. Some may work where others won't.

Also, even with my SmallHD DP4 and GH4 (or Nikon D800 for that matter), I have to sequence the camera and monitor just right to get them to work. Usually, I need to turn the monitor on first, let it boot, then turn the camera on. Or turn both on, but plug/unplug the HDMI from the monitor. Same dance with the GH4's SDI outputs from the YAGH. Usually they work, sometimes they don't.

And while I can monitor a downconverted 4K signal via SDI to a 1080p SDI-in monitor, I can't get 4K to play back on the same 1080p monitor except to see 1/4 of the UHD signal. Apparently the 4K signal only plays back on the cameras viewfinder.

A 4K monitor that has four SDI inputs works. The Odyssey 7Q with its new 3.10.100 firmware works very well, but still requires setting up the camera to output clean 4K (using a couple of menus) and setting up the 7Q with a rabbit trail of menu setups. Eventually it works, but it ain't easy.

Bottom line, external monitoring is tricky.

Totally agree. The 12-35 f/2.8 is my do-everything lens. Unfortunately, it's twice the $500 budget.