If you find yourself tired of looking at the small, dimly lit, not colour accurate LCD screen on your camera, when you’re filming at a distance, then the Portkeys PT5 II camera monitor might be a good budget option for you.

Ever since I got this camera monitor about six months ago, I’ve been using it with my Sony ZV-E10 camera to make most of the videos.

First, let’s talk about the features of this camera monitor. This lightweight monitor has a 5-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a brightness of 500 nits. It supports 4K HDMI input and an output of 1080P, and has a 3.5mm headphone jack for audio monitoring. It also has a USB port for firmware updates and LUT loading, and a DC port for the power supply.

In the box, you get the monitor, a sun shade, removable mounting points for the sun shade that also double up as drop protectors for the monitor, a HDMI to HDMI cable, a mount, and a hard case.

One thing that is missing from the things that do come with this monitor in the box, is a battery, which you will have to purchase separately. The monitor can be powered either by a DC power source or compatible Sony NP-F or Canon LP-E6 batteries.

When I first bought this I used these NPF550 batteries, but found the battery tended to drain quickly and so I then upgraded them to the much bigger NPF960 batteries, which can now last hours before I need to change them. So my advice to you, whichever battery you do choose to get, always purchase multiples, so when you’re using one, the other can be charging.

The monitor weighs only 150 grams, and has a 1/4 inch screw hole on the bottom, so you can mount it on your camera, on a tripod, or on a gimbal.

While I mentioned that this monitor is lightweight, depending on which battery you use with this monitor, that’s going to considerably add to the overall weight of this setup.

One of the main features of this monitor is the very responsive full HD touchscreen interface, which allows you to access various functions and settings with a simple swipe or tap, the picture on the display is often very sharp, clear, and visible even with the sun shade on in bright sunlight and has a viewing angle of almost 180 degrees.

Once the monitor is connected to the camera via the HDMI cable, the mini HDMI to HDMI cable I’m using here was one that I purchased on Amazon which features that angled entry into the camera which I prefer to how the standard cable goes in, which can disrupt other cables that you may have going into the camera.

User Interface

On the user interface, there are two menus, firstly, the main menu, which features the image settings, or the way that you see what’s displayed from the camera onto this monitor. Remember, this monitor is only for monitoring, some monitors have advanced features that allow you to make remote changes to the camera, but this one is only for monitoring, so any changes to how it looks on the monitor won’t affect what’s being recorded by the camera. You can change the orientation of the image and have it flipped, vertically or horizontally depending on which way up the monitor is when you are recording. System Settings, volume settings, firmware upgrades and 3D LUTs, which can be imported directed into the monitor from a USB stick. So, if you record in a particular colour profile on your camera and use a LUT in post, you can see the effect of the LUT as your recording live.

Swiping across from the main menu, you gain access to the shortcut function menu. Here you can enable 14 monitoring tools such as focus peaking, zebra, false colour, waveforms, audio meters, histogram, 3d LUT, rectangle crop, and more. Long pressing each individual monitoring tool, gives you a few more customisations for that specific tool.

This monitor is going to be ideal for anyone who wants a larger and brighter screen than their camera’s built-in monitor, especially for outdoor shooting. The sun hood helps to block the glare and the 500 nits brightness is decent for most situations.

This monitor helps you to achieve accurate exposure, focus, and colour with those various monitoring tools and scopes (compared to the camera’s native LCD screen), and with that touchscreen interface, makes it easy and intuitive to use this monitor.

The good and the not so good

The good things about this monitor:

• Affordable price, which is much cheaper than other monitors with similar features and performance.
• Responsiveness and intuitive Touchscreen interface, with the buttons that are well-placed and easy to access.
• It’s very versatile. It works with almost any camera that has an HDMI output, such as my ZV-E10 and I’ve even managed to plug this monitor into my iPhone 15 Pro, with the use of a HDMI to USB-C cable.
• The ability to receive 4K HDMI input, although only show it on the monitor at full HD 1920×1080 resolution
• The 3.5mm headphone jack for live minimum latency monitoring

While there are good things about this monitor, there are some not so good things that some people may be concerned about.

One of them being that the monitor only has a 500 nits brightness, which for some people in bright conditions might not be enough.

It doesn’t come with a battery and it only supports NP-F or LP-E6 batteries which have to be purchased separately.

Who this is monitor for?

This is going to be anyone who is looking for a budget-friendly, feature-rich, and easy-to-use monitor for their DSLR, mirrorless, or cinema camera. It is suitable for beginners, enthusiasts, and some professionals who want to improve their shooting experience and quality.

This monitor is not really going to be for anyone who needs a very bright monitor for extreme outdoor conditions, someone who requires remote access and control of their camera from a monitor, or needs a higher resolution display than the 1920×1080 that you do get on this monitor.

If you want to see the video version of the article, check out the YouTube link below: