Photographer Fraser Havenhand tries out the EIZO ColorEdge CG279X
Fraser Havenhand is a commercial advertising photographer based in Sheffield. His passion for cars and sports has led him to work with clients such as Goodyear Tyres, Superstreet Magazine, GB British Para Table Tennis and Regatta Great Outdoors. But in his personal work, he demonstrates an extraordinary eye for capturing everyday scenes in beautiful natural light.
Fraser has used EIZO monitors for several years, but he was keen to try out a newer model. We sent him a new EIZO ColorEdge CG279X to see how it compared.
I was introduced to EIZO as a brand when one of my really good friends who is also a photographer bought one to use at home and let me have a look. After that I decided it was time I got my own. The main benefit initially was just the extra size and resolution when doing smaller, more detailed retouching work.
When I got the EIZO ColorEdge CG279X out of the box I first noticed how much thinner the new monitor was compared to my old unit I’d been using (a ColorEdge CX271). It felt like enough of a difference that my desk had more physical space around it which made it easier for me to work from.
The new calibration device was a nice touch - the automated arm that rotates down feels very futuristic and the calibration was a lot quicker than I was expecting so I didn’t have to wait long to get started on editing my images.
The touch buttons and new menu have been massively updated from my old screen, it felt very intuitive to use but also gave me a lot of freedom to set things like screen brightness and colour temperature to get my settings exactly as needed. I made a few subtle changes from the out of box settings, but it wasn’t long before I was up and running.
Most of my personal work involves shooting at golden hour or in strong sunlight so warm tones and punchy colours like reds and oranges feature heavily. These can sometimes look garish if they’re done on an inaccurate screen, but I had every confidence when using the EIZO ColorEdge CG279X that I could get these colours true to my style of grading/retouching. At the time of loan, I was mid-way through producing two printed portfolios of my work, so it was a great opportunity to use the screen with Lightroom and to soft proof my images before print. This helped me to streamline my workflow and have confidence that, once proofed, I could send to print and the images would come out exactly as I intended.
