Portkeys BM5 IV 5.5-inch On-Camera Field Monitor

Best upgrade for my a7iv rig, the brightness and control are insane

I picked up the Portkeys BM5IV to use with my Sony a7 IV. We were shooting under pretty harsh sunlight and while the a7iv built-in screen was basically black and impossible to see, the 2200nits on this monitor cut right through the glare. Being able to just tap the monitor screen to change my ISO or start/stop recording is a huge relief. The Touch to Focus and Focus Tracking work seamlessley with the Sony system, it felt just like tapping on a phone screen to lock onto a subject and the response time was instant.

My absolute favorite feature is the Split Screen mode. I shoot alot of content that needs to work for both standard video and TikTok/Reels, so being able to preview the vertical crop guide while still shooting the full 4K horizontal frame is super useful for framing my shots correctly without guessing. I also played around with the LOG Stop feature which highlights exposure stops with different colors, and its cool that you can customize the colors to whatever makes sense for you visually.

Overall this is a really solid monitor, definately helps with the workflow especially if you are shooting outdoors alot. Highly reccomend it.

0:52

intuitivo, construcción sólida

construido en metal, tiene su propio case y cable d tap, el brillo es bastante bueno y es muy personalizable

0:58

Unreliable and Defective Unit

I was excited to get this monitor, but from the start it’s been a headache. Every time I connect a new source, whether HDMI or SDI, the screen glitches like crazy and the signal becomes unstable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, making it completely unreliable for professional use.

On top of that, the screen arrived with three dead pixels right out of the box. I’ve tried different cables, sources, and setups, but the problems remain.

For the price, I expected a dependable, well-built monitor. Instead, I’ve had nothing but frustration. I can’t recommend this product unless quality control improves and these issues are addressed.

0:02

The best field monitor, the BM5IV is fantastic!!

I just bought the Portkeys BM5IV and it is wonderful, I am very happy with this product, it works perfectly with my Sony FX3 and Sony FX30 cameras as well as the Blackmagic Micro Camera Studio 4k G2, it includes LANC and USB-C control cables, the brightness is fabulous, I can monitor what I record in broad daylight, highly recommended.

Great overall monitor with a few problems

This is a solid monitor with a very bright and sharp screen. Really love the Cinenorm os as it's the main reason I took a chance with this monitor over a Smallhd. I hope certain features will be improved in future updates such as pinch to zoom because it's quite glitchy right now. The screen capture/overlay system feels slow and not as intuitive compared to competition too. My biggest problem with this monitor is when underexposing and shooting a grey/more neutral surface, you can see pretty severe color banding on the screen. This is quite distracting and hard to judge the image properly. The color banding persists even in black and white mode. I have reached out to Portkeys about this issue, and while they have really great customer service, this seems like a hardware problem that cannot be fixed, so hopefully the 5th version will have better quality panels.

Best value for money professional camera monitor with camera control.

This monitor is ounce for ounce punching way above its weight for monitors in its price class. I am using the BM5 IV on my Canon R6 Mk2 for video work. The daylight viewable screen is a massive help when framing a subject and the camera controls saves a lot of time when setting up the camera. The monitor is lightweight, robust and made of high quality and durable materials. The new CINENORM user interface is simple and intuitive with all the tools and signal interfaces which are superior to what that can be expected from a monitor in its price class. Portkeys product support is great and I have done a firmware update with no hassles at all. This monitor will serve noobs like myself and professionals all alike as it will get you going quickly with its simple user interface but yet has a massive array of professional capabilities to streamline workflows and the quality of video productions.