Meet Desview R5 - Feature-packed on-camera touch screen monitor

Here is our experience with the Desview R5 5.5-inch portable on-camera touch monitor.

Desview R5 on the Canon EOS R6 with RF 70-200 F2.8L

Desview arrived in the Philippines a few years ago and has brought their line of on-camera monitors locally.

In this article, we take a closer look at Desview R5 on-camera monitor with a touch screen. It features a 5.5-inch LED Backlit touch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution and 450nits peak brightness.

It uses either NP-F or NP-E6 batteries. The monitor supports LUTs and assistive functions like False color, Focus, Scopes, and Waveforms.

In the Philippines, the R5 starts at PHP 10,990 and is now available at select Desview authorized distributors nationwide.

Let's dive in!

Meet Desview R5!

Packaging

The Desview R5 comes in a matte textured black box with the Desview R5 render, branding, specs, features, and regulatory information. 

Clip-on hood and velcro attached hood

Cable inclusions

Documentation, screen wipe, cold-shoe head, Allen wrench

Inside the box are a ton of accessories that include the clip-on hood, velcro foldable hood, mini-HDMI cable, micro HDMI cable, D-Tap Cable, Cold Shoe head, screen wipe, Allen wrench, and quick start guide.

Front view

The body of the monitor is enclosed in ABS plastic which gives it a lightweight but somewhat solid feel. It measures 182 x 120 x 85mm and weighs 583 grams.

In front is the 5.5-inch touch screen with slim bezels. The left and right side bezels are thicker than the top and bottom bezels. The Desview logo is on the right side.

Rearview with battery

At the back is are the screws, battery release button, battery mount, and regulatory information. The monitor takes either NP-F970 or NP-E6 batteries. In the picture, the Desview is beside our personal NP-F960 battery. Batteries are not included in the package.

Top and bottom view

On top is the power button and small slots for the clip-on hood while at the bottom is the 8VDC out, 3.5mm headphone jack, 1/4-inch screw thread mount, SD card slot, and more slots for the clip-on hood.

Left and right side

On the left side is the HDMI-Out, DC-In HDMI-In while on the right side is the second 1/4-in screw thread mount.

With monitor hood installed

The included cold-shoe mount head can tilt and swivel and can screw into the 1/4-inch screw thread mount on the bottom and the side of the monitor. While the included-in clip-on hood easily clips onto the monitor. On the inner side of the clip-on hood is velcro where the foldable hood mounts on.

Having an on-camera monitor has several advantages over the built-in monitor of a camera. 

4x punch in to check focus

The first main advantage is the larger screen which allows for more visual real-estate to be able to see more detail of the image. You can punch in up to 4x to check the finer details of the image and to check if the subject is in focus.

Exposure tools

The monitor includes several exposure monitoring tools that include false-color (Spectrum, ARRI), Zebra (IRE), Histogram (Brightness, RGB), Waveforms (Luminance, RGB), Vectorscope, All Wave, and HDR (Hybrid Log-Gamma or HLG, Perceptual Quantizer or PQ).

Focusing and Composition tools

Aside from that, the monitor also includes focus and composition tools that include single color(red, blue, green), peaking (weak, average, strong), center mark, safe area (80%, 85%, 90%, 93%, 95%), mark (aspect) ratio (4:3, 16:10, 16:9, 1.85:1, 2.35:1, 2.4:1), grid lines (2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, 7x7, 8x8), and audio meters.

Users can also add their own or LUTs via the SD card slot.

As expected, the monitor can display in several aspect ratios as well as anamorphic. It also supports Horizontal and Vertical sync delay (H delay, V delay, H/V Delay).

Settings menu

Users also can customize the monitor to their needs with quick access to several languages, color, color temperature, sound (volume, mute), and Battery notifications. 

Users can also update the firmware of the monitor via the SD card slot.

Shortcut menu

Desview even added a Shortcut menu where you can access the frequently used features like False Color, Zebra, Histogram, Peaking, LUT, and Audio Meters.

Mounted on the Canon EOS R6 

As mentioned earlier, the battery is sold separately. To beginners, this may sound like an extra expense but this is normal with professional photo and film-making tools. Users can purchase either low capacity slim batteries for lightweight carry or can instead purchase large capacity heavy batteries for longer shoot days. By not including the battery, it allows the user to save money and purchase the battery that suits their needs.

Users can also plug the monitor into another power source with the included D-Tap cable.

Once the battery is plugged in, the user can turn the monitor on with the power button on top. Boot-up time is less than 5 seconds. Users can then plug the monitor into their cameras via the included HDMI and micro HDMI cable. After this, the monitor should detect the signal from the camera and will then display what the user sets the camera to show. Users can now use the monitor as a larger display while also taking advantage of the added features mentioned above.

The Desview R5 is easy to set up and is compact and lightweight enough to not add too much bulk to your current camera set-up.

Desview R5 Specs

Display: 5.5-inch LED Backlit touch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution, 16.7M colors, 450nits, 401 ppi, 16:9 aspect ratio

Battery: Supports Sony NP-F, Canon LP-E6 (not included)

Connectivity: SD card slot, HDMI-In, HDMI-Out, 3.5mm headphone jack

Others: Custom LUT, Import LUT, HLG/PQ HDR, Waveform, Pinch to Zoom, Light sensor,

Measurements: 182 x 120 x 85mm

Weight: 583 g

Price: PHP 10,990

Quick thoughts

Desview R5 with clip-on hood attached to Canon EOS R5

The Desview R5 is one of the most feature-packed on-screen touch screen monitors in the Philippine market today. It features a large 5.5-inch screen with support for up to 16.7M colors and up to 450 nits brightness.

Our only concern is the long-term durability of the monitor as it uses lightweight ABS plastic. Aside from that, the R5 is great because of all the photography and film-making tools that come built-in the monitor.

These tools include False Color, Zebra, Brightness/RGB histograms, Luminance/RGB Waveforms, LUT, HDR, Gridlines, Peaking, Pinch to zoom, Nine different languages, and more.

All those features make the Desview R5 a great value for only PHP 10,990.

What do you guys think?