Calibrating a BenQ Monitor

[billtils]

I recently decided to make a clean break and buy a dedicated set up for my photography computing (previously shared with personal computing on an iMac).

The computing side was easy - a MacMini with the M2 chip (the latest version at the time of purchase). That left the question of what monitor. After consulting the usual sources I opted for an ASUS with all the bells and whistles ... and hated it. I buy pretty well all my photography-related gear from Wex and they took it back without question, and I searched their web site for the replacement, eventually choosing a BenQ 240 SW, not exactly the latest and greatest in computing but met my needs perfectly.

I have been using it straight out of the box and for long enough to consider running a calibration check given what I was used to with the iMac only to find that my aged ColorMunki is not compatible with the BenQ colour engine.

I have done a stack of printing with it and the prints (about 50/50 colour and mono) still look true to what's on screen, which leaves me with questions for the BenQ users out there - how often if at all do you recalibrate and what device do you use?

Thanks in advance


Bill

[Round Tuit]

I have had the same monitor for a few years. If I remember well, it came out of the box pretty well calibrated. At first, I recalibrated it monthly using a Spyder 4 but soon discovered that it is not necessary to do it so frequently. I now do it every six months which results in minor changes to the calibration.

[DanK]

I have had the same monitor for a few years. If I remember well, it came out of the box pretty well calibrated. At first, I recalibrated it monthly using a Spyder 4 but soon discovered that it is not necessary to do it so frequently. I now do it every six months which results in minor changes to the calibration.

I don't have a BenQ, but my experience has been the same as Andre's: I don't need to recalibrate often. I read somewhere, I think, that the warnings to recalibrate frequently are a vestige of the old CRT days, but perhaps someone here can say whether that's accurate.

[Manfred M]

Dan is correct. The old CRT displays could go out of calibration within a few weeks, especially if they were new or old. With the modern flat panel displays, this tends to not happen and if you notice significant colour shifts, that is often a sign that the unit is dying.

In the past, I found updating the profile and recalibrating once a year was more than enough. Do things more often now as one of the requirements to judge a national level competition is that the computer screen needs to be recalibrated before judging the competition, so that tends to mean doing so 2 - 3 times per year.

[Rufus]

I too am a loyal Wex customer. I was delighted when they opened a store in Cambridge as this was particularly handy recently for trying out back packs when I wanted a more comfortable one.

I have a BenQ SW270C which came with its own Pallette Master Element calibration software and I use a Calibrite Colorchecker Display Pro device. I set a reminder in the software to recalibrate every 3 months, but I don't religiously adhere to it.

I believe the screen, software and the Calibrite device have all been superseded and improved upon but that is not surprising as I bought them in Nov 2021.