After powering on the Shinobi II for the first time, you'll be presented with the No Input screen. This signals that there's currently no input source connected to the Shinobi II.
Top Menu Bar
You will also notice the Top Menu Bar, which summarizes the most significant parameters to view at a glance when it comes to using the Shinobi II. We’ll go through these parameters from left to right.
Input: Highlights the input signal specification (resolution and frame rate). It says No Input when nothing is plugged into the Shinobi II.
Note: On first boot, the input section of the top menu bar will also say “Input Color Unspecified”, which highlights that the signal coming out of the camera into the Shinobi II hasn’t been specified yet. More on this in the article about the Input menu.
Monitor Mode: Shows the Monitor Mode your device is currently in. It’s set to SDR Native by default, which shows the input signal “as is”, without any Log Transformations or LUTs applied.
Camera Control Status: Specifies which camera is connected to the Shinobi II when camera control is enabled. By default, it says Inactive.
Power: Shows the Battery charge in a percentage range from 100% to 0%.
Note: If the Shinobi II is powered via USB PD, the percentage will sit at 100%.
Audio Meters: This shows the audio meters of the embedded audio of the HDMI signal fed to the Shinobi II.
Note: Pressing a label in the top bar acts as quick access that takes you to the corresponding section of the AtomOS 11 main menu.
Bottom Row Menu
There are two states of the Bottom Row menu, which provide quick access to a variety of the Shinobi II's functions. Let’s focus on the Monitoring Mode first, and we’ll start going through these options from left to right again.
Monitor Button: Toggleable button to cycle through the two traditional states of the bottom bar.
- Compact mode (Hides the top menu bar and moves the audio meters and timecode display to the bottom bar)
- Full mode (Brings up the top menu bar again and offers access to a variety of advanced monitoring tools)
Camera Control Button: The Camera Control button will be greyed out/unavailable when your Shinobi II isn’t set up for Camera Control. Once your Shinobi II is connected to a compatible camera and configured to control it, the icon will be presented in its active state. When pressed, it will transform the bottom row menu again to show all the available camera control options, but we’ll get back to those in a separate article on Camera Control.
Besides these two major function buttons, there are twelve extra buttons for quick access to the built-in monitoring tools.
Focus Zoom: Tapping this icon zooms into the image and helps check critical focus. This button can be tapped repeatedly to increase the zoom factor. Once zoomed in, you can drag your finger across the screen to move the position of the magnification.
False Color: Bringing up the False Color overlay is an extremely intuitive way to judge your shots’ exposure, as it transforms the regular color image into 14 “exposure ranges” that are highlighted with individual colors. Example: Caucasian skin is commonly exposed at 59-78% luminance, so if the skin is covered in a flat gray color with False Color enabled, you know it’s exposed well. Once enabled, a scale highlighting all the individual colors for each range is displayed at the left border of the screen.
Analysis Mode: View the input signal alongside levels, histograms/waveforms, vector scopes, and audio meters for maximum control.
Waveforms: This brings up the waveform monitor, used to analyze the exposure range of your input signal. Tapping the small-sized waveform display, at the bottom left, will increase its size to cover the entire width of the screen. Tapping it again displays the waveform monitor in full size, covering almost the entire screen.
Zebras: Similarly to False Color, the Zebra function is a simplified way to highlight specific exposure ranges of the image, but instead of color, this tool highlights these ranges in a Zebra pattern. Example: If you want to protect the highlights of your image from “clipping”, set your Zebra Threshold to 100% or above. Now, every time an element in the scene surpasses 100% of the capturable brightness of your camera sensor, it’s highlighted via the Zebra pattern, letting you know that only pure white/no color information is captured in that area. Lowering the overall exposure of the image will make the 100% Zebras disappear.
Vector Scopes: The Vector Scope contains markings that indicate the degree of hue and saturation in an image. The further the markings are from the center, the more saturation you have in your image. It’s most commonly used in combination with the waveform monitor, which only focuses on exposure, rather than the color information of the image.
Focus Peaking: Highlights the highest-contrast/in-focus areas of the image in color, to help achieve critical focus without the need to punch-in via the Focus Zoom tool. Intensity, Colors and various Peaking modes can be configured via the bottom shelf menu.
Frame Guides: Frame Guides can be overlaid on top of the image to help frame your native 16/9 inputs for cinema or social media delivery. There are loads of different frame guide presets available on the Shinobi II, and you can cycle through them by repeatedly pressing the Frame Guide button.
9-Grid: The 9-Grid is tremendously helpful when composing your shots by the “Rule of Thirds” principle, or to check if the horizon or other lines in your image are level.
Safe Areas: Brings up the SMPTE safe title areas (93% & 90%).
Settings Icon: Tapping this icon opens up the separate Bottom Shelf menu, which lets you fine-tune many of the monitoring tools listed above, such as Focus Peaking, Waveforms (sizes, types, opacity, etc.) and more. It is also used to access the Monitor modes such as HDR PQ, HDR HLG and the LUTs function, discussed in a separate article.
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