Calibration hardware question

[concretesnail]

Hi
Has anyone used colormunki calibration equipment. I'm looking at purchasing the photo pack as it is looking like a necessity for work. But as I'm self employed I want to know if it does as well as the claims.

Ideally I will be calibrating monitors, printers and cameras and if I get the chance my tv to.

[fahrenheit]

Have you got a link to the specific product you are considering? Colormunki brand covers a range of instruments (both colorimeters and spectros) and they are vastly different devices.

Ideally, with what you are focusing on, a spectro is going to be the best tool. The Colormunki spectros have limited intergration with TV calibration software (perhaps none at all). The i1 Pro (rev D) and i1 Pro 2 are much better instruments and can be used with all of the popular TV calibration packages, but the price difference tends to be in a different realm.

[concretesnail]

This is what I've been looking at.

http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1115

[fahrenheit]

Right, that is a spectro model. What I said about TV calibration applies. You'd have to check whether HCFR supports it, but there probably isn't a lot of demand for it.

That model hasn't been replaced, but in the time since it was introduced, X-Rite have introduced the i1 Display Pro colorimeter.
There is not much argument that for colour reading, the i1 Display Pro (colorimeter) is inferior to the older and new i1 Pro 1 and 2(Spectrometers), but the Colormunki Photo doesn't even compete with the cheaper colorimeter which is practically half the price, can read much lower luminance levels and works with HCFR and Calman TV calibration software.
The only thing I'm not clear on is printer profiling or the various bolt-on licenses that would have to be considered.

If you can get away with it, then buying the i1 Display Pro initially, then investing in an i1 Pro Spectro further on down the road, will give you a very robust solution that you will get many years of use from. Together, they cover all your bases and the colorimeter has better low luminance performance, so you can profile the colorimeter against the more color accurate spectro. Handy for when you get that shiny new OLED in a few years time...

I have the i1 Display Pro and have used it to calibrate my 24" Dell and HP monitors. It really is superb value for money. The profiling software that comes with it is very basic though and may not suit your requirements.