How the Ninja TX Video Series Turns Everyday Shoots into Smarter Productions

To help filmmakers work faster and with more confidence, Atomos partnered with Christine Shaw (DaChefGyal) to create a step-by-step Ninja TX and Ninja TX GO tutorial series. Through concise weekly episodes, the series explains monitoring tools, camera control, LUT workflows, ATOMOSphere setup, AirGlu timecode, and how Ninja TX fits into connected, NDI-enabled production pipelines. By breaking down real production setups, the series provides a reusable learning library for anyone looking to improve their on-set monitoring and recording workflow. New episodes drop every Tuesday on YouTube. Check the first one out:

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If you've ever second-guessed whether you're recording or whether you're in focus or whether your exposure is right, then this video is for you. Or if you want to know more about the monitoring tools on the Atomus Ninja, stay tuned in. I am the Chef Girl. I'm a DP based in Brooklyn, New York. And today I'm going to be sharing with you the features that I use most on the Atomus Ninja in the monitoring menu. And quickly before I dive into that, I just want to share a few reasons why you might even want to consider an Atomus Ninja TX to begin with. First of all, this is more than just a monitor. It's a huge recording hub. You can record to CF Express TypeB. You can also record to SSD and you can record in ProRes RAW. On top of that, you can send footage from the monitor to the cloud. You can have the monitor send footage via NDI. That's what's happening right here. I'm going to get into that in another video. And overall, this monitor is just going to give you a lot more confidence on set because it's going to give you the tools that you need to make sure that your shot looks amazing. So, without further ado, let's get into the monitoring menu. And let's talk about some of the features that I use the most. I'm going to put this CF Express TypeB card back in there. One feature that doesn't get talked about enough is the ability to actually zoom in while you're recording. So, you can hit the 2x button and zoom in if you want to check focus or check for flyaways or anything like that. So, I think that's a really neat feature that doesn't really get highlighted much, but it really does come in handy. Uh, next we have the waveform. This is something that I use very often all the time to see the brightness exposure in the image to make sure nothing is overexposed or too underexposed and that the subject is in a really nice spot. Next over here we have the RGB parade. I use this primarily for almost like a white balance tool in a way because if one of these parades is way higher than the other, that's going to let you know that there's a different there's a shift in color that you may not want or it may be intentional, but it's good to know about it nonetheless. Next, we have vector scope. This is very important. This helps you to make sure that your subject's skin tones are in the right range. And this one I use all the time. Peeking. Peaking gives you a red outline on the parts of the image that are in focus. This is perfect or ideal if you're shooting with a manual lens um or if you are just in manual mode cuz you want to control what's in focus. Peaking comes in clutch. And yes, this is something that you do often have built in on the camera itself, but it's nice to have this on a bigger monitor. And I actually think the peaking is uh a little bit more uh refined on the Atomus Ninja TX. Next we have zebras. This is also really helpful. It can tell you which part of your image may be overexposed and you can come over here and set the threshold that you want for that. And then one very important feature that we cannot skip is false color. So, this is a scale that you can use to make sure that your subject is in the right range and that their skin tones or the background or anything is not overexposed or underexposed unless you intentionally want it to be that way. Now, what's really great about the Atomus Ninja TX is that not only do you get false color, but you also get Lzone. If you know about Lzone, you know about Lzone. So, you can come over here under the false color menu and switch from Atomus to Lzone. And now this scale is represented in stops over middle gray. So this is a lot more accurate than false color because no matter what camera you're using, it's going to take the information from the log signal and tell you how many stops above or below middle gray that you are. So this is clutch. So when you're ready to take it to the next level, the monitor is there with you. It's a monitor that grows with you. I can't say that for all monitors, but this one will. So you can start out with false color cuz that's where I started. And then when you're ready for that L zone, you upgrade to the L zone. All right. So we can go ahead and turn that off. And then there's also an ARI scale as well, levels to this. So I'm going to go into that, but those are the features that I use most in the monitoring menu. There's a few others down here that you can choose from. And another tool that's really helpful, especially if you're doing uh stop motion or if you're doing a match cut, being able to take a frame grab of the subject or of whatever you're shooting so that you can pick it up on the next take in the same position is clutch. So that feature is called onion skin on the Atomus Ninja TX. So I'm going to hit the snapshot button here. I'm going to actually put a little bit of my hand in the frame so we can differentiate it that it's different. And I'm going to hit the snapshot button. we see a check mark which means that it took a screenshot if you will or a picture. And now I can click on this onion image and then select last grab. That's the last thing that I took a snapshot of. And now I see that image overlaid on what I am currently shooting. So this way I can line it up perfectly to make sure that I have that continuity between my shots, which is really great. And then you can change the transparency of it as well. So, that's a really, really neat feature, onion skin. So, that's an overview of the monitoring tools that I use the most on the Atomus Ninja TX. I am going to touch on it in another video, which is monitoring different LUTs. That's something that I use quite often. And this isn't quite a monitoring feature, but something that I always enable when I'm using my Atomus TX is trigger recording. That means when I hit the record button, the Atomus records as well. And you get that confirmation by seeing the red box around the screen. I think that is a very clutch feature. It gives you confirmation that you're filming. Uh it gives everyone else confirmation that you're filming and it gives you that confirmation that you're getting a backup redundant recording. So not only are you recording to the camera, you have that backup going directly to the CF Express TypeB. And I just want to briefly talk you through how to set that up in the menu. So, what you want to do is head over to the input tab, and you want to make sure that your trigger source is set to HDMI. That's what I have it set to over here. In the menu system on your camera, for me, I'm using the Sony FX3. You want to go to external output. And for HDMI output settings, you want to make sure that record media during HDMI output is on. And you also want to make sure that time code output is on and record control is on. Once those options are enabled and you have HDMI source on the Atomus, once you record on the camera, it will also record on the Atomus itself. Same thing over here. Once I record on the FX3, we get that confirmation and we are recording on the Atomus as well. So, setting up record trigger is clutch and it's something that is always on and I always use it. For me, I'm big on redundancy. I also I always like to make sure I have multiple sources for audio and multiple sources for recording. So, I love that the Atomus Ninja TX gives me that option. Well, those are the features that I use the most on the Atomus Ninja TX. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions and what features you're using the most in the monitoring menu. Thank you guys for rocking with me. I am the chef gal and you just got the