MANUAL ON A MIRRORLESS

I have just started to play with mirrorless cameras and was very surprised that in manual mode the viewfinder/LCD shows you the exact exposure you are achieving. This is a great feature for topside photography, except in dark situations when you require a strobe/video light, which we do for 99% of images underwater.

I am curious to know how mirrorless users, shooting on manual, are dealing with this underwater in caves, low light or at night? Do you always use a video light for focusing (and as your strobe is generally more powerful than a video light, I assume you would have to constantly review your images for the correct exposure?) or is there some trick/hack that I have missed? Or do you only use your mirrorless camera in Aperture or Shutter Priority because of this?

Regards,

Nigel

I just turn it off. IIRC it's called 'Live Effects' in Sony cameras, and it's counterproductive when shooting with strobes. When it's disabled, the camera opens up the aperture and boosts ISO in order to provide a usable image on the screen/EVF for focusing and composing, then goes to the configured shutter/aperture/ISO when you press the shutter button.

5 hours ago, wobby said:

I have just started to play with mirrorless cameras and was very surprised that in manual mode the viewfinder/LCD shows you the exact exposure you are achieving. This is a great feature for topside photography, except in dark situations when you require a strobe/video light, which we do for 99% of images underwater.

I am curious to know how mirrorless users, shooting on manual, are dealing with this underwater in caves, low light or at night? Do you always use a video light for focusing (and as your strobe is generally more powerful than a video light, I assume you would have to constantly review your images for the correct exposure?) or is there some trick/hack that I have missed? Or do you only use your mirrorless camera in Aperture or Shutter Priority because of this?

Regards,

Nigel

Yes just turn off the feature, it's called different things in different cameras, it's called live view boost in Olympus.  Regarding reviewing photos, in my camera (Olympus) it will flash up the image you just took and the time it is up is variable set in the menus.  The default is half a second which I find is enough to tell if the strobes fired for example.  You can lengthen the time if you want as it will cancel out as soon as you half press the shutter. 

Focus light is the same as DSLR - turn it on if you need it to focus, it doesn't enter into the live view arrangements for the viewfinder.

As with all UW photos, just looking at the image on the screen is not always a good judge of exposure and periodically checking the histogram is the best way to judge exposure.  In the subdued light UW, an under exposed image can look fine on the LCD screen or in the viewfinder. 

10 hours ago, wobby said:

I have just started to play with mirrorless cameras and was very surprised that in manual mode the viewfinder/LCD shows you the exact exposure you are achieving. This is a great feature for topside photography, except in dark situations when you require a strobe/video light, which we do for 99% of images underwater.

I am curious to know how mirrorless users, shooting on manual, are dealing with this underwater in caves, low light or at night? Do you always use a video light for focusing (and as your strobe is generally more powerful than a video light, I assume you would have to constantly review your images for the correct exposure?) or is there some trick/hack that I have missed? Or do you only use your mirrorless camera in Aperture or Shutter Priority because of this?

Regards,

Nigel

Hi Nigel,

I second the previous posters, turn it "off". I am using my Oly EM1II most of the time in full manual mode (also the Z330 flashes) and constantly review the images after taking and subsequently optimize the settings. Only in exceptional cases I use shutter priority (e.g. when snorkeling with dolphins, where I use exclusively ambient light and want to prevent motion blurr)...

Wolfgang

12 hours ago, wobby said:

I have just started to play with mirrorless cameras and was very surprised that in manual mode the viewfinder/LCD shows you the exact exposure you are achieving. This is a great feature for topside photography, except in dark situations when you require a strobe/video light, which we do for 99% of images underwater.

I am curious to know how mirrorless users, shooting on manual, are dealing with this underwater in caves, low light or at night? Do you always use a video light for focusing (and as your strobe is generally more powerful than a video light, I assume you would have to constantly review your images for the correct exposure?) or is there some trick/hack that I have missed? Or do you only use your mirrorless camera in Aperture or Shutter Priority because of this?

Regards,

Nigel

Not sure what your camera is however on mine I have 4+ options

Live preview that shows exactly how the images comes up including depth of field. This is useful for video not for photos

Standard. The screen is brighter than the exposure that is simulated high frame rate on the LCD/EVF

Boost 1. Frame rate drops and brightness is increased

Boost 2. Frame rate drops considerably brightness is higher but image is blurry

Generally I use standard or boost 1

Take into account if you use a miniflash the screen will be brighter but if you use a xsync it won't 

I would also turn it "off" in the dark conditions you mention. However, I like the 'exact exposure' preview in wide-angle photography. It helps me to judge if the settings are right to get a nice background. Of coarse, evaluation of the shot is still necessary to see how the strobes fill in.

I have it "off" in my macro custom settings and "on" in my wide angle custom settings. 

Floris

On 9/8/2021 at 4:37 PM, Barmaglot said:

I just turn it off. IIRC it's called 'Live Effects' in Sony cameras, and it's counterproductive when shooting with strobes. When it's disabled, the camera opens up the aperture and boosts ISO in order to provide a usable image on the screen/EVF for focusing and composing, then goes to the configured shutter/aperture/ISO when you press the shutter button.

I tend to dive often in significant current so almost always shoot with the strobes in TTL. With the Sony a6400 the view screen is always bright when the flash is up and the screen is frequently very non-representative of actual exposure unless the entire scene is lit by the strobes. This also applies to the preview after the shot. However, you can get a real ambient background estimate with the flash up by setting the flash to 'ambient only' and set a custom button for 'flash result preview' (https://shotkit.com/how-to-set-up-your-sony-camera-for-flash/). I have set Custom 1 button for this so can see an estimate of what ambient background will look like by pushing the Custom 1 button. When I release the button, the screen is again bright. It is annoying but generally only need to push the custom 1 button to check for a few shots at the start of each dive or when the background changes from dark or blue to something like white sand. Unfortunately, I usually forget to recheck after the start of dive but that is not a camera problem.