Thoughts on Sony Live Preview & Flashes

I've been thinking about this based on some of the recent threads and my initial foray into using flashes instead of video lights.

With video lights, I had Live Preview set to ON so that I could basically see what the picture would look like with a specific aperture, shutter speed, etc. and would adjust those to get the exposure I wanted. 

I understand the need to have Live Preview OFF when using flashes in order to focus (camera presumably boosts ISO, aperture, etc to allow more light into the sensor to do that). 

My question / thought is whether you really want to use both of those for a given dive or condition (I'm thinking mainly wide angle here). Here is my idea or line of thinking:

1) If you leave Live Preview OFF, you run the risk of underexposing the background / ambient water & light given that it will artificially "boost" exposure in order to focus and you won't know that (I guess unless you review the picture while shooting and see it).

2) Would it be better to turn Live Preview ON initially to get the correct settings for ambient conditions (again, thinking wide angle here) and then turn it to OFF when taking the pictures with the flashes?

Maybe I just got used to not reviewing pictures when shooting because with Live Preview ON I pretty much got what I saw on the screen when I composed the photo?

Does that make sense?

- brett

13 minutes ago, TmxDiver said:

I've been thinking about this based on some of the recent threads and my initial foray into using flashes instead of video lights.

With video lights, I had Live Preview set to ON so that I could basically see what the picture would look like with a specific aperture, shutter speed, etc. and would adjust those to get the exposure I wanted. 

I understand the need to have Live Preview OFF when using flashes in order to focus (camera presumably boosts ISO, aperture, etc to allow more light into the sensor to do that). 

My question / thought is whether you really want to use both of those for a given dive or condition (I'm thinking mainly wide angle here). Here is my idea or line of thinking:

1) If you leave Live Preview OFF, you run the risk of underexposing the background / ambient water & light given that it will artificially "boost" exposure in order to focus and you won't know that (I guess unless you review the picture while shooting and see it).

2) Would it be better to turn Live Preview ON initially to get the correct settings for ambient conditions (again, thinking wide angle here) and then turn it to OFF when taking the pictures with the flashes?

Maybe I just got used to not reviewing pictures when shooting because with Live Preview ON I pretty much got what I saw on the screen when I composed the photo?

Does that make sense?

- brett

Technically the best way to judge exposure is to look at the histogram - if you are adapted to the ambient light underwater the viewfinder image can seem quite bright and are somewhat darker when you view them on your screen after downloading. 

In general the live view boost only applies to the live view and images are displayed normally.  Cameras will have different options to assist you for example mine flashes up the image just taken for a period of time that is adjustable in the menus.  It allows you to see if the strobes fired and were aimed so they illuminated the target.  I generally rely upon that. 

As far as ambient light settings go there's a number of ways to approach that.  Take a shot and review is one.  My camera uses the exposure compensation display to show over/under exposure for ambient.  It also has a histogram showing in the viewfinder display which reflects ambient lighting conditions.  

Turning Live preview on and off seems a bit fiddly to me, Diving into the menus UW is something I try to avoid.

I shoot a Sony A6300, and I always keep the live effect setting at off. I do have auto review set to 2 seconds, so at the beginning of every dive, I start by taking a test shot - into the blue if I'm shooting wide-angle, some random small piece if I'm shooting macro - reviewing the output and adjusting as necessary. As Chris says, the live effect setting only applies to preview, not shot review.

1 hour ago, Barmaglot said:

at the beginning of every dive, I start by taking a test shot - into the blue if I'm shooting wide-angle, some random small piece if I'm shooting macro - reviewing the output and adjusting as necessary.

This is the way

Perfect, thanks everybody!

I turned of auto review when using video lights (a) because I found I didn't need it and (b) if I decided to take pictures for a photogrammetry model during a dive, it was a hindrance.

What I really need to do is take advantage of the "Memory" function to record the settings for video lights, flash, and photogrammetry so that I can easily switch between them and have the same baseline every time.

Regards,

- brett

On 3/23/2022 at 6:57 AM, Barmaglot said:

 I start by taking a test shot - into the blue if I'm shooting wide-angle, some random small piece if I'm shooting macro - reviewing the output and adjusting as necessary. 

The blue will change as yo get deeper. For wide-angle (custom setting1) I prefer Live Preview ON, for macro (custom setting2) I prefer the bright viewfinder of Live Preview OFF

On 3/23/2022 at 7:57 AM, Barmaglot said:

I shoot a Sony A6300, and I always keep the live effect setting at off.

As do I, but when I'm taking a picture using my strobe the colors turns red on the preview but when I view it on the computer it has all of the colors. it happens only when I'm taking UW pictures with a strobe.

How did you managed to cancel it?

1 hour ago, sarthur1 said:

As do I, but when I'm taking a picture using my strobe the colors turns red on the preview but when I view it on the computer it has all of the colors. it happens only when I'm taking UW pictures with a strobe.

How did you managed to cancel it?

I have no idea; this never happened to me... what's your white balance is set for? I just had a thought, maybe it's set for underwater, and the preview shown in camera is balanced for ambient light, but the RAW that you process on the computer is getting proper flash color balance?

16 hours ago, Barmaglot said:

what's your white balance is set for?

auto white balance.

16 hours ago, Barmaglot said:

the preview shown in camera is balanced for ambient light

can I set the preview to a different white balance?

1 hour ago, sarthur1 said:

can I set the preview to a different white balance?

I just checked my camera and the white balance is set to 'flash' (lightning bolt icon, just above the underwater auto WB); I don't recall ever encountering the issue that you describe. When you're shooting RAW, the white balance setting does not affect the raw output, but it does affect the JPEG preview that gets embedded into the file.