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Images look different in the viewfinder

Landmosphere
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Landmosphere Rookie

Landmosphere

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Hi,

I am shooting with a sony a7r III and I've just recently noticed that the images look brighter (and more well exposed), when you look at the viewfinder, but when you import them into LR or even look at the screen at the back of the camera, they look darker. I have done a big troubleshooting regarding it, but can't seem to understand why.

DRO was turned off when I took those images and I have the brightness of both viewfinder and screen turned to manual and set to 0.

I've imported  the same image to Photoshop and to Capture One (free trial), and they look exactly the same as in LR and on the back of my camera (darker).

I normally take pictures using the viewfinder, as I think it's easy to see and have more control on what you're shooting, and also because I believe that it gives a more accurate result than the screen of the camera regarding exposure. Would like some assistance on this matter please.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Sean2259 Newbie

Sean2259

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Kind of sad there has been no response. I just did a search to find a Sony forum, just found this site. Signed up and went to ask the very same question. Kind of ironic that the very first post at the top is a question asking the same issue I wanted to find out more about. I just purchased my first full frame a7riv after having used a6000 for about 5 years. One of the buying decisions to go with the Sony mirrorless over a DSLR was the use of the EVF (whereas I had focus problems with Nikon & manual focus). 

My problem however is just a little bit different in that the EVF shows the brightness/exposure I want, the after shot review shows up good, but when copied to my laptop the images look under-exposed/darker (both RAW & JPG). As I am new (a week old now) to this camera my thought was this is a setting I need to adjust or change. 

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Sean2259 Newbie

Sean2259

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3 hours ago, Landmosphere said:

Hi,

I would check if you have the DRO (Dynamic Range Optimize) on and turn it off, specially if you are using RAW files.

I have done that on my camera, but it seems that it's something else in my case that it's causing this situation.

No such luck for me, DRO is off and I was noticing this in the RAW files as well when previewed in Windows Explorer as I copied files and viewed in Imaging Edge's Viewer

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  • 4 months later...
Zyefer Newbie

Zyefer

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So I recently (two days ago) got an a6400 and realized the same issue. Came across this post and while it sucked to see no definite answer, something I tried and seemingly (to me at least) has shifted the on screen image to be closer to what's in the viewfinder was changing the Exposure Step from .3EV to .5EV. My images look similar to the viewfinder (at least mores than before). Hope this helps!

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thebeardedgroundsman Proficient

thebeardedgroundsman

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Could be the brightness of your screen but, if you are shooting RAW the image you export to post processing (LR) is more than likely to look darker.

This is because the image on your camera's display has been "processed' to JPEG whereas the RAW image still needs processing (hence sending it to LR).

A good site to look at to explain this better than I can is: https://chrisbrayphotography.com/tips/

Good luck

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  • 10 months later...
cwagz Newbie

cwagz

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I finally found the answer -It is called Live View Display and is found in Camera Settings 2 / Display Auto Review 1 or 2 (page 6/9 or 7/9) Make sure you set the Setting Effect ON, the monitor and viewfinder will show you the real exposure of your scene, meaning it will preview the effect of your shutter speed, aperture, ISO and exposure compensation settings. Other parameters such as the Creative Style (color profiles) and White Balance are also represented.

I had it on OFF thinking that because I didnt want any creative style preset - this was going to give me the actual preview without any adjustments and it turns out it was the opposite!

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  • 1 year later...
Lex de P Newbie

Lex de P

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On 12/6/2021 at 1:07 AM, cwagz said:

I finally found the answer -It is called Live View Display and is found in Camera Settings 2 / Display Auto Review 1 or 2 (page 6/9 or 7/9) Make sure you set the Setting Effect ON, the monitor and viewfinder will show you the real exposure of your scene, meaning it will preview the effect of your shutter speed, aperture, ISO and exposure compensation settings. Other parameters such as the Creative Style (color profiles) and White Balance are also represented.

I had it on OFF thinking that because I didnt want any creative style preset - this was going to give me the actual preview without any adjustments and it turns out it was the opposite!

Best solution! Wow I have don my last 4-5 gigs with great frustration, not knowing what I did wrong... Thnx for posting this solution!

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  • Posts

    • XKAES
      JPEG options?

      By XKAES · Posted

      I'd suggest you start by running a simple test.  Take pictures of a typical scene/subject and each of the JPEG settings your camera offers.  Then compare them in the output that you normally produce.  You may or may not see a difference.  I normally shoot at the highest JPEG level and save that file -- but make a smaller file (lower resolution) for normal/typical use. There's plenty of editing that you can do with JPEGs on your computer -- depending on your software -- and there are features in your camera that can help out, as well.  That depends on your camera.  Put them together, and it might meet your needs.  For example, your camera probably has several bracketing features that will take the same shot with different settings with one press of the button.  Then you can select the best JPEG to work with on your computer.  I frequently use this feature to control contrast.
    • Cameratose
      JPEG options?

      By Cameratose · Posted

      If you set up some basic presets in your processing software and use batch processing, you don't need jpeg at all. I shoot RAW only, use (free) Faststone Image Viewer which will view any type of image file to cull my shots, and batch process in Darktable. I can start with 2000-3000 shots and in a matter of a few hours have them culled, processed, and posted. A handful of shots, say a couple hundred from a photo walk, are done in minutes.  This saves card space, computer space, and upload time.  The results are very good for posting online. When someone wants to buy one or I decide to print it, I can then return to the RAW file and process it individually for optimum results.  I never delete a RAW file. Sometimes I'll return to an old shot I processed several years ago and reprocess it. I have been very surprised how much better they look as my processing skills improved.  
    • Pieter
      JPEG options?

      By Pieter · Posted

      If you're only publishing small-sized photo's or viewing on a phone / computer screen, 12-ish MP should be more than enough for your needs. Since with JPEG, the ability to 'fix' stuff on the computer is very limited anyway, you're not giving up much except the ability to crop/recompose after taking the shot. If you tend to crop often or might print large, shoot fine quality instead as JPEGs don't take up a lot of space anyway. I tend to shoot RAW+JPEG. After a trip/shoot, I download my photos to my computer and quickly scan through my JPEGs to select my keepers. The JPEGs are fine for 90% of my needs but at times there are one or two 'WOW'-shots that I might one day print large. I'll edit the RAW of these photos to my hearts content, generate a JPEG, then delete all RAWs to clear up space.

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