Mirrorless and flash

[rampant]

With non-mirrorless cameras, I'm looking through the lens directly so if I have flash setup I can still see clearly.  However with mirrorless it also responds to ISO and so with flash the screen will be totally dark until i take the picture and the flash fires.  There must be some way to see clearly (as if the ISO were way higher) but actually record at lower ISO to make up for the flash.

 

Does this make sense?  I really don't even know what I'm looking for in the menus.

 

I have an a7ii for reference.

[rampant]

Figured it out, you have to turn off "live view".  I wish I could leave on live view and do a flash setting adjustment - e.g. "boost the live view by 8 stops"

[Golem]

Figured it out, you have to turn off "live view".  I wish I could leave

on live view and do a flash setting adjustment - e.g. "boost the live

view by 8 stops"

  

Clearly you cannot turn off the live view on mirrorless camera.

Unless you turn off the power switch, in which case ... no pix !  

   

I spoze you are turning off the "image effect" in the live view

menu. Thaz why I avoid using dedicated flashes with these

cameras. Even with my externally automated flashes, there

are limits to what apertures will let me see the "image effect"

without making the view to dark to see the subject matter.

   

Depending upon the features in your camera, you might have

and "effect preview" button. If so, you can work with the effect

preview turned off in the live view menu, but when you wanna

see a preview you hit that button. This can still result in a very

dark view depending on your settings.

  

Rather than the "effect preview" button, there may also be a

DOF preview button. With "effect preview" canceled, the EVF

and the rear LCD will do their best to brighten the view when

you hit the DOF button. There brightening may be enough to

be fully normal, or fall short of normal but still a usable level.

  

Other than these tricks, you could retreat to shooting film ....

   

Or maybe there is one more way. Just take the shot and then

check the playback. Obviously some situations will not lend

themselves to a shoot-check-shoot method, but I assure you

it's the historically normal method. We used Polaroid film to

for the "check" step, which meant we produced a lotta toxic

litter, and meant using an expensive camera that offered a

Polaroid film back. 

  

Charge your batteries and count your blessings. 

  

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[iul]

rampant,

 

I fully understand your problem. I like to use fast lenses for portrait on the A7. Combined with the flashes, I use a strong ND filter to allow the aperture to be fully open for shallow DOF.

 

The EVF gets very, very dark - it would be nice to compensate for that. We should ask Sony for a firmware solution ....

 

My workaround: changing shutter time to 1/10 second to get a bright EVF picture for adjustments and changing it to 1/250 flash syncro time  in the last moment

[Golem]

rampant,

 

I fully understand your problem. I like to use fast lenses for portrait on the A7. Combined with the flashes, I use a strong ND filter to allow the aperture to be fully open for shallow DOF.

 

The EVF gets very, very dark - it would be nice to compensate for that. We should ask Sony for a firmware solution ....

 

My workaround: changing shutter time to 1/10 second to get a bright EVF picture for adjustments and changing it to 1/250 flash syncro time  in the last moment

   

Since you are shooting wide open, why not cancel the image effect

view of the live view system. Your actual DOF is the same as the

EVF view whether the image effect is on or off. But when it's off the  

camera will do it's best to crank the viewing brightness up to normal  

or close to normal. It doesn't darken for high shutter speeds. It only

darkens below normal if the light reaching the sensor is very dim,

such as from a manual or adapted lens at small apertures, or from

using a really dark filter, or acoarst if ambient lighting is really dim.

   

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[Austerror]

I think that is what modelling lights are for?

[Golem]

I think that is what modelling lights are for?

 

Might help a little bit, but thaz not what they're for,

so therefor they're sometimes not especially bright. 

 

Main intent of modeling lights is for direct eyeball

viewing of lighting effects. If they were bright enuf

to provide a comfortable live view at high ISO with

the image effect view NOT canceled, they'd pretty

much be equal to quartz iodine lamps, which were  

used instead of flash as the only light source. With  

lighting of that power, one could [and did] visually

check DOF at f/32 directly on the ground glass of

a view camera. 

 

The OP is not about viewing at f/32, but the digital

camera reacts to ISO speed, unlike a view camera

whose viewing screen "doesn't care" what ISO the

film speed will be. So, "same-same, only different".

  

   

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