Yesterday I had need of making a bunch of photos in an large area lit
only by some not very bright or numerous fluorescent lights. I figured
I'd need some flash assistance so took along a T-32 for the E-M5 and
another one mounted on a light stand with an optical trigger attached.
My task was to photograph a couple dozen people who were hulling
strawberries in preparation for the dessert following today's lunch at
the clubhouse. I had been there earlier to check the light and take
some shots of the setup before the people arrived. I had taken the
earlier shots without flash which was OK for longish exposures without
people present. But I knew it wasn't going to work with moving people
so brought along the two flashes for the later shots.
What I hadn't counted on was that, when I had the camera properly
adjusted for an exposure with non-TTL flash assist, the liveview
viewfinder would happily show me the under-exposed areas by coloring
them blue... basically the entire viewfinder. For whatever reason,
pressing the focus button causes the viewfinder to briefly illuminate to
a level bright enough to see where you're focusing but it's only for an
instant. What you can't see under the blue fog is the faces of the
people. You can't tell if you have their attention, are smiling,
frowning or anything else. The action of the viewfinder was a big
surprise and I had no idea how to brighten it short of setting an normal
exposure without flash which I couldn't do. So I worked my way through
it by chimping and taking some extra shots but knew I had to dig into
the E-M5 manual as soon as I got back home.
I was convinced there must be a menu setting to turn that blue fog off
and spent a long time looking through the manual for various terms I
thought might be related. But I was batting zero until I finally ran
across something outside the menu section referring to the info button.
It was only then that I remembered that the info button can march
through various displays... during liveview in the EVF. Of course a
Canon 5D can't do that as the info button changes only what you see
during image playback. Durn, one press of the info button and the blue
fog disappears. Imagine that. Now I know that I knew that a month ago
but had never used the capability that I can recall and had forgotten it
entirely. It also resolved some other mysteries I had about the
shooting info display.
But whilst looking through the menu structures under [gears->D] I did
discover: Live View Boost
If [On] is selected, priority will be given to making images
clearly visible; the effects [of] exposure compensation and other
settings will not be visible in the monitor.
It only mentions the monitor but I can attest that it also affects the
EVF if set. It's a very peculiar setting since it creates a bright
display with a well balanced histogram... that is totally independent of
any exposure settings on the camera. I can imagine having need of that
one day but it's fiddly diving deep into the menus to set or reset it.
Now I'll have to figure out how to create and store customized settings.
Just another thing I haven't done yet and an not used to.
Chuck Norcutt (no longer quite so befuddled)
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