Nikon Live View ... Question

bbg404

bbg404

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Ben
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Evening all this has never really been an issue for me as I've never noticed until tonight! Any way I've been out taking some landscapes with my Nikon D5200 and a friend with a Canon 60d

What I've noticed tonight on his live view is if he adjusts the shutter speed the live view adjusts accordingly where as my live view doesn't ...

Do I need to enable this or is this a Canon is better at that scenario .... I mean it's not a huge problem but it is extremely handy

Thanks
 
Nikon's live view implementation sucks.

Plus... do not meter while in live view... it's using a completely different, and inferior metering system. Use live view for focus checking, switch off your lens's AF, focus manually with live view zoomed in.. then switch back to your viewfinder to meter accurately.
 
Yeah.. just switch off live view once you've focused manually and put your eye to the viewfinder to meter.

Live view is really a compromise. AF in live view is slow and practically useless, and metering is far less accurate. The only real use for live view is when you can't get your eye to the viewfinder, or for accurate manual focusing. Other than that... just don't use it... it's a pretty pointless gimmick.

Oh.. obviously it's essential for video though :)
 
No.. the image through the viewfinder will not darken. Why do you want it to darken? The viewfinder always remains at full brightness so you can see what you're doing.
 
Just as I was watching him use his live view to frame the shot then say for example adjusted shutter speed to suit the sky then readjusted for foreground so then the 2 images can be merged

Just seemed so much easier to see it live as it was changing rather than taking a test image and thinking is that dark enough or to light
 
You shouldn't really be making exposure judgements based on the image on the preview screen anyway.. it's not accurate. Why not just learn how to meter, and be able to predict how much over/under exposure you require from experience? Why use a D5200 in live view anyway? Once in live view, you're no longer using the camera's 39 point AF (which is one of it's best features, as it's the same AF system from the D7000 and is quite good) and instead will be relying on a contrast based system and not the much superior phase detection system. It will also not be using the more sophisticated 2016 pixel metering system also used in the D7000 when in Live view.

Nor should you really be taking images and then looking at them on the screen to see if they're OK or not... unless you're looking at the histogram. Learning how your gear works, and being able to visualise what 1 stop under, or 2 stops under looks like in your mind's eye is an even faster way of working! If you're to lazy to learn, then why not just use auto bracket? Set it to take a set of images as many stops under or over as you want, and just let it rattle the frames off at it's 3frames per second.. that's even faster.

In short though, to answer your question, no, you can not adjust aperture in live view on a D5200 and shutter speed has no effect on the live view preview image.
 
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Thanks for the detailed response think ill take note and stop being lazy! This is by far the best kit I've had and really like it! Fully understand it's not the way to go it's probably just lazyness

This ill start to read up and take note on metering

Thanks again
 
Auto bracket is way faster, and will give you a set of images with exposures set apart ( + and -) that you decide upon. That way, you don't have to rely on Live View and gimp your camera's capabilities. Live view is really only useful for when you can't get your eye to the viewfinder, or as I said earlier, really critical manual focusing. The only reason it's sold as a feature on consumer SLRs is because most people who buy them only use them the same way they'd use a point and shoot anyway. If you're serious... just forget live view exists.. unless you actually need to use it.
 
bbg404 said:
Just as I was watching him use his live view to frame the shot then say for example adjusted shutter speed to suit the sky then readjusted for foreground so then the 2 images can be merged

Just seemed so much easier to see it live as it was changing rather than taking a test image and thinking is that dark enough or to light
Click to expand...

Yes with Canon you can do this and see the changes. I use it pretty much all of the time for landscapes along with live histogram.
I don't think Nikon have the same system though.

Here's an explanation of how it works for Canon
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/04/24/master-live-view-on-your-canon-dslr/
 
canon_togger said:
Yes with Canon you can do this and see the changes. I use it pretty much all of the time for landscapes along with live histogram.
I don't think Nikon have the same system though.

Here's an explanation of how it works for Canon
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/04/24/master-live-view-on-your-canon-dslr/
Click to expand...

Nikon D800 will give you histogram preview in live view and the screen darkens/brightens with the shutter wheel being moved and the histogram changes. Its great for landscapes.
 
canon_togger said:
Yes with Canon you can do this and see the changes. I use it pretty much all of the time for landscapes along with live histogram.
I don't think Nikon have the same system though.

Here's an explanation of how it works for Canon
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/04/24/master-live-view-on-your-canon-dslr/
Click to expand...

Nikon can do it... just not HIS Nikon. I can do all of that with my D800E. There's still no point using live view for metering though, as you're metering with the mirror up and not taking advantage of the more sophisticated metering available when the mirror is down. It can be used to give a visual indication of what, for instance, -1 stop actually looks like, but I fail to see why anyone would buy cameras with such sophisticated meters, and then use it in live view that ignores that meter.

If you're going to do this.. then do it properly and just use a decent incident meter anyway.
 
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It just uses different metering and AF systems when the mirror is up, but by the very nature of doing this (not being able to have anything in the pathway of the focused image between the lens and sensor for obvious reasons) it has to rely on metering the amount of light reflecting back off the sensor, which is a far less accurate way of metering. You also lose the ability to spot meter, or take full advantage of the RGB matrix metering.
 
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