Advice needed on live view in screen/viewfinder for R5: Canon EOS R Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

Sb1202 wrote:

Hi folks,

I'm a long time dslr user and been used to the OVF for composing etc. I have a couple of sony a7iis and the liveview through the EVF is amazing - almost like an OVF. When I bought an Eos R recently, I was expecting the same but I've been hugely disappointed and frustrated by the EVF screen dimming when recomposing. i.e if I focus on a dim area in a landscape, then recompose to include more sky, the viewfinder dims way to dark. Same with panning widlife or sports and its making me miss shots I would otherwise have caught with the sony or dslr. I've tried every setting in the R to fix this but no joy.

I'm now thinking of getting an R5 but I need to know if this can be dialled out to behave more an ovf.Thanks

This sounds like normal behaviour if you are in one of the auto or semi-auto exposure modes. The camera is just adjusting exposure to compensate for bright areas entering the frame, and the EVF follows suit. The only 'problem' is that in very contrasty scenes, darker areas can become hard to see for composition because the EVF preview has limited dynamic range.

There are a number of workarounds/things which may help:-

1: adjust settings so that the preview image has less contrast - this could be picture style settings and/or auto lighting optimizer. These will affect JPEG output but not raw. I think their effects will show up in the EVF preview (haven't tried it though).

2: use centre-weighted metering rather than evaluative. Canon place a high degree of exposure emphasis on the area around the active AF point. If, when recomposing, your AF point goes over a bright area, exposure will change substantially. Centre-weighted metering is likely to result in milder changes to exposure.

3: set the shutter button to lock both AF and metering (I'm assuming you have the shutter button linked to AF). This will lock exposure when you set focus, and as you recompose, there will be no change in exposure. However, this may result in blown highlights.

4: use your exposure lock button (*) to lock exposure appropriately first, and then lock focus and re-compose. Generally, you should lock exposure so something a bit brighter than your 'dim area', so that you can both see to compose, but also don't blow your highlights.

5: first compose and set exposure correctly, either using exposure comp or manual mode. Then point down to your subject to set focus and finally recompose.

6: move your AF point to the right point in the frame rather than recomposing.

I think you should be able to find a way around your issue with some of the above.