Loss of liveview in manual mode and long exposure

[JScherer75]

Hi guys! I can’t figure out what to search to try and get an answer for this, but I am renting an S1R, the last in my big mirrorless trying spree to try and find a new camera and to my surprise tonight for the first time I got to one of my favorite spots to shoot long exposure on a lake and I noticed when I switched to manual mode I seemingly lost my live picture of what I was looking at? I’ve really looked through the settings and I know I have ‘Constant Preview’ on and it works in manual mode above about 1/4 of a second. Is there a way to get a live picture back of what I’m looking at? Or is it stuck in kind of a slideshow setting showing me a frozen version of my screen when I half press the shutter or hold the AF on button? My confusion only worsens when I do get a live preview and a moving image when the camera is in aperture priority all the way to 60” exposure.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I am very new to this system and it truly has been my favorite to use, ergonomics, menus, beautiful screens, but I just feel unfortunately it’s falling a little short of the competition image quality wise, especially pushing higher ISO’s (which I know isn’t the best idea with so many MPs but my D850, or a Z7 or A7RIV does better) those other cameras have handling aspects that bother me but I love the photos that come out of the camera, I don’t feel that with the S1R, I just love using it, but I wish I could get Sony AF and IQ with a body/menus like the S1R.

 

[AdkLooch]

Hi guys! I can’t figure out what to search to try and get an answer for this, but I am renting an S1R, the last in my big mirrorless trying spree to try and find a new camera and to my surprise tonight for the first time I got to one of my favorite spots to shoot long exposure on a lake and I noticed when I switched to manual mode I seemingly lost my live picture of what I was looking at? I’ve really looked through the settings and I know I have ‘Constant Preview’ on and it works in manual mode above about 1/4 of a second. Is there a way to get a live picture back of what I’m looking at? Or is it stuck in kind of a slideshow setting showing me a frozen version of my screen when I half press the shutter or hold the AF on button? My confusion only worsens when I do get a live preview and a moving image when the camera is in aperture priority all the way to 60” exposure.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I am very new to this system and it truly has been my favorite to use, ergonomics, menus, beautiful screens, but I just feel unfortunately it’s falling a little short of the competition image quality wise, especially pushing higher ISO’s (which I know isn’t the best idea with so many MPs but my D850, or a Z7 or A7RIV does better) those other cameras have handling aspects that bother me but I love the photos that come out of the camera, I don’t feel that with the S1R, I just love using it, but I wish I could get Sony AF and IQ with a body/menus like the S1R.

If I understand your question correctly, constant preview is exactly that - it constantly refreshes the live view LCD/EVF with the exposure you have set. It is working below 1/4 second as well, it's just refreshing fast enough (because the shutter speed is fast) that you aren't noticing the lag on the LCD. So, if your shutter speed is set to 10 seconds, it will expose the scene for 10 seconds and render the output to LCD/EVF and will continue to so every 10 seconds giving the slideshow effect you described. It is limiting and a fairly significant drawback for landscape use.

I'm hoping for a firmware update that will implement more of a Canon style exposure simulation that allows DOF preview at the same time. Canon also allows exposure simulation with DOF preview to remain active when Live View is zoomed in which the S1R does not - another disappointment. Constant Preview is clever but isn't that great for landscape work in low light situations.

 

[flbdig]

Constant Preview works up to I think 5 stops underexposed. I

would just Turn Off Constant Preview and then Turn On Love View Boost, which does not work when CP is on.

 

[flbdig]

Also keep in mind that Constant Preview is also going to show the Aperture effects and the Shutter Speed effects.

 

[JScherer75]

This is, to be honest, a disappointment. A lot to like with this camera, but a lot that I would consider a dealbreaker that just effect my everyday use too much. Thanks for the information.

 

[georgehudetz]

This is, to be honest, a disappointment. A lot to like with this camera, but a lot that I would consider a dealbreaker that just effect my everyday use too much. Thanks for the information.

As somebody who came from Fuji X to an S1R I agree - at least about the disappointment. We need a preview mode that shows the relative exposure with a "normal" frame rate, independent of the shutter time. It's very inconvenient to wait 60 seconds (worst-case scenario) for a preview every time the aperture, ISO, etc is adjusted. Fuji figured out a way to do it, and apparently Canon as well. Hopefully this gets fixed in a firmware update.

--
http://georgehudetzphotography.smugmug.com/
My Flikr stream: http://flic.kr/ps/Ay8ka

 

[flbdig]

This is, to be honest, a disappointment. A lot to like with this camera, but a lot that I would consider a dealbreaker that just effect my everyday use too much. Thanks for the information.

I honestly don't know what you mean by disappointing. Maybe I don't understand what you are asking.

The viewfinder on both of my S1R's show me exactly what I am setting my exposure to. To me that's perfect. It's Wysiwyg. That's why I love the Constant Preview.

If I am setting a long exposure like 30 seconds or I'm shooting when it's not enough light to really see I just turn Off the Constant Preview and Turn on Live View Boost which brightens up the VF.

I have zero issues setting or seeing the exposures that I need. I don't use Noise Reduction so if I want to Play Back any image it instantly shows up.

 

[flbdig]

This is, to be honest, a disappointment. A lot to like with this camera, but a lot that I would consider a dealbreaker that just effect my everyday use too much. Thanks for the information.

As somebody who came from Fuji X to an S1R I agree - at least about the disappointment. We need a preview mode that shows the relative exposure with a "normal" frame rate, independent of the shutter time. It's very inconvenient to wait 60 seconds (worst-case scenario) for a preview every time the aperture, ISO, etc is adjusted. Fuji figured out a way to do it, and apparently Canon as well. Hopefully this gets fixed in a firmware update.

I have Never waited 60 seconds for a preview. In fact, the Preview is instant, if you have fast cards.

The only times in the past I had to wait is when I shot a burst of 5 fps and had both cards accepting raws. I had to wait for the Raw files to write to SD card. To eliminate that, I use a faster SD card and I send Jpegs to it. Now I never wait.

I use Manual mode all of the time at weddings and I always see what I'm going to get

 

[georgehudetz]

This is, to be honest, a disappointment. A lot to like with this camera, but a lot that I would consider a dealbreaker that just effect my everyday use too much. Thanks for the information.

As somebody who came from Fuji X to an S1R I agree - at least about the disappointment. We need a preview mode that shows the relative exposure with a "normal" frame rate, independent of the shutter time. It's very inconvenient to wait 60 seconds (worst-case scenario) for a preview every time the aperture, ISO, etc is adjusted. Fuji figured out a way to do it, and apparently Canon as well. Hopefully this gets fixed in a firmware update.

I have Never waited 60 seconds for a preview. In fact, the Preview is instant, if you have fast cards.

The only times in the past I had to wait is when I shot a burst of 5 fps and had both cards accepting raws. I had to wait for the Raw files to write to SD card. To eliminate that, I use a faster SD card and I send Jpegs to it. Now I never wait.

I use Manual mode all of the time at weddings and I always see what I'm going to get

Yes but you (probably?) do not use long exposure in a wedding.

Set your camera to manual mode, with a SS something like 5 seconds, with Constant preview ON, and watch the rear display screen as you move the camera around. It will only update every 5 seconds. Now try it with 30 seconds. Try 60. It has nothing to do with card speed.

--
http://georgehudetzphotography.smugmug.com/
My Flikr stream: http://flic.kr/ps/Ay8ka

 

[flbdig]

This is, to be honest, a disappointment. A lot to like with this camera, but a lot that I would consider a dealbreaker that just effect my everyday use too much. Thanks for the information.

As somebody who came from Fuji X to an S1R I agree - at least about the disappointment. We need a preview mode that shows the relative exposure with a "normal" frame rate, independent of the shutter time. It's very inconvenient to wait 60 seconds (worst-case scenario) for a preview every time the aperture, ISO, etc is adjusted. Fuji figured out a way to do it, and apparently Canon as well. Hopefully this gets fixed in a firmware update.

I have Never waited 60 seconds for a preview. In fact, the Preview is instant, if you have fast cards.

The only times in the past I had to wait is when I shot a burst of 5 fps and had both cards accepting raws. I had to wait for the Raw files to write to SD card. To eliminate that, I use a faster SD card and I send Jpegs to it. Now I never wait.

I use Manual mode all of the time at weddings and I always see what I'm going to get

Yes but you (probably?) do not use long exposure in a wedding.

Set your camera to manual mode, with a SS something like 5 seconds, with Constant preview ON, and watch the rear display screen as you move the camera around. It will only update every 5 seconds. Now try it with 30 seconds. Try 60. It has nothing to do with card speed.

 

[georgehudetz]

This is, to be honest, a disappointment. A lot to like with this camera, but a lot that I would consider a dealbreaker that just effect my everyday use too much. Thanks for the information.

As somebody who came from Fuji X to an S1R I agree - at least about the disappointment. We need a preview mode that shows the relative exposure with a "normal" frame rate, independent of the shutter time. It's very inconvenient to wait 60 seconds (worst-case scenario) for a preview every time the aperture, ISO, etc is adjusted. Fuji figured out a way to do it, and apparently Canon as well. Hopefully this gets fixed in a firmware update.

I have Never waited 60 seconds for a preview. In fact, the Preview is instant, if you have fast cards.

The only times in the past I had to wait is when I shot a burst of 5 fps and had both cards accepting raws. I had to wait for the Raw files to write to SD card. To eliminate that, I use a faster SD card and I send Jpegs to it. Now I never wait.

I use Manual mode all of the time at weddings and I always see what I'm going to get

Yes but you (probably?) do not use long exposure in a wedding.

Set your camera to manual mode, with a SS something like 5 seconds, with Constant preview ON, and watch the rear display screen as you move the camera around. It will only update every 5 seconds. Now try it with 30 seconds. Try 60. It has nothing to do with card speed.

Let me see if we can troubleshoot this together.

The Easy solution is that no matter what amount of Time you set the Shutter for, when it freezes half press the Shutter or in my case I use Back Button focus so I just touch the Focus button and the Live View IMMEDIATELY refreshes so that you can view the scene

No waiting. I think that Eliminates the concern.

It does not. Go back and study the problem statement again. I'm sure you will figure it out.

 

[flbdig]

This is, to be honest, a disappointment. A lot to like with this camera, but a lot that I would consider a dealbreaker that just effect my everyday use too much. Thanks for the information.

As somebody who came from Fuji X to an S1R I agree - at least about the disappointment. We need a preview mode that shows the relative exposure with a "normal" frame rate, independent of the shutter time. It's very inconvenient to wait 60 seconds (worst-case scenario) for a preview every time the aperture, ISO, etc is adjusted. Fuji figured out a way to do it, and apparently Canon as well. Hopefully this gets fixed in a firmware update.

I have Never waited 60 seconds for a preview. In fact, the Preview is instant, if you have fast cards.

The only times in the past I had to wait is when I shot a burst of 5 fps and had both cards accepting raws. I had to wait for the Raw files to write to SD card. To eliminate that, I use a faster SD card and I send Jpegs to it. Now I never wait.

I use Manual mode all of the time at weddings and I always see what I'm going to get

Yes but you (probably?) do not use long exposure in a wedding.

Set your camera to manual mode, with a SS something like 5 seconds, with Constant preview ON, and watch the rear display screen as you move the camera around. It will only update every 5 seconds. Now try it with 30 seconds. Try 60. It has nothing to do with card speed.

Let me see if we can troubleshoot this together.

The Easy solution is that no matter what amount of Time you set the Shutter for, when it freezes half press the Shutter or in my case I use Back Button focus so I just touch the Focus button and the Live View IMMEDIATELY refreshes so that you can view the scene

No waiting. I think that Eliminates the concern.

It does not. Go back and study the problem statement again. I'm sure you will figure it out.

 

[JScherer75]

I did not mean to start any kind of argument I am just confused by how no one sees this. For some reason it does not occur in Aperture priority, but when I try to do long exposures in manual mode and I want to see on my screen what the photo is going to look like I lose an active/moving picture and instead I get what I am going to call a ‘slide-show’ effect. Now on here I am seeing that I am being told to turn off constant preview to get the moving picture back, but that completely defeats what I am trying to get. No constant preview means I’m getting an EVF image of what I am looking at with no exposure settings previewed (like a DSLR) and it seems there’s no way like I have used on Sony, Fujifilm, or Nikon mirrorless that I can get an exposure preview in manual mode in long exposure, instead the Panasonic only gives me the slowed down slide show style photos.

Here’s a video of what I wanted to show. You can see in live view boost its showing me a constant moving picture of what I am looking at, but right there on the screen it’s warning me its underexposed and there’s nothing showing that on the screen except the flashing red aperture and shutter speed.

 

[georgehudetz]

I did not mean to start any kind of argument I am just confused by how no one sees this. For some reason it does not occur in Aperture priority, but when I try to do long exposures in manual mode and I want to see on my screen what the photo is going to look like I lose an active/moving picture and instead I get what I am going to call a ‘slide-show’ effect. Now on here I am seeing that I am being told to turn off constant preview to get the moving picture back, but that completely defeats what I am trying to get. No constant preview means I’m getting an EVF image of what I am looking at with no exposure settings previewed (like a DSLR) and it seems there’s no way like I have used on Sony, Fujifilm, or Nikon mirrorless that I can get an exposure preview in manual mode in long exposure, instead the Panasonic only gives me the slowed down slide show style photos.

Here’s a video of what I wanted to show. You can see in live view boost its showing me a constant moving picture of what I am looking at, but right there on the screen it’s warning me its underexposed and there’s nothing showing that on the screen except the flashing red aperture and shutter speed.

Yes I see the problem too. Sorry about the argument - it was silly.

Perhaps there is a setting to get a long-exposure preview while keep the moving picture, but I have not seen it yet. I'll keep looking.

--
http://georgehudetzphotography.smugmug.com/
My Flikr stream: http://flic.kr/ps/Ay8ka

 

[georgehudetz]

I did not mean to start any kind of argument I am just confused by how no one sees this. For some reason it does not occur in Aperture priority, but when I try to do long exposures in manual mode and I want to see on my screen what the photo is going to look like I lose an active/moving picture and instead I get what I am going to call a ‘slide-show’ effect. Now on here I am seeing that I am being told to turn off constant preview to get the moving picture back, but that completely defeats what I am trying to get. No constant preview means I’m getting an EVF image of what I am looking at with no exposure settings previewed (like a DSLR) and it seems there’s no way like I have used on Sony, Fujifilm, or Nikon mirrorless that I can get an exposure preview in manual mode in long exposure, instead the Panasonic only gives me the slowed down slide show style photos.

Here’s a video of what I wanted to show. You can see in live view boost its showing me a constant moving picture of what I am looking at, but right there on the screen it’s warning me its underexposed and there’s nothing showing that on the screen except the flashing red aperture and shutter speed.

Yes I see the problem too. Sorry about the argument - it was silly.

Perhaps there is a setting to get a long-exposure preview while keep the moving picture, but I have not seen it yet. I'll keep looking.

So, I tried enabling the histogram. It too behaves in the same way - in Aperture priority, it responds in real-time, even if the resulting exposure is long, such as 5 seconds. But in Manual mode, with Constant Preview = OFF, it does not update, and gives you a graph of the default view that you see in the preview. With CP = ON, it does update, but takes however many seconds your shutter is set at to show the exposure of the shot (just like the preview).

It is very frustrating. Hopefully somebody knows of a setting to get the behavior that seems common to other camera manufacturers. Otherwise, it goes in the firmware wishlist.

 

[flbdig]

Let me ask a Silly question. Why don't you just take the picture?

Put the time that you want and just click! Then see if it lokms like what you want.

A Long exposure is a Guess, no matter what camera you use, except Olympus which has Live Composites, but even Live Composites only shows the Development of the image.

Now if After taking the image there's a problem, change and repeat.

 

[flbdig]

The more I think about it, I don't know of Any camera film, dslr or ml that shows a True representation of what a 20, 30 second or Minutes long exposures look like Before the image is taken.

Do you by chance know of a camera that can do what you are trying to get the Panasonic to do?

 

[JScherer75]

The more I think about it, I don't know of Any camera film, dslr or ml that shows a True representation of what a 20, 30 second or Minutes long exposures look like Before the image is taken.

Do you by chance know of a camera that can do what you are trying to get the Panasonic to do?

 

[georgehudetz]

Let me ask a Silly question. Why don't you just take the picture?

Put the time that you want and just click! Then see if it lokms like what you want.

A Long exposure is a Guess, no matter what camera you use, except Olympus which has Live Composites, but even Live Composites only shows the Development of the image.

Now if After taking the image there's a problem, change and repeat.

So you finally figured out what we are talking about. Excellent.

There are very good reasons to give the photographer a realistic preview of the exposure in real-time. This was an innovation first on DSLRs using "live" view and then made standard operating procedure by mirrorless bodies. Millions of photographers all over the world rely on it on a daily basis, and it is just as useful for long exposures as it is for shorter exposures.

And in fact, plenty of other bodies give realistic exposure predictions for long exposures. My Fuji X-H1 manages it just fine. And, in fact, so do the Panasonic S bodies - at least while in aperture priority mode. Why they don't do this in manual mode is a bit of a mystery - or at least a simple oversight.

I will say though that the Constant Preview functionality is pretty cool - I certainly can see using it for astro, where the "simulated" preview (such as used in Fuji bodies) can get noisy and can swamp out the star field. But I see no reason to rely on this for ALL long exposure photography.

 

[flbdig]

Let me ask a Silly question. Why don't you just take the picture?

Put the time that you want and just click! Then see if it lokms like what you want.

A Long exposure is a Guess, no matter what camera you use, except Olympus which has Live Composites, but even Live Composites only shows the Development of the image.

Now if After taking the image there's a problem, change and repeat.

So you finally figured out what we are talking about. Excellent.

There are very good reasons to give the photographer a realistic preview of the exposure in real-time. This was an innovation first on DSLRs using "live" view and then made standard operating procedure by mirrorless bodies. Millions of photographers all over the world rely on it on a daily basis, and it is just as useful for long exposures as it is for shorter exposures.

And in fact, plenty of other bodies give realistic exposure predictions for long exposures. My Fuji X-H1 manages it just fine. And, in fact, so do the Panasonic S bodies - at least while in aperture priority mode. Why they don't do this in manual mode is a bit of a mystery - or at least a simple oversight.

I will say though that the Constant Preview functionality is pretty cool - I certainly can see using it for astro, where the "simulated" preview (such as used in Fuji bodies) can get noisy and can swamp out the star field. But I see no reason to rely on this for ALL long exposure photography.