I tried a mirrorless. Have you?

Mark Ransom wrote:

Roland Karlsson wrote:

The manual discussion started when I asked what en EVF really do. Something I cannot find in manuals. I am totally serious. It do not tell. You just have to assume it do somethin sensible.

Some people say that with an EVF you can see the the picture as it is recorded.

Then I ask: can you?

So, if I set the camera on 5 stops under exposure, then the EVF is black? Is that so? Maybe it is, the manual do not tell.

I agree, that's one thing that is hard to know. And the answer will be inconsistent from camera to camera.

I found from experience that the Panasonic GX85 does not show accurate exposure in the viewfinder. Changing the exposure dramatically makes no difference in the viewfinder. I believe the manual mentions it, because this surprised me so much I thought it must be a bad setting or camera flaw until I discovered it was supposed to be that way.

I know that the Olympus E-M5 II does show accurate exposure because I experienced it just today. I tried to adapt one of my K-mount lenses to it, but the lens didn't have an aperture ring so it defaulted to fully stopped down. I knew immediately because the viewfinder was dark from underexposure.

Exactly!

And as I wrote above, I can imagine three possible ways the EVF may work.

• Optimize being a useful finder
• Simulate an OVF
• Show how the image is going to be exposed