Focusing Sony a6400 in low light/night photography

[GFN58]

Hi there!

I'll start of by saying that I've been searching for an answer to this question but haven't found anything that address this specific issue. This is for a friend of mine which have a a6400.

Soo, me and this friend of mine which owns a a6400 (I use an xt2) been out photographing night landscape and astro/star photographing a couple times.

Now to the issue. When setting the focus (manualy of course) he feels that it's almost impossible to see enough details(to dark screen) to set focus easily. It is a major difference between his a6400 and my xt2 which almost sees in the dark(not really but compared).

I set my lens to the same aperture as him to 2.8. When setting the shutter speed, my camera keeps brighten up the image in the screen up to 13seconds where his camera don't go as far brightening image in the screen making it hard both composing the image as well setting focus.

We have checked the menus and brightening the screen and live view don't help much.

My question is, why is this? Is it software or hardware related? Is this something that is better in Sonys more expensive or pro cameras?

Hope I've made myself understood and thankful for answers.

 

[DutchMM]

My instant guess (I have a 6600, but common ancestry) is that he has the LiveView turned off. There is a setting to allow the display to show - or not to show - the impact of one's settings. When it is off, the display you see takes no account of exposure compensation, flash settings, etc. In the 6600, this setting is in camera 2, LiveView Display. I think it has always been called "Setting Effect" and is a boolean - either ON or OFF.

HTH

 

[Handsome90]

Hi there!

I'll start of by saying that I've been searching for an answer to this question but haven't found anything that address this specific issue. This is for a friend of mine which have a a6400.

Soo, me and this friend of mine which owns a a6400 (I use an xt2) been out photographing night landscape and astro/star photographing a couple times.

Now to the issue. When setting the focus (manualy of course) he feels that it's almost impossible to see enough details(to dark screen) to set focus easily. It is a major difference between his a6400 and my xt2 which almost sees in the dark(not really but compared).

I set my lens to the same aperture as him to 2.8. When setting the shutter speed, my camera keeps brighten up the image in the screen up to 13seconds where his camera don't go as far brightening image in the screen making it hard both composing the image as well setting focus.

We have checked the menus and brightening the screen and live view don't help much.

My question is, why is this? Is it software or hardware related? Is this something that is better in Sonys more expensive or pro cameras?

Hope I've made myself understood and thankful for answers.

I agree with DutchMM, it maybe the live view setting.

I have an older A6xxx series camera and at night, the EVF is bright enough to enable me to focus on the moon at night


From the manual

Link to the manual https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1810/v1/en/contents/TP0002241271.html?search=Live view

 

[Bender79ita]

We have checked the menus and brightening the screen and live view don't help much.

My question is, why is this? Is it software or hardware related? Is this something that is better in Sonys more expensive or pro cameras?

Hope I've made myself understood and thankful for answers.

I'll tell you how I do it. I set infinity focus on my manual focus only lenses during the day, using maximum magnification, and let it be so it's ready for the night.

Otherwise, set focus on a distant (infinite) building that's brigth enough to see clearly and that'll work on stars too.

There's a chance that live preview and overexposing (like, boost iso to 12800 or so while focusing) might also work, but the other two methods are more reliable.

On a side note, this is the reason why I like manual focus only lenses for tripod/night shooting.

 

[zackiedawg]

This is the menu item your friend needs to set. It's likely 'on' which is the default setting, as this is the 'what you see is what you get' most mirrorless shooters like as you can see white balance, exposure, DOF, etc all on the EVF or LCD. The one time that can be difficult is when shooting at night for long exposures or when using flash, as the camera's settings might show everything too dark to see what's happening. Switching this Live View Setting Effect to OFF will mean the EVF/LCD will display the scene at maximum brightness and not show the applied aperture settings...this would be how your Fuji is set up or defaulted to.

Keep this setting handy, as your friend may prefer to have the simulated exposure view at all other times, where it is much more useful than a screen that stays the same brightness no matter what settings you have - but in night shooting, that might be the one time to turn off the simulation setting.

 

[GFN58]

Hi and thanks for the answer.

He had Live View turned on. Thats the thing. Where my camera went alot further along the exposure setting his camera stoped showing at about a few secons, making it harder to see for composition and setting sharpness.

Thanks again

 

[GFN58]

I know. Live view was turned on

 

[GFN58]

Thanks for the tip but I believe he knows all this stuff already. He does not have many "manual focus only lenses" and besides that he seldom have time during the day to do that.

We know about setting to infinity and all that. But the question still remain, why is it that my camera is that much easier to focus and shows alot more in the dark making it easier to compose night time landscape photography.

To be clear, he definitely gets good pictures at night, sharp and good exposure. But when he checked out my setup he was baffled(right word?) how easy it was on my screen to see.

 

[Tanderson8]

I'm having the same problem and am searching for an answer. Were you able to get the problem resolved?