I went to shoot this week with my Z8 and a flash on a bracket with ttl cord. It was indoor in a dark room at f8 at 1/250th of a second at iso 3200 or 6400 and when I looked through the electronic viewfinder. the image was very dark - it was although I had pressed a depth of field preview button and the aperture stopped down to f8. I didn't intentionally change any of the "normal" settings that I shoot with. I'm new to the Z8 and haven't shot many indoor scenes, but I have never had the viewfinder darken so much. Any idea what I actually set to get this stopped down view?
Need some help with Z8 flash photography
- Thread starter RickW
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If you remove the flash cord do you see anything different?
Sounds to me that in a dark room with the camera set to manual exposure mode, 1/250" f/8 and even ISO 6400 (fixed ISO) the image would likely be very dark and under exposed which if you're doing total flash photography and don't want much if any exposure from ambient light sounds correct.
FWIW, it's daylight out but I'm indoors and just set my Z8 to 1/250", f/8, ISO 6400 in full manual mode and sure enough the shot is quite underexposed with the histogram bunched up to the left. That just means the ambient light is quite underexposed and won't contribute as much to the final exposure as the TTL flash once it fires.
If you want to keep the ambient light underexposed so you can use the flash for total lighting but need a brighter viewfinder for focusing or composing there are several menu settings such as Viewfinder Brightness in the setup menu that can be used to brighten the viewfinder without changing the ambient exposure.
John Navitsky
Well-known member
i assume you had the flash enabled? also note there is a setting in the camera for flash speed. you need to set it to 1/250s if you want flash to work at 1/250s
John Navitsky
Well-known member
any shutter speed set higher than what is set here (other than the ones noted "auto FP") basically means you can't use flash. the ones noted with "auto FP" means they are compatible with high speed sync.
i don't remember where this normally is in the menu, but i added flash control to my imenu so you can pull it up and turn flash on and off.
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i don't remember where this normally is in the menu, but i added flash control to my imenu so you can pull it up and turn flash on and off.
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.
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Thanks for the replies, but managed to figure it out. The z8 defaults to "exposure simulation" for viewfinder. As I described, it is similar to the old "depth of field preview" button on early slr's/dslr's with optical viewfinders. There is a control in menu D8 that toggles the stopping down in the viewfinder. I can understand why Nikon defaults to exposure simulation since one of the main advantages of the EVF is the ability to make exposure changes on the fly with the results being immediately seen in the evf.
In fact the exposure simulation mode is what I would normally use unless I was using flash in dark environment, so I will simply program a custom button to toggle quickly between on and off.
In fact the exposure simulation mode is what I would normally use unless I was using flash in dark environment, so I will simply program a custom button to toggle quickly between on and off.
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There is a setting VIEW MODE (PHOTO LV), on the Z9, it is D10. I think on the Z8 it is D9. The options are SHOW EFFECT OF SETTINGS and ADJUST FOR EASE OF VIEWING. Select SHOW EFFECT OF SETTINGS, then right press on the multi-selector giving new options - ALWAYS or ONLY WHEN FLASH IS NOT USED. Select ONLY WHEN FLASH IS NOT USED. This should fix the dark display problem.
I hope this helps. ...Bill
I hope this helps. ...Bill
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