Hello peoples! I recently acquired a Sony A6400. Now I didn’t get it for stills, I got it mainly to start practicing video as I’m majoring in film.
Video I haven’t messed around with it all that much, but I’m pretty pleased with the results so far.
Stills tho…… I’m super disappointed. I think it has to do with that it has an EVF. I get EVFs have a lot of advantages, but those come at the expense of the user experience.
I was shooting some landscape just now, and the flip up screen is cool and all, but I COULDNT SEE MY SCENE. Like I had no idea what was actually in my shadows, and it was not conducive for taking good pictures.
Eye af and all the info is cool, but idk… I just don’t like EVFS for stills.
The problem you are having is that the viewfinder/screen on mirrorless cameras generally shows you exactly what your photo will look like. If you have it set to expose for the sky then of course the shadows will be dark since that is what the photo will look like. Your eyes can see a lot more dynamic range than the sensor so of course an optical viewfinder will look better but it isn’t accurate. What I often do in high contrast situations is boost the exposure while I’m composing so I can see the shadow details and then drop the exposure to the correct settings before taking the photo.
D700 raw files were so good I literally just shot in matrix metering mode and just recovered whatever shadow detail I needed in post. There was rarely a time I needed to exposure comp.
Made composing really easy since the VF was crystal clear and I could trust my meter to get me good results setting me up for a post edit. I get that’s possible on a mirrorless cam but the difference is, there’s no OVF. Having to bump exposure to see my shadow detail is just so uncanny lol. But I guess I’ll get used to it.
Try turning DRO on. It won’t do anything to the RAW files but it will brighten up the shadows in the viewfinder a bit.