40D Live View

[carrie_zylka]

I'd love to get some opinions on the "Live View" feature for the Canon 40D.

I can't imagine using it very often but I was curious to know if anyone though

this is a useful feature and if so in what situations?

[steve torelli]

Portraits. It could help with getting the eyes in focus while shooting at a large aperture. Maybe macro work. I've only played around with it, haven't really used it yet. Good luck.

[pascalharvey.com]

I use it for landscape photography, with the 5/10x zoom its wonderful for ultra fine focus adjustment.

[john_barrett1]

I have used live view in a few situations. Mainly because I was lazy. If I am sitting around waiting for some action, I'll have live view up rather than putting my eye to the eye-piece for a long period of time, I look away or at the screen and snap when I see the shot I want. I also notice I do this for macro photography in windy situations. I was at a arboretum yesterday and it was a bit windy. so I set up my shot with the view finder then clicked on live view and fired away when the flowers swayed in my direction. It worked well. Truthfully, if it wasn't there I wouldn't miss it, it's fun to play with every so often.

[chrisjb]

Haven`t even put it on yet, mainly do portrait work but I can`t see advantage in the studio and field the VF is fine, but macro and product can see a great help. I got the 40d for that rear LCD, wow what a relief after 3yr o 20d:)

[zml]

LV can display grided screen which is very helpful in architecture and as an aid in composition of the frame (you can also change the focusing screen to grid and see the grid in the VF.)<br>

If you need/want to focus manually LV (with 5x or 10x magnification) is way more precise than through the VF. This is great for static objects, macro, while using perspective correction lenses, and in low light, when AF quits working.<br> As an aside, I don't miss full time AF in LV as much as an articulated LCD screen.

[scott bean]

When I first got my 40D the live view was one feature I thought I might never use. I'm a landscape photographer so I didn't see any use for it except to maybe check focus. However, after reading an article by Rob Sheppard (I believe, maybe it was somebody else) about using the large LCD's on modern digital cameras to compose your scene, I decided to give it a try. Now I use it all the time. I purchased a cheap wireless remote to trigger my camera and now I can step back some from the camera and compose my picture by looking at the back of the camera and the scene at the same time (if that makes sense). I love the grid on the live view as well I'm also using it a lot for macro photography. Of all the reasons I upgraded to the 40D, the live view was on the bottom of my list...now I'm hooked on it.

[PuppyDigs]

LV is great for testing battery longevity. I don't think I could last anymore than an hour or so

of LV shooting. Nice for overhead shots in crowds. I guess "large LCD's on modern digital

cameras" is subjective. The 3 inch LCD view strikes me as really tiny at normal viewing

distance (18 inches). Looking through the VF is much brighter, clearer and larger to my eyes.

[myrjola]

One additional usage for Live View is also astrophotography; while the AF on the modern EOSes is good enough to focus on bright stars, additional manual tweaking can usually improve results further still. This is rather desperate through the viewfinder, although something like a Hartmann mask may help. The other option is to take shots, zoom in at the result in viewing mode and evaluate whether focus improved or not, repeating this as long as necessary. Compared to this, using Live View with magnification is quicker and at least as accurate.

[mark u]

...indeed, the first Canon DSLR with live view was the astro-special 20Da - precisely to allow accurate focus.

[colinsouthern]

It's excellent for manual focus and for precicely positioning GND filters.

[steve_byland]

Carrie

 

There are a couple of situations where I find LV extremely useful. The first is when I stack two teleconverters and have to manually focus on a distant object. It is much more accurate than my old eyes through the viewfinder (especially if you increase the size of the view on the screen). In combination with this, I find that it is a better option than mirror-lockup when you want to reduce vibration as you can take multiple shot bursts using a remote shutter release (which you can't do as well with the mirror lock-up). This is very handy for wildlife photography when you want to have better control over getting an animal or bird in an action situation. I initially thought I would never use this feature (and didn't for the first couple of months that I owned the camera), but now I use it all the time.

[jay a. frew]

Hello Carrie:

 

When I bought the 40D, Live View was not on my list of "must-haves", and, it was one of the last features I tried-out.

 

Now, I almost always use Live View when shooting a static subject from a tripod:

 

- close-ups

 

- landscapes

 

- portraits

 

- still life

 

- whatever!

 

As Colin mentioned, it is GREAT when using a Grad ND filtre and I also find it handy when using a polarizer.

 

I find it to be a great composition and focusing aid. I like the "exposure simulation" feature. I don't like AF in Live View (it works but it is klugey) but I normally use MF when I shoot from a tripod anyway.

 

Live View does eat power though, so, I just make sure I have plenty of spare batteries. If I was doing this for money, in a studio, I would get the AC adapter.

 

For outdoors, in the bright sun, I use a piece of black cloth to cover my head and camera (not sure how comfortable that will be later in the summer).

 

It works well with the 40D "Info View" feature. In Info View, the exposure settings, modes, WB, ISO etc can be displayed in large text on the 3" LCD. It is easy and quick to switch from Live View to Info View and this makes it easier for me to adjust everything.

 

The next piece of the puzzle will be the articulating screen. This will make Live View mode useful from any angle and might even drive me to a new camera body.

 

Cheers! Jay

[chrisjb]

`For outdoors, in the bright sun, I use a piece of black cloth to cover my head and camera `

 

Aha, I wondered if we were heading back to ol 5X4 days,:)

[jimstrutz]

I mostly use it for getting a higher or a lower view while still seeing the camera's framing. Yesterday I held camera and fisheye over a bride & groom's head while they were dancing. Interesting shot. I also got a decent one from the floor a few seconds later. Afterwards we did a modified "trash the dress" scene of her sitting in the 2 feet of freshly fallen snow we got Friday. Again, I held the 40D with fisheye out over her nose while she stared dreamily into the lens, but I'm gonna have to paint my feet out of that one.

 

It's useful for me.