Who Switched the Lights out!

The Setting Effect on a Sony Alpha Mirrorless camera is a default setting and is designed to show the ‘effects’ of the exposure settings you have chosen in the camera. In this way the camera can show you a live view of what you are about to capture in the EVF or on the back of the LCD monitor. This Live View or ‘WYSIWYG’ – What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get view, is one of the great advantages of capturing images with a mirrorless camera. It will show you the depth of field at your chosen aperture and if your chosen camera settings will lead to under- or over-exposure.

When capturing images with a DSLR the ‘optical view’, from the optical viewfinder, is not what the camera records and this can lead the DSLR user often having to take a second image after chimping the first unsatisfactory attempt.

There are instances when the WYSIWYG view of a mirrorless camera is, however, NOT what you want to see, e.g. when you are shooting in a dark studio and using off-camera flash. The camera will sometimes preview the dark studio minus the flash lighting that will correctly expose the subject. In this situation if you do not adjust your Setting Effect option in the menu, then all you could see is darkness, which will make it difficult or impossible to frame or focus on your subject.
This is when you want your mirrorless camera to behave more like a DSLR and just show you a bright image in your viewfinder. This is when you want to go to the Live View Dis and switch the Setting Effect to OFF.

Note > If you are using a Sony Wireless Radio Commander or set the Shutter Speed to BULB this will automatically switch the Setting Effect OFF.

One of the creative topics of my one-on-one training sessions and workshops is how to use off-camera flash to create professional looking portraits.