Purchased the new release 50-D which will be my primary back-up to replace the 40-D and must say am very impressed with the live view feature.
Anyone a fan of the feature and or use it consistently whilst shooting.
I've only shot one wedding, but I used live view on my D300 and it was awesome! I'm pretty short and it allowed me to get the camera up high over my head for some great angles. I also brought along a small step ladder, and when I got on top of that and used live view, I was able to shoot from the height of the ceiling.
I occasionally use it on my 40D, never at a wedding, despite having used this camera all year. Great for astrophotography and focusing my telescope though.. indispensible, in fact.
on my 40d, I only use it when I place my camera on the floor of the aisle during the ceremony. Otherwise, for weddings, I don't think it's very efficient or practical...
I rarely use it on my 40D. Honestly, it's most useful for those touristy shots where you hand your camera to some poor schmuck with no experience so they can take a photo of you with the fam. Instead of trying to explain that they have to look through the viewfinder and push the button half way while lining up the little boxes on you and make sure they blink red and finally push the button all the way... Forget it, just flip it on liveview and prefocus; hand it to them and all they have to do is push the button. Easy.
The huge suck of liveview is how it sucks the batteries! *sound of a vacuum*
crx168 wrote:
i used liveview zero times on my 40d simply because it only has manual focus.
Auto focus works with live view if you use the dedicated AF button on the back of the camera. I don't remember if you have to enable it through a custom function, but I use it sometimes. The downside is that the mirror has to flip back down to focus, then flip up to let you take the shot. It is definitely not for fast action. The other negative for me is that the mirror slap during AF negates the benefit of silent operation in live view (for those churches concerned about hearing clicking cameras).
I mainly use live view for those awkward angles like overhead dance or cake shots, and for silent shooting during the ceremony. I love the zoom feature to confirm focus, and that you can choose what part of the screen gets zoomed (so you don't have to recompose).
Also, in the vein of discussing all things live view, I prefer the option to have the screen brightness auto adjust. I do it because I use live view for focus check (ceremony) and composition (reception) instead of using the screen to predict exposure. This is especially helpful if you're using flash in a dark area since the camera bases the predicted exposure on the camera settings and can't factor in what the flash will do.
Mike Yam wrote:
I've only shot one wedding, but I used live view on my D300 and it was awesome! I'm pretty short and it allowed me to get the camera up high over my head for some great angles. I also brought along a small step ladder, and when I got on top of that and used live view, I was able to shoot from the height of the ceiling.
To use live view on fairly static subjects, I press the back af button and then press the live view button and presto, an in focus live view object. Has worked real well and stays quiet with no shutter slap.
Chris Cooke wrote:
I have never used it wedding or otherwise. I dont see it as a practical feature
It not only is extremely useful for framing while holding he camera above your head etc, but is also very useful for critical framing and focusing when using manual focus and/or tilt/shift lenses for commercial/architectural/macro work etc.
Done very few weddings, but used LiveView at every one of them. Propably about 10-20% of the shots.
I like alt lenses and fast apertures, but only have access to a 40D - manual focus with stock focusingscreen isn't an option.
I realize I may look like an "Uncle Bob" using it, but the results outweight it for me.
These are all Planar 50/1.4 @ 1.4 on 40D using LiveView:
Yeah, here's another shooter using it all the time to nail focus on big apertures in static situations (IE tripod). Even the 1-series AF isn't right all the time, but zoomed in liveview lets me hit MF 100% of the time.
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who knew!?
