But, then I read an article by John and Barbara Gerlach in Nature Photographer Magazine, and it made me realize how valuable this feature can actually be.
On one of their workshops, the Gerlachs asked each of their students to come up with one good reason to use Live Preview, and some of them came up with really cool ideas:
#1 – Turn on gridlines to help keep the horizon level
Most cameras that have the Live Preview feature also have an option where you can turn on gridlines, which will overlay a grid on the Live Preview. This can help you determine when the camera is perfectly level with the horizon, so you don’t end up rotating and cropping the photo later in post-processing.
#2 – Check depth of field
Looking at a big preview on the screen instead of through a tiny viewfinder can tremendously help you confirm that you have the desired depth of field. Sure, you can do the same thing by snapping a test photo, but using Live Preview saves you some space on the memory card 🙂
#3 – Detect subject movement
For good macro photos, it’s important to snap the photo when both your camera and the subject are completely still. At this micro level, any small movement will be amplified. So, you can use Live Preview to watch for movement and then snap the photo when your subject is completely still. If instead you watch your subject through the viewfinder, then there’s a good chance you’ll shake your camera a little when you move your head away. Live Preview prevents this.
#4 – Magnify a specific area to help with focusing
Proper focus is critical for getting tack sharp photos, but sometimes it’s really difficult to tell when something is in focus. Either it’s too far away, there’s low light, or the edges are just not very well defined. With Live Preview though, you can zoom in on a specific area of your image and then focus more precisely with this detailed view.
What did I miss?
After reading about these great ideas, I’m certain there’s more great uses for Live Preview, so what about you? Have you found another great way Live Preview can help you take photos?
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About the Author: Steve Berardi is a naturalist, photographer, computer scientist, and founder of PhotoNaturalist. You can usually find him hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains or the Mojave Desert, both located in the beautiful state of California.
A great article that puts “useful” into play for my D300. Would like to see more discussion on item 4 of the article! Thanks Steve for the information you share with us!
I also have a question on #4. On my bridge digital, when in manual focus, I could easily do this (zoom in to make sure of the focus). But on my new D90 I can find no way to do this, not in the manual nor on the web. Is this a technique that I’m not aware of? Or is it a function that my camera does not have?
Great article, btw!
Glad you found the article useful. I really love Live View on my 5D II, especially for landscape work and for photographing natural subjects such as wildflowers.
The irony is that when I purchased my 5D II using Live View was just about the last thing on my mind. I pretty much ignored the feature and went about my business making photos the same way I had with my 5D. Then one day I went back and read the manual about this feature. The first wake up call was when doing night photography, where getting good focus is notoriously difficult. It hit me that I should try Live View – and I discovered that I could manually focus in very, very low light.
Dan
For indoor photography, you can scroll through the list of WB settings and instantly see the result on screen. Pretty useful.
I use it instead of mirror lock up feature – on 5D mk II it is buried too deep in menus, and I found it much quicker to push a designated LiveView button to lock up the mirror.