Live View aperture

sunflower

Senior Member
Hi every one. Would someone please explain to me why I can't adjust the aperture in Live View on my D7200. I've read it can't be done. Does this mean I take a shot, view it on my camera screen, make any relevant aperture changes then open Live View and re shoot? Or can I play with exposure compensation in Live View? When using LV and exposure compensation, I can see my composition getting lighter or darker on my camera screen. Shutter speed changes. The aperture setting is more important to me than shutter speed. Have I just answered my own question?:confused: Any comments would be welcome.......Russ
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
You may have answered your own question. First some basics. Nikon apertures are wide open. When you fire the shutter, it closes down to its set position and the mirror swings up out of the way. Those are physical mechanical motions.

When you switch ON live view, it closes the aperture to whatever position the camera is set for and lifts the mirror. <--again, that's a mechanical motion. If you subsequently change the aperture setting, the aperture doesn't physically move again until the shutter assembly fires... hence, even though you're closing/opening the aperture setting you're NOT seeing any change.

During all this, if you change the Exposure Compensation, there is a change because what you're doing there is changing the bias of the sensor and the linked brightness of the LCD display. That's NOT a physical mechanical function so you actually SEE a difference...

Hope this helps...
 
Last edited:

sunflower

Senior Member
Thanks for your speedy reply Fred. I have to house sit this w/e so I will experiment. Your post makes a lot of sense to me. Something I wasn't aware of. Thanks again Fred and take care. Regards......Russ
 

jelly109

New member
new here, but want to add my experience on my D5300: Freds statement is perfectly seen here for Nikon lenses, my Tamron SP 85 behaves differently! In Liveview this lens DOES modify the aperture of the lens if you change aperture setting.... This is great as you can check DOF before shooting. So, the behaviour seems to be dependent on the lenses firmware, right?
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
I'm not sure what Tamron is doing but I imagine that if it is in fact closing down then it is a firmware thing whereby that Tamron is using power continuously while the Nikon lenses are not.

Can you continuously change the aperture using the command wheel while in Live View and see the exposure setting change as you change the aperture? <-- That's a normal feature on higher end Nikon cameras and I'd be interested to see if somehow Tamron is activating that on the lower end Nikon cameras...
 

jelly109

New member
Thanks, guys. @Bikerbrent Profile of this board does not allow me to add all my gear, obviously this board does not like Tokina and Tamron, although some of my best lenses...
@Fred my Tamron SP 85 1.8 DOES physically stop down, you can see the aperture closing down looking into the lens from the front....want me to shoot a video? the LV display is flickering while in A mode when stopping down a step, then I think camera increases ISO to show reasonably lighted display... and yes, it will possibly use more power to do that, but LiveView on my D5300 is eating battery anyway irrespective of the lens mounted.
 

Danno

Senior Member
Thanks, guys. @Bikerbrent Profile of this board does not allow me to add all my gear, obviously this board does not like Tokina and Tamron, although some of my best lenses...
@Fred my Tamron SP 85 1.8 DOES physically stop down, you can see the aperture closing down looking into the lens from the front....want me to shoot a video? the LV display is flickering while in A mode when stopping down a step, then I think camera increases ISO to show reasonably lighted display... and yes, it will possibly use more power to do that, but LiveView on my D5300 is eating battery anyway irrespective of the lens mounted.

Welcome to the forum. Adding equipment is challenging. Not all equipment is in the tool used. If you want to list what you have you can add it in your signature.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
I *think* there is a minimum number of post counts before a signature can be enabled. It's either 10 or less if I am remembering correctly.
 

jelly109

New member
....and I think I found the reason for the special behavior of the Tamron SP 85: It does not have that aperture lever at the cam mount, so it has to have a servo for controlling the aperture on the lens.... haven´t seen this before, but I assume this is the reason why the aperture is adjusted immediately in LiveView, the lens activates it, not the cam.
 

jelly109

New member
confirmed by Tamron support, there are several Tamron lenses with electromagnetic aperture actors on the lens, they all should experience that aperture closure on LV of consumer Nikons....
 
Top