Raptor wrote:
Initially I rented a Sony A7iii for a photo workshop. I loved it and bought one...just in time for an astral workshop in Maine.I found some photographic situations in Maine to be quite challenging. Dawn photography for one. I am attaching two pics. One shows what the subject looks like before pressing the shutter, the second one shows the pic I captured. What confounds me is the histogram on the LED screen shows a "properly" exposed pic and the result is quite dark. My previous camera is a Sony a68. Wonderful crop sensor camera. I feel like I have to unlearn everything I know about exposure with this new camera. As a caveat, I fell while hiking in Maine and I hope I did not damage the camera. Can you shed some light on my confusion? Also, when I have watched utube videos about the camera, the presenter is mostly touting the amazing video capabilities of it, not the nuances of using it.
Initially I rented a Sony A7iii for a photo worksh... (
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Unfortunately, a huge dose of RTFM (Reading The *Fine* Manual) is probably in order.
I know that is asking a LOT of about 90% of the population, but since it was once a part of my job to read camera manuals and write training video scripts on how to use various cameras, I KNOW the benefits of suffering hundreds of pages of JEnglish (Japanese inadequately translated to English). Those benefits are substantial.
Modern digital cameras have many, many options. Usually, the only way to understand those options fully, and to choose the ones that matter TO YOU, is to read the manual and set up the camera as you go.
You mentioned that the A7III videos seem to highlight video features. Well, that's only natural when a YouTuber reviews a camera that records video! After all, they make videos, and probably don't record a lot of stills.
That said, there are plenty of reviews of, and tutorials for, the A7III and A7RIII, on YouTube, DPreview.com, and other sites. Keep looking. You can never get too many viewpoints on your camera! Some of those reviewers and trainers ARE still photographers.
Back to your problem... I'm not a Sony user, but my Panasonic Lumix does have settings that enable the electronic viewfinder and rear OLED display either to maintain a constant brightness, or to display the actual exposure that will be recorded. There are valid reasons why I might want to do either. See if you can find such a menu setting on the Sony.
I know I will use my camera in six distinct ways:
Raw capture of still images under any lighting conditions
JPEG capture of still images under controlled lighting conditions
JPEG PLUS raw capture under variable lighting conditions
Standard American video capture (29.976 fps, AKA 30 fps)
Filmic video capture (24.000 fps, manual movie mode, with variable frame rate options)
Time lapse video "intervalometer" mode (i.e.; automatically capture a frame at regular intervals for a period of time, with results automatically processed into video)
I spent considerable time creating "setup cheat sheets" listing ALL the initial settings needed for each of these situations, along with the variations I might use on each of them. Having a setup sheet makes it much faster to get the camera going for the work I'm doing. And since I share my gear with my twins, we rely on these to get each others' cameras to do what needs to be done!
Good luck... Don't give up! It's okay to want to quit, but not okay to quit.