Sony A1 How make the Viewfinder available all the time and the monitor be off?

[GracieAllen]

Brand new to Sony, so try not to laugh too hard! Camera is an Alpha 1 with firmware 1.30.

There don't seem to be many topics in here, so if I'm asking in the wrong place, let me know.

I've been through the operating guide. I've been through the help guide. I've searched online. I'm sure the answer is in there somewhere, but I can't find it. In general, anything I ask in here is something I’ve spent hours trying to find and/or figure out.

What I WANT to happen is when I put my eye to the viewfinder it comes on. And when I take my eye AWAY the MONITOR DOESN'T come on. BUT, if I want to playback an image or open the menu, the monitor DOES come on. Essentially, make it like a DSLR where I can look through the viewfinder any time without pressing a button, AND the monitor only comes on when I WANT it on.

I’ve tried a bunch of things, none of which appear to do what I’d like.

If I have the monitor/finder set to Auto, every time I take my eye away from the viewfinder to walk around, the monitor comes on and stays on for a while. If the timeout is 10 seconds it sits there glowing for 10 or so seconds (which is really distracting out of the corner of my eye, watching the out-of-focus ground on the monitor). Once it goes off, the camera is dormant – if I put my eye to the viewfinder NOTHING happens. I have to push a button (the shutter?) for it to wake up.

When I change the monitor/finder setting to VF (manual), I believe the viewfinder stays on, at least until the Power Save kicks in, but the Monitor WON'T come on ANYTIME, which is NOT what I want since it won’t come on when I want to playback OR when I want to go into the menu.

If I do the opposite - Monitor (manual), ONLY the monitor comes on. The viewfinder doesn't work at all.

If I set the monitor/finder to Auto and the monitor time out to “Does not turn OFF” it stays on indefinitely, until, I think, the Power Save timeout shuts everything off. I changed the Power Save timeout to 5 min and the monitor stayed active the whole time. Must chew up a ton of battery and it seems like a terrible idea.

I can’t imagine everybody else is walking around with their camera on their chest and the monitor is staying on for extended periods, but maybe I’m wrong. Is there a simple, idiot-proof way to have the viewfinder available all the time without having the press the shutter, AND to NOT have the monitor on all the time?

OR, am I wrong and everybody else DOES walk around with the camera dormant and have to push a button to wake it up or be looking at a black viewfinder?

 

[MikeInMI]

I've been playing around with this quite a bit myself and talked to a Sony rep about it a while back. The interesting thing to note is that your monitor being on uses less battery than the EVF being on because the EVF is higher resolution and, I think, brighter.

You can set the monitor to go off after a very short period of time but then so does the whole camera, apparently and you always have to wake it up. I do find that a bit annoying. I've trained myself to reflexively touch the shutter button as I'm bringing the camera up to my eye to wake up the camera. That seems to work o.k., but when I'm on a tripod (often shoot BIF and have camera on a tripod with a gimbal head), I haven't gotten used to that wake up motion yet. FWIW, I've set my power to 2 minutes. Yeah, it wastes some battery, but it is a lot less annoying than constantly turning it on.

I will monitor responses to this thread as perhaps someone more knowledgeable will provide us with a better answer.

 

[GracieAllen]

Aha! So, you DO have to wake the thing up all the time! It looks like if you're going to set the Power Save to 2 minutes, and you want the camera to stay live for that long, you have to set the monitor time out to "Does not turn OFF" 'cause otherwise when the monitor goes off in 2 or 5 or 10 seconds, the camera goes dormant as soon as the monitor goes off. Regardless of the Power Save time...

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

If you go to viewfinder and monitor views display set up and set the monitor to "off" under viewfinder display set up the monitor will remain off and the VF will remain on.

if you want to use the monitor you then just need to press the rear wheel OK centre button as required. Image play back will open the monitor in the usual way....this operating mode will save you power........

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

Hi Michael,
A slight correction...Go to the menu "setup" section 3 and select DISP(screen display set) and select monitor settings.

You will see in the monitor display settings an item "monitor on/off...set it to off and your monitor will operate as described above...i was
away from my camera previously and tried to recall from memory and confused the viewfinder and monitor settings......

 

[Sdawes]

Take a look at Mark Smiths set up guide on Youtube will show you all you need to know

 

[GracieAllen]

Does Mark Smith have a setup video for the Alpha 1? The one I've found is for the A7R IV, which appears similar.

Like Mark Galer videos - I'm currently in the middle of Mark Smith's setup video... What's interesting is the number of settings he sets differently than Mark Galer!

I have to be missing something…

In Setup>Operation Customize (3)>DISP (Screen Disp) Set, I have the following:
Monitor
Checked Display All Info
Checked No Disp Info
Checked Histogram
Checked Level
UNChecked For viewfinder - check or uncheck appears to make no difference
Checked Monitor Off - checking this is supposed to keep the monitor off?

Finder
Checked Display All Info
Checked No Disp. Info.
Checked Histogram
Checked Level

In Setup>Finder/Monitor>Select Finder/Monitor Auto
In Setup>Finder/Monitor>Power Setting Option>Auto Monitor OFF 10 sec
In Setup>Finder/Monitor>Power Setting Option>Power Save Start Time 2 min

With these settings it still works exactly the same way…

Start camera, put eye to viewfinder, see scene, take image, take eye away, monitor immediately comes on for 10 sec. Then it turns off and the whole camera goes dormant. Putting eye to viewfinder doesn’t do anything until button pressed.

I'll go through the last 45 minutes of the Mark Smith A7R IV video to see if he covers this somewhere.

 

[Sdawes]

With the set up you have described above can you turn the monitor off by scrolling through the DISP button on the rear wheel , if so scroll through by pressing it a few times and when it goes off leave it off , that is how mine works , it will automatically come back on if you hit the menu button or the image review button but then go off again as soon as you half press the shutter button. If for some other reason ie video you need it on just scroll through again on the rear wheel until it reappears

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

HI David ,
Mark Smith sets his camera up very much as a practical bird shooter, using manual mode, whilst Mark Galer goes more into
his favoured genres of portraits , land and city scapes with action/nature in aperture priority, with less focus on hard core birding.....

In fact mark Smith when he first purchased the A9 copied many of Mark Galers settings but has progressed from
then.

like most things in life if you want to fast track your A1 knowledge/experience profile suggest you look at both set up profiles
and adjust accordingly ....we all have our favoured way of shooting but it doesn't harm to cherry pick.........

Good luck.....

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

Hi David your finder/monitor DISP set up seems fine.

Your
In Setup>Finder/Monitor>Select Finder/Monitor Auto is OK

In Setup>Finder/Monitor>Power Setting Option>Auto Monitor OFF 10 sec...change to " Does not turn Off"
In Setup>Finder/Monitor>Power Setting Option>Power Save Start Time 2 min...I have mine set to 5 mins

These settings work well for me and i think you are looking for much the same thing......

try the above unless you have some specific reason for deviating on the "Does not turn Off" setting for your power setting option.

Good luck.....

 

[Deleted Member 5003]

My experience is if you can limit the monitor view time the VF does not consume as much power and extends your battery life if you are into
heavy, extended duration shooting......

 

[GracieAllen]

I noticed the same thing about Mark Galer and Mark Smith. I'm taking things from both. I don't think I need the anti-flicker or variable SS for most things, but I suspect I'll run into problems when we do events like cat shows.

OK, I'll try this setup and see what happens. I suspect I'll get used to waking up the camera.

Thanks for all the responses.

 

[Clix Pix]

Back in my DSLR days I wanted and needed to have the LCD screen show me the results immediately after I had shot something. We all did, we all "chimped" to ensure that we'd actually shot what we wanted and were getting the results that we wanted. Now, with the mirrorless A7R IV and A1 and EVF in each camera, I really don't need that except occasionally when I want to check something and then at any time I can still easily hit the "review" button and look at the images I have just shot. It's really a relief that "chimping" is now a thing of the past!

As mentioned above, too, not having the LCD screen come on and display the results of what you just shot is a definite battery saver.

 

[GracieAllen]

I absolutely agree! Whenever I was shooting something new, I'd turn on the review, so I could check the first few images. Do a quick look for "blinkies", and as I became more competent take a quick look at the histogram to see if I was ETTR. Then I could turn it off and roll...

Now I CAN'T do that 'cause it screws up the EVF.

This morning, while shooting, I turned OFF the monitor. This worked well. I can see why people set the Power Save to Off - they can turn off the monitor and have the EVF available.

I put the grip on this morning while walking around with the 16-35 and 24-240 (yes, I've heard all the howls of outrage at the sacrilege of using such a pedestrian "non-G" lens on such a magnificent body, and how I'm "hobbling" the Alpha 1 - it's a convenient walkaround lens). The grip is nice, very convenient, and the combination of body, grip and 24-240 is quite a bit lighter than my D850, grip and 28-300.

Switched to the 200-600 to heckle some of the neighborhood seagulls where I am, and 15 minutes in - BATTERY EXHAUSTED.

The spare is in the RV on the charger. The OTHER spare is in the RV NEXT to the charger! Two more batteries on the list to order when we get home.

And FWIW, so far, after my minimal testing to this point, the 24-240 is at least on a par with the Nikon 28-300 I shot all the time with on my Nikon D850 - maybe better.