Question about Viewfinder on A7 IV

[rgarven]

Dear friends,

I'm trying to do more manual photography and I have a question. When shooting in a manual mode on my A7 IV, when I look through the viewfinder at the bottom in the middle there's a graph from -5 all the way to +5 which looks like a white balance setting. There's a little triangle there which seems to move around and I can't figure out what this is or how to modify the setting. I've been looking through the manual with a little luck size hoping someone here could help me out.

Thanks,

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

It is your "exposure meter."

You are in M: the settings are completely in your hands, but the camera is still telling you whether it thinks you are right. And if wrong, by how much.

 

[AlphaWorld]

It also shows when you are using exposure compensation - shows how much exposure compensation you have chosen.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

It also shows when you are using exposure compensation - shows how much exposure compensation you have chosen.

It does. But not in "M." I don't think one gets exposure compensation in M?

I'm an "A" man, mostly. Used to use exposure compensation quite often on the a6500. With the a7iv, I soon found out that the camera was better at it, so I leave it to it.

 

[AlphaWorld]

It does. But not in "M." I don't think one gets exposure compensation in M?

I'm an "A" man, mostly. Used to use exposure compensation quite often on the a6500. With the a7iv, I soon found out that the camera was better at it, so I leave it to it.

No point in exposure compensation in M, as you say.

Your statement about being an A man made me think of A mount - there are a few people on here shooting A mount lenses and getting excellent results.

I use A mode, too, a lot of the time. My animals in action custom mode is based on A + auto-ISO minimum shutter speed.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I joined the Sony party well into E-mount days.

I too use the auto-iso minimum shutter speed a lot.

Of course, I do use large apertures for smaller depth of field in composition --- but quite often I'm using as close to wide-open as I can to keep the shutter speed up. Aperture Priority to control the shutter speed: is that ironic?

 

[rgarven]

Thanks to all. I don't get to use my camera as much as I want because I'm always busy with the band but I really enjoy it.