EVF in contrasty light?

[Rand47]

Hello,

A900 owner here, HEAVILY invested in Zeiss ZA & Sony G, A mount glass. I'm pondering my long term future w/ Sony FF. I stopped by local shops and handled the A77 to get a feel for EVF. The camera is very nice, build superb, ergonomics very good. EVF was something I guess I could live with though it was a poor substitute for my A900 viewfinder. Then I took the camera outdoors! In any sort of contrasty light the shadows blocked up and the highlights blew out, making it very difficult to "see what I was seeing" so to speak.

All this to ask experienced Sony EVF / SLT users if there is a way to adjust for this, or is it "just the way it is" w/ EVF?

I like some of the advantages that come with EVF, but ...

Do you think it likely that Sony may improve the EVF technology in the rumored A99? I know precisely nothing about electronics technology so have no idea if the current state of EVF development is some sort of boundary on what might be possible.

 

[Mike Hatam]

A tip for working with the EVF in contrasty light...

Turn contrast to -3 in the jpg settings - this will lower contrast in the EVF.

 

[Rand47]

Thanks! I'll try this next time I'm at a shop.

 

[HeavyDuty]

I wasn't happy with the EVF on my new NEX-7 until I heard about this - contrast -3, sharpness +3. It makes all the difference in the world!

 

[mazor]

yes tried the lower contrast and sharpness setting plus "portrait" feature. It does makes the EVF less contrasty, but in doing so makes the out of camera JPG low contrast too and hence forced to process off RAW. I think Sony needs to make a new firmware whereby we can change the contrast of the EVF without harming JPG output.

I know RAW processing will extract more out of the already excellent Sony sensor, but the out of camera JPG off the NEX is really quite revolutionary and now I only use RAW when really needed, or as a backup to my JPG