Dark EVF when letting flash overpower ambient

[exakta]

I was roped into shooting my daughter's bridal shower this weekend and ran into a dilemma.

I was shooting with my E-M10 on M and the FL360L on TTL. I checked the ambient light and the correct exposure was about 1/15 at f4 give or take a stop depending on how close the subject was to the windows. I didn't want any ghosting so I deliberately underexposed for the ambient light, holding the aperture at f4 for reasonably deep DOF with a 12mm lens. As I started raising the shutter speed, though, the EVF kept getting darker. I ended up using 1/60 simply because higher speeds made the EVF and rear screen too dark to really see the subject. This of course, is never a problem with optical finders

So how do you folks deal with a dark VF when you want the flash to overpower the ambient light?

 

[inkista]

Try to find some way to turn off exposure simulation (i.e., having liveview try to show you what your ambient exposure settings will look like). I think in the case of the E-M10, that means finding the setting for "Live View Boost" and turning it off. But I'm a Panasonic shooter, so you may want to wait for an Olympus shooter to chime in.

 

[0000]

I think in the case of the E-M10, that means finding the setting for "Live View Boost" and turning it off.

Actually, you want to turn it ON for the situation the OP is describing. Turning it off gives the exposure simulation that you don't want when using flash as primary light source. On my E-PL7 this option is in the section of the "gear" menus labeled "D Disp/<speaker symbol>/PC", for whatever that's worth. Also, on my cameras, this setting is per-MySet rather than global, which is useful.

 

[exakta]

Thanks for the tip. I switched it on and it did exactly what I needed.

I had no idea this feature even existed. Burying it in a menu and not describing it well in the manual doesn't help. I remember I first read about it when I got the E-M10 three years ago and I thought it was just a brightness control to make the rear screen easier to see in bright light...