Invisible live view in mode M

[Darkroom Dude]

In 'Still' mode, lens off A to aperture icon, and shutter speed off A, the screen shows M for manual.  No live view is available.  What can I do?  Is it a User Setting that I've activated/deactivated? 

Help, please. 

Peter 

[jerryy]

It is possible to turn the LCD off,

https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/x-t5/about_this_camera/display/index.html#choosing_display_mode

Does toggling the display on / off reset it?

[Darkroom Dude]

Thanks jerryy.  That didn't work. 

To be clear, setting lens to the aperture icon and shutter to 250X (or any other manual speed) is like putting the lens cap on.  Display information is visible on EVF/LCD but the subject is black. 

[abmet]

What aperture, shutter speed, and iso set too? Is it possible there isn’t enough light?

[jerryy]

What @abmet said, more information please!

Try this, set the ISO to 6400, the shutter speed to 1/250, and put the lens’ aperture switch to A. Go outside during the brightest time, around midday or early afternoon and see what you get.

The f-stop should be a large number, the lcd should show you the scene. It could be a little dark. Then try moving the aperture switch back, set the f-stop to wide open and try again. The image on the lcd should be brighter.

There is a setting to dim the displays’ brightness,

https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/x-t5/menu_setup/screen_set-up/

that may be affecting what you are (not) seeing.

Edited March 3 by jerryy

[Darkroom Dude]

Thanks jerryy.  That didn't work. 

To be clear, setting lens to the aperture icon and shutter to 250X (or any other manual speed) is like putting the lens cap on.  Display information is visible on EVF/LCD but the subject is black. 

[Darkroom Dude]

We've sorted out the solution, although I don't understand the problem. 

When we switched off A and onto the aperture icon on the lens and moved the shutter from A to any speed, the previously visible preview picture on LCD and/or EVF was switched off.   However, the shooting information remained visible.  The manually set aperture made no difference. 

We found that the focus switch on the front of the camera body was on M.  Moving it to either C or S switcheswitched the preview back on.

We don't understand why it happened but we are relieved to have found the solution.  It had meant a lost night with studio flash, which is why the camera needed to be operated manually. 

If anyone knows why the camera does this, please tell.

Thank you all for your help. 

[abmet]

What lens were you using?

[jerryy]

Arrgh! That you are using flash is very important information, the screen will definitely turn dark for those settings.

Try this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmVxAmEWYRk

You need to turn the preview exp./wb setting to OFF or Preview WB. This setting affects what you see in manual mode.

[Darkroom Dude]

Not dark but black!  The flash wasn't attached to the camera.  I emphasise that a visible preview went black immediately upon setting the camera to manual.  On Sunday morning, when I first posted, there was plenty of light but preview was black apart from the shooting information.  It was NOT subject failure. 

Thanks for showing me the video.  It related to flash on camera, not studio flash.  Shooting in RAW, which we were, doesn't need a change to WB or colour temperature.  All we wanted to do was to read the aperture requirement, set that on the camera with an appropriate shutter speed and get shooting.

None of our lenses showed any difference. 

Did either of you pick up that the solution was to switch focusing from M to either C or S?  Now what's that all about? 

 

[jerryy]

How are setting the flashes to fire?

M only turns on / off the auto focus routines, some lenses can still override this depending on how they are set. It is possible this switch is messed up and affecting other parts of the camera routines.

Shooting in raw or jpg or whatever has no bearing on that preview setting, it is there to how you what the ambient light is doing so you can make needed adjustments.

 

[Nialler]

I 've encountered this when I was asking the impossible of the camera. It doesn't have to be dark. Just close the aperture to f16 and select 1/8000 exposure, and the viewfinder goes black - pretty good approximation of what you would expect from any camera. Believe it or not, I found this to be useful in some night photography a couple of nights ago. I wanted to push the camera hard because I had a very intrusive moon ruining the sight of some beautiful backlit rolling clouds. At night I'm accustomed to the fuzzy noisy grains jumping about, but, as you say, this is black lens-cap-on on stuff. It suited me to find the point where it went from one to the other. 

But the definite feeling I'm getting as a complete digital noobie (40+ years of analogue) is that the beast is saying to me "Sorry, mate. No can do." I know of, and have seen, the red indicators as well, warning me that one or more settings was beyond its capabilities in the light available, so I don't know where the black screen comes in that hierarchy. 

[BobJ]

My x-t5 does not exhibit the focusing switch behaviour as you report it, so that is very strange and indicative of a fault. It does not matter whether the flash is attached or not. Once you set the camera for your studio flash, say 1/250th at f5.6, the camera, which is showing you what you will get at that exposure without the flash, will show a black screen unless the ambient light is brighter than what you would typically get indoors. That is why, as Jerry says, you have to set preview exp/wb to off. I have set a button for this.