Live View display options

Your Nikon’s Live View mode may show you a lot more than you think!

Information off

This is perfect if you just want to see your subject, your camera settings and nothing else. You can cycle through this view and all the others by pressing repeatedly on the ‘Info’ button.

Information on

In this mode an extra line of shooting information is added at the top of the screen to show your autofocus settings, Active D-lighting status and the current Picture Control settings.

Framing guides

These grid lines make it easier to check that the objects in your picture are perfectly horizontal or vertical, and can be useful for checking the spacing and distance from the edge of the frame.

Virtual Horizon

This is another way of checking that the camera is level, using a kind of electronic spirit level overlaid on the screen, there’s also a fore-and-aft level indicator in the centre.

Live View Histogram

High-end DSLRS have an Exposure Preview option that you activate by pressing the OK button. You can now activate a Live View histogram to help judge the exposure.

Live View brightness

On most Nikon DSLRS it’s possible to adjust the brightness of the Live View display as you work by holding down a button (this depends on the camera) and using the multi-selector.

making it possible to see what you’re shooting more clearly when light levels are low.

Live View also offers very precise focus adjustments. Instead of using the camera’s main autofocus sensor, it switches to a ‘contrast’ autofocus system which uses the image captured by the sensor. It’s slower than the camera’s regular ‘phase-detection’ autofocus, but it’s very precise and accurate.

For a start, you’re not restricted to the focus points of the camera’s main autofocus system. Instead, you can use the multi-selector on the back of the camera to move the focus square to any part of the picture, right up to the edges.

You can then zoom in on the Live View image using the magnifying glass button on the back of the camera to check that your subject is perfectly sharp. This makes Live View especially useful when using manual focus. Manual focusing is not usually easy with a DSLR, because the viewfinder doesn’t have the detail needed for assessing focus visually. But in Live View mode, you can fine-tune focus with certainty.

Nikon DSLRS offer four (or more) different focus modes in Live View. Wide-area AF mode uses a comparatively large focus square, which you can move to any point in the frame. Normal-area AF mode uses a smaller focus rectangle, which makes it easier to pinpoint a precise area to focus on. Face-priority mode uses face-recognition technology.

With this mode, the camera will automatically find your subject’s face and highlight it with a focus rectangle.

In Subject-tracking AF mode, you first identify the subject you want to ‘track’, and the autofocus will then follow it around the frame if it moves.

Some Nikon DSLRS go further, with a Virtual Horizon display that can show you if the camera isn’t quite level as you compose the shot, while Nikon’s pro DSLRS also have an Exposure Preview mode, which shows the effect of exposure adjustments on the image – you also get a histogram display that can help you avoid shadow or highlight clipping and match the exposure to the subject more effectively.