Viewfinder and Monitor Displays

A dancer stands against a sunset, and you want her as a black shape on an orange sky. You dial in two stops of negative exposure compensation, raise the camera to your eye, and the viewfinder looks exactly as bright as before. Nothing is broken. A custom setting has told the camera to make the preview comfortable rather than faithful, and the file will come out two stops darker than the picture you framed.

Neither screen on the Z6III is a window. Each is a small television playing a processed copy of what the sensor sees, drawn slightly after the light arrived, and a dozen settings decide how honest, how bright and how smooth that copy is. Page numbers in parentheses point to Nikon's Z6III Reference Guide, edition 09, which matches firmware 2.00.

01.A Screen, Not a Window

A digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) used a mirror to send the light from the lens up to your eye. A mirrorless camera has none. The sensor turns light into numbers, and a processor turns those into a picture on a tiny screen behind the eyepiece, the electronic viewfinder (EVF). On the Z6III that is an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panel, in which every dot makes its own light, 1.27 cm across with about 5,760k dots (p. 999). The rear monitor is a TFT LCD, a thin-film transistor liquid crystal display lit from behind, 8 cm across with about 2,100k dots (p. 1000).

Nikon counts dots, not pixels. If each full-colour pixel takes three dots, one red, one green and one blue, the viewfinder holds

$$\frac{5{,}760{,}000}{3} = 1{,}920{,}000 = 1600 \times 1200 \text{ pixels}.$$

UXGA (Ultra Extended Graphics Array), the label on p. 999, is the standard name for $1600 \times 1200$. Nikon prints the label, not the numbers, so the three-dot reading is my inference, though the fit is exact. That panel is 4:3 and a picture is 3:2, so a picture filling its width covers at most $1600 \times \tfrac{2}{3}(1600) \approx 1{,}706{,}667$ pixels. A full-size picture has $6048 \times 4032 = 24{,}385{,}536$ (p. 998), and $24{,}385{,}536 / 1{,}706{,}667 \approx 14.3$, so the viewfinder shows about one pixel for every fourteen in the file. That is why fine focus is judged with the zoom button rather than a hard stare.

The preview is built separately from the file, as the figure shows, and building it takes time, so the eyepiece always trails the world a little. Nikon publishes no figure for that delay.

How often a screen draws a new picture is its refresh rate, counted in frames per second (fps). As an illustration, not the Z6III's numbers: at 60 fps each picture stays up for $\frac{1}{60}$ s, about 16.7 milliseconds (ms), and at 120 fps for $\frac{1}{120}$ s, about 8.3 ms. A bird crossing the frame moves in smaller jumps at the higher rate. The Reference Guide (RG) states no refresh rate for either screen, only that a high frame-rate display is available (p. 999).

Every option here trades something, often battery. Under the CIPA test, the Camera and Imaging Products Association standard of one picture every 30 s at default settings, a battery gives about 380 shots with Viewfinder only and about 410 with Monitor only, energy saving on in both (p. 1016). That is $410 - 380 = 30$ shots, and $30 / 380 \approx 0.079$, about 8 percent more from the monitor on Nikon's test. Video runs about 100 minutes either way (p. 1016).

02.Which Screen Lights Up

Next to the eyepiece sits an eye sensor. Bring anything near it and the camera blanks the monitor and lights the viewfinder instead (p. 65). It cannot tell your eye from your thumb, which is why the monitor sometimes goes blank as you reach for the touch screen. Each press of the monitor mode button steps to the next of five modes (p. 66):

• Automatic display switch: the eye sensor picks the screen.
• Viewfinder only: the monitor stays dark, even for menus and playback. In photo mode, switching on, half-pressing the shutter-release button or pressing AF-ON (autofocus on) also wakes the viewfinder briefly, whether or not you are looking.
• Monitor only: the viewfinder stays dark even with your eye against it.
• Prioritize viewfinder (1): the viewfinder comes on when you look through it, and the monitor stays dark once you lower the camera.
• Prioritize viewfinder (2): the viewfinder lights when you look, and in photo mode also for a few seconds after power-on, a half-press or AF-ON. Looking in while the monitor shows a menu or playback brings up the shooting display in the viewfinder.

In video mode both Prioritize modes act like Automatic display switch (p. 66).

Limit monitor mode selection drops the modes you never use from the button's cycle (p. 819), and all five start ticked (p. 805). I keep three: Automatic display switch for daily work, Viewfinder only for the theatre and Monitor only for a tripod at waist height. The f2 role Cycle monitor mode added in Firmware 2.00 puts the same cycle on another button (p. 711).

added in Firmware 2.00

Firmware 2.00 added an answer to the thumb problem. Automatic monitor display switch applies in Automatic display switch and both Prioritize modes (p. 820). On, the default (p. 805), switches as above. On (when monitor docked) keeps the shooting display on the monitor whenever it is swung out of its storage position, and automatic switching resumes once the monitor is docked, folded back flat (p. 820). That suits low angles and gimbal video.

03.Faithful or Comfortable: View Mode

View mode (photo Lv) decides whether the preview shows what your settings will do to the colour and brightness of the picture (p. 673). Lv means live view, the moving picture on either screen before you press the shutter. The default is Show effects of settings with its sub-option Only when flash is not used (p. 624).

Under Show effects of settings the preview carries your white balance, Picture Control, exposure compensation and the other settings that change colour or exposure (p. 673). Underexpose by two stops and the screen darkens to match, which is the check that Exposure Modes and Metering lean on.

Flash complicates this, because it lights the subject only at the instant of exposure, which no preview can show. Always keeps showing the effects with a flash attached and ready, which Nikon recommends for judging background exposure, though the main subject may look dark and Nikon lists a further mismatch with its through-the-lens flash metering and Auto ISO (p. 673). Only when flash is not used keeps the colour effects but tunes the display brightness for easy viewing while a flash is ready, with an icon to say so (p. 673).

Adjust for ease of viewing trades honesty for comfort, since white balance, Picture Controls and exposure compensation stop changing the preview (p. 674). Auto lets the camera tune colour and brightness for easy framing. Custom lets you set Brighten shadows (Off up to +3), White balance and Set Picture Control one by one, with an icon as a reminder (p. 674). Nikon suggests this mode for long sessions at the viewfinder (p. 67) and for studio strobes (p. 968). My reading of the second: settings chosen for the strobes' brief burst leave the weak modelling lamps, which light the studio between flashes, far too dark in a faithful preview.

In video mode the effects of your settings always show, whatever d10 says (p. 673).

I leave the default for everything I shoot. An honest preview is the cheapest exposure check the camera owns. The trap is a button. An f2 role flips d10 between its two modes (p. 711), and the i menu can carry the item too (p. 701). Brush that control once and you have the opening scene. When pictures stop matching the preview, Nikon's troubleshooting list points here (p. 914).

Two neighbours belong to Long Exposure and Night. d11 Starlight view (photo Lv) brightens the display in the dark, at the price of a slightly jerky picture and no histogram (p. 675), and d12 Warm display colors warms and dims the displays for eyes adapted to darkness (p. 676).

04.The DISP Button and Custom Shooting Displays

Press DISP while shooting and the information over the picture changes. The monitor offers up to five layouts and the viewfinder up to four (pp. 56, 62).

Custom monitor shooting display sets the monitor's list (pp. 686-687) and Custom viewfinder shooting display the viewfinder's (p. 688). Every display starts ticked (p. 625). DISP skips any you untick, but Display 1 cannot be unticked. Displays 1 to 4 take these indicators (pp. 686-687):

• Basic shooting info: shooting mode, shutter speed, aperture and similar.
• Detailed shooting info: a fuller set that adds white balance and the autofocus settings, such as focus mode and AF-area mode.
• Touch controls: on-screen targets for touch AF, the i menu and more. Monitor only.
• Virtual horizon: the level, styled by d18.
• Histogram: a graph of how many pixels sit at each brightness, dark on the left and bright on the right.
• Framing grid: guide lines, patterned by d17.
• Center indicator: crosshairs at the centre of the frame.
• Center-weighted area: an 8 or 12 mm circle, sized by b5, drawn only with centre-weighted metering and absent when b5 is Average.

Monitor Display 5 is the information display alone and cannot be customised (p. 687). The viewfinder list is the same minus Touch controls (p. 688). The RG does not say which indicators each display carries out of the box, so look before you change one.

Menus and Controls suggests one clean display for composing and one with a level and a histogram, and I build on that. Display 1 is clean, with Basic shooting info and, on the monitor, Touch controls. Display 2 adds Detailed shooting info and Histogram. Display 3 holds Virtual horizon, Framing grid and Histogram for landscape. I untick Display 4 on both screens and keep monitor Display 5 for reading settings.

Several f2 roles help (pp. 710-711). Cycle live view info display gives another button the DISP job, Live view info display off hides every icon, and Framing grid and Virtual horizon toggle their overlays. f4 Touch Fn can show either in the viewfinder when you tap part of the monitor with your eye at the eyepiece (p. 731). Custom Controls covers those assignments.

Two overlays people expect here live elsewhere. a12 Focus peaking, which outlines sharp edges in colour, belongs with Focus Limiter, Saved Positions and Manual Focus. Highlight warnings belong to Playback and Culling in the Camera, and zebra stripes to the video part of this guide.

Grid, Level and Scale Direction

Grid type starts at 3×3 (p. 625), two lines each way for the rule of thirds. The Reference Guide names only 3×3, so I leave the others unnamed. A grid appears only in displays with Framing grid ticked (p. 681).

The virtual horizon reports two tilts. Roll is rotation around the lens axis, the tilt that makes a horizon run downhill. Pitch is the lens nodding up or down. Type A, the default (p. 625), shows both in one large indicator. Type B puts roll along the bottom edge and pitch along the right, and both types turn green at level (p. 682). The level is least reliable with the camera aimed steeply up or down, and it vanishes at angles where tilt cannot be measured (p. 684). I use Type B, which leaves the middle of the frame clear.

Reverse indicators decides whether certain horizontal scales put positive values on the left or on the right (p. 735). The defaults list marks f8 with the icon of the option that puts negative values on the left (pp. 627, 735), so that is where it starts. Leave it alone unless those scales read backwards to you.

Image frame draws a white border round the picture. It is ON by default (p. 625), and OFF removes it (p. 680).

Turning the Camera Tall

With Auto rotate info display at ON, its default (p. 805), the indicators turn to stay upright when the camera is held tall (p. 821). For stills, the shooting display, the i menu and playback all turn with it (pp. 56, 62). In video mode only playback and the i menu shown during playback turn (pp. 57, 64). I shoot stage dance tall, so it stays ON.

Video Displays

Video keeps its own copies. g19 offers Displays 1 to 4 and g20 Displays 1 to 3, all ticked by default with Display 1 fixed (pp. 629, 779, 781). The indicators match the photo list with two changes: no centre-weighted circle, and Brightness information in place of Histogram, showing a histogram or a wave-form monitor as g17 chooses (pp. 779-780). A wave-form monitor plots brightness against position across the frame, and g17 belongs to the video part of this guide. I tick Brightness information in one display on each screen.

g16 Grid type sets the video grid, 3×3 by default (pp. 629, 775). The video level has no type of its own and follows d18 (p. 779).

Red REC frame indicator, ON by default (p. 629), draws a red border round the display while recording (p. 782). Keep it on, since a whole-frame border is easy to see at arm's length.

05.Brightness and Colour of the Screens

Four setup menu items tune the screens themselves. Nikon says the two brightness settings (p. 914) and monitor colour balance (p. 815) leave pictures untouched. It does not repeat that for the viewfinder's colour balance, though I expect the same, since that item follows the monitor's procedure (p. 817).

Monitor brightness starts at 0 (p. 805), with 15 manual levels in the specifications (p. 1000). It can be changed only while the monitor is the active screen, and higher values drain the battery faster (p. 814).

Viewfinder brightness defaults to Auto, which follows the surrounding light (pp. 805, 816). Manual has 19 levels (p. 999) and can be set only while the viewfinder is active. Brighter costs battery here too, and a hot camera dims the viewfinder for a while if Manual is at Hi 1 or Hi 2 (p. 816).

One exception has teeth. With HLG chosen as the photo Tone mode, or while viewing pictures shot that way, changing either brightness setting redistributes the tones on screen, and highlights suffer more the brighter you go (pp. 814, 816). HLG, hybrid log-gamma, encodes pictures for HDR (high dynamic range) screens, as RAW, JPEG, HEIF and Tone Mode explains.

Monitor color balance and Viewfinder color balance shift each screen along two axes, amber to blue (A-B) and green to magenta (G-M), both starting at zero (p. 805). On the multi selector, up adds green, right amber, down magenta and left blue, and OK saves (p. 815). The viewfinder version works only while the viewfinder is active (p. 817).

The monitor adjustment reaches only menus, playback and the shooting display (p. 815). Push it toward amber and you will set white balance cooler to compensate, which is backwards. Leave both at zero and judge colour as White Balance describes.

Viewfinder display size offers Standard, the default (p. 805), and Small, which shrinks the picture so the whole frame is easier to take in (p. 818). The eyepoint, how far back your eye can sit and still see the whole view, is 21 mm, measured from the eyepiece's rear surface with its focus correction at $-1.0$ dioptre (p. 999). Glasses hold the eye further back, and I expect Small to help there. I keep Standard, which makes focus easier to judge.

06.Settings for Fast Action

High fps viewfinder display is OFF by default (p. 625). At ON the camera smooths the viewfinder to suit the conditions, so fast subjects are easier to follow (p. 689). Neither that page nor the specifications (p. 999) gives a rate, and Nikon says nothing about battery cost or video mode.

I turn it ON for birds with the Nikkor Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR, VR being Nikon's vibration reduction, and for stage dance with the Tamron 70-180mm f/2.8 Di III VC VXD G2. Both subjects turn without warning. For portraits and landscape it stays OFF.

d14 Display on during burst and d15 Release timing indicator decide what the display does during a burst. Release Modes, Frame Rates and the Buffer covers both, and What a Partially Stacked Sensor Changes explains why the view can stay live through fast bursts.

Two power settings can lower the refresh rate. Energy saving (photo mode) is OFF by default (p. 807), and at ON the screens may update less often (p. 858). Keep it off for action. The standby timer is the countdown after which the camera switches its displays off to save power. Separately, Nikon warns that in roughly the last 20 seconds of that countdown the viewfinder may update less often (p. 913). c3 Power off delay lengthens the timer (p. 913).

07.The Control Panel Light

The top-plate control panel has a backlight of its own, and LCD illumination decides when it is on (p. 677). At OFF, the default (p. 625), the panel lights only when you press the illuminator button, and the shutter-release button turns it off. At ON it stays lit while the standby timer runs, going dark during a shutter press and returning afterwards, at a cost in battery (p. 677). My illuminator button carries Silent mode in photo mode, as Custom Controls sets out, so with d13 at OFF the backlight never comes on in photo mode. In daylight the panel reads without it, and in the dark, on stage included, I read settings in the viewfinder. If you want the light, d13 ON gives it (p. 677).

08.Recommended Settings

Birds and wildlife. Automatic display switch, d22 ON, and viewfinder Display 2 for a white egret on dark water.

Stage dance. Viewfinder only, d13 OFF with settings read in the viewfinder, and d22 ON. On a very dark stage, Starlight view (photo Lv) brightens the view but hides the histogram (p. 675).

Landscape. Monitor only on a tripod, with Display 3 for the level and the grid.

Gimbal dance video. The monitor swung out with On (when monitor docked), Brightness information in one g19 display and the red recording frame on.

09.Beginner Mistakes

Judging exposure by how bright the screen looks. Screen brightness never reaches the file (p. 914). Leave it at 0 and Auto and read the histogram.

Leaving Adjust for ease of viewing switched on. Exposure compensation and white balance then vanish from the preview (p. 674). Check d10 and any button that toggles it.

Blaming the camera when a screen stays dark. Check the monitor mode and Limit monitor mode selection, and blow dust off the eye sensor (p. 912). Monitor only keeps the viewfinder dark by design.

Losing your layout to a stray DISP press. Nikon lists exactly this among its troubleshooting entries (p. 912). Untick the displays you never use.

10.Related Chapters

• First-Day Setup: the dioptre, the eye sensor and screen brightness on day one.
• A Tour of the Body: where the monitor mode button, eye sensor and control panel sit.
• Exposure Modes: exposure compensation.
• Metering: the histogram and the centre-weighted circle.
• White Balance: judging and setting colour.
• Release Modes, Frame Rates and the Buffer: d14 and d15, the display during a burst.
• What a Partially Stacked Sensor Changes: why the view stays live through fast bursts.
• Focus Limiter, Saved Positions and Manual Focus: focus peaking and the magnified view.
• Custom Controls: the grid, the level, DISP and the monitor modes on a button.
• The i Menu: View mode and screen brightness one press away.
• Playback and Culling in the Camera: playback displays and highlight warnings.