dark live view on T2i/550D when using vintage manual lenses - SOLVED

Samuel H

Major Contributor
Hi

I've suffered this problem since I got my camera last year, and today I found the solution, so I'm posting it here in case it's useful for anybody else.

The problem is as follows: with vintage manual lenses, sometimes the LCD screen will be OK in movie mode but very dark in stills mode (live view).

I was told to just do exposure+wheel to change some "virtual" aperture parameter, but that didn't work on my camera. Maybe I didn't understand that recipe well enough, but anyway, I found another solution that is more complex but works for me.

What I found today is that the cause of this problem is that the camera remembers the last aperture set with a modern lens.

So, if I put the tamron 17-50 on the camera, and set it at f/11, then put a vintage prime, the LCD screen will be nearly black, no matter how much I open the lens or push ISO up; stills will come out fine, but I won't be able to use live view in stills mode because all the camera will show me is black.

Put the modern lens on again, set it at f/2.8, take it out, put the vintage prime back on the camera, and live view is fine again. But may not be showing exposure as it will look when you actually take your image.

Taking stills in movie mode avoids all these problems, but sometimes I just need to take them in manual stills mode (usually because I want to use some advance stills feature)
 
I use a simpler workaround: try to change AV back and forth a few times (hold AV button and turn the wheel), and the screen will be back to normal.
 
Is there a fix in Magic Lantern for this Canon quirk?

I found going to AV and back didn't fix it for me. Using Olympus OM 24mm F2.0 (highly recommended BTW) I had to attach an EF lens, set it to F2.0 then I had accurate live view in photo mode, even when stopped down.

Would be great to have a menu option to set this maximum LV aperture instead of requiring an EF lens :)
 
Back
Top