Digital camera viewfinder issue...

[albo]

I've a Panasonic Lumix and have come across a very irritating "feature". If shooting in low light, with the intention of using the flash, the viewfinder (the on-screen digital display) shows the picture as it would without the flash... Seems logical, but the result is that I am looking at a black screen, which makes it very hard to frame the picture correctly....

Don't have the exact model number as I'm at work as I type this... but I was hoping someone would find it familiar

Is this a common problem? I don't seem to remember my old camera having this (an Olympus C300 Zoom or something), and if the worst came to the worst, you could look through an optical view finder, but with the Panasonic, the small view-finder in the corner is electronic too...

Anyway, the only way around this I've found is to turn up the exposure to see the picture and position my camera, then turn it back down to take the photo. There has to be a better way than this though...

 

[DocFrankenstein]

A DSLR would be a better way.

You'll probably have to live with it with this camera.

 

[Rob]

What the Doc said. It's new camera time if you're consistently obstructed from getting your shot over something so simple (and badly designed).

Rob

 

[Marctwo]

Try turning the AE off, ie. shoot in manual mode. As your camera won't be using AE, it shouldn't give you an AE preview (which is the problem here).