| The
LC-Displays
Having
the EC-B screen mounted on the F5 (which you have if you're
using the default stuff which came with the F5 as you bought
it), you actually have four LCD's:
1.
The main (top) LCD
2. The rear LCD
3. The LCD in the lower portion of the viewfinder
4. The transparent LCD of the EC-B screen
| |
A
"Lanz Bulldog". Germany. September 1999.
Nikon F5, Nikkor AF 50mm/1.4 on Fujichrome Velvia.
|
The
main and rear LCD's are backlit with the typical bright-blue
Nikon color (same color as the speedlight's LCD backlight).
The backlight goes on when you force the spring loaded power-on
switch beyond the center (ON) position direction a small bulb
symbol. It goes off when you do this once more or when the
metering system turns off (either after 4, 8, 16 or 32 seconds).
Default being 16 seconds, changeable with CS #15.
The
main LCD holds a lot of data, and I won't go into all the
details here, since a picture of the LCD would be much better
- yes, I will place one here soon. Suffice to say that this
LCD contains a heck of a lot of information divided upon four
rows. The main LCD always shows the number of the next frame,
even if the camera is turned off - this is really a good thing.
OK, if there is no battery left, you won't see a thing.
The
most important information displayed on the main LCD is:
1. Exposure mode (a big P, S, A or M)
2. Aperture
3. Shutter speed
4. Selected focus area
5. Dynamic focus active
6. Current frame number
7. Lock indications for the aperture, shutter speed and focus
area
8. Battery status
etc.
The rear LCD is mainly responsible for displaying the film
speed, i.e. the ISO value. It also shows the current CSM stuff
when you operate the CSM and the current flash sync selection.
The
rear LCD displays among others:
1. Film speed
2. Custom settings information
3. Flash sync information
4. Bracketing stuff
The
wide, thin LCD at the bottom of the DP-30 finder comes with
a yellow backlight and has very good contrast. It shows a
multitude of information, lots of the stuff you already see
in the main LCD.
The
viewfinder LCD displays stuff such as:
1. Aperture
2. Shutter speed
3. Current frame number
4. Activated metering system
5. Exposure compensation
etc.
The
transparent LCD of the viewfinder won't be discussed here,
since it actually can be seen as a part of the EC-B screen
being discussed in several sections of this review (remember
the fat squares? That's this LCD).
The
main LCD has been hard wired to have a viewing angle tilted
backwards, i.e. it's best viewed from slightly behind the
camera. This is then the typical position you will have when
you view it. The rear LCD has its viewing angle tilted upwards,
so it's best viewed from above (and of course from behind).
This is also the typical view you will have on it.
In
all, the LCD's have high contrast and the backlight is really
OK. I don't think there would be any use inventing a control
for the viewing angle of the top and rear LCD, since the angles
are really well thought through. |
