Live view too dark on connected camera

Is your live view too dark when your DSLR is connected?

If your camera settings are set up for flash, then this is because by default your camera’s live view is trying to show you what the photo will look like with the flash being fired. Of course your strobe flash isn’t firing every moment, so things look very dark! This is called Exposure Simulation on Canon cameras.

For Canon cameras like the 80D, 90D, and up (5D, 6D etc), as well as the M5 and up (M50, etc), you can simply turn off the setting “Exp. Sim.” or “Exposure Simulation”, and the live view will now show a separate exposure from the photo – meaning the camera will choose the “right” exposure for the live view.

For cheaper and older Canon cameras like the M3, EOS Rebel SL1, SL2, EOS Rebel T6i, T7i, there is no setting for exposure simulation. You have a few options with these cameras, but we recommend you use constant lighting instead of flash. Some Canon cameras’ live view will expose properly with Canon TTL flash – if you’re using a Canon-branded TTL-compatible flash, the live view exposure may be correct. Others have tried different approaches – we recommend you google for “<your camera model> exposure simulation” and see what you can find out.