Electronic Level Display

A funny thing happened to me recently while I was overseas on a photo-shoot. I lost the electronic level display on the LCD of my Canon EOS 5DS R camera when shooting in Live View.

I tried everything I could think of to bring it back but nothing worked and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong with my settings.

Everything I checked seemed to be in order but for some reason, the electronic display was not showing up on Live View. It still worked on the LCD monitor without Live View though and in the viewfinder.

A lot of questions went through my head. Was something wrong with my camera? Was there a software issue? Had my camera taken a knock and was there a spirit level inside that had gone askew?

I ended up shooting without an electronic level for the rest of the trip. Strangely enough, I discovered that I had acquired the ability through yonks of shooting to be able to level the camera intuitively. This wasn’t the best case scenario though and it took me over a week to figure out the fix, so I thought I’d put together this article to help you out in case you run into a similar problem.

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How to Use Your Camera's Electronic Display

If you have trouble getting the horizon straight in your landscape photography, then the electronic level display on your camera can be a very useful tool.

The electronic level on your Canon camera allows you to check your camera’s tilt so that you can correct it. Both the horizontal and vertical tilt are displayed, allowing you to make corrections in both planes.

You can simply move your camera in either direction, while keeping an eye on the electronic level. As you tilt the camera, you’ll see the red line changing between red, yellow and green.

Red indicates that your camera is on a tilt. Yellow indicates that you’re close to getting it level. When the red line turns green, it indicates that the tilt has been corrected.

How to Display the Electronic Level on a Canon 5DS R

If your camera didn’t come to you with this function enabled, then follow the steps below to turn on the electronic level for your Canon 5DS R. These instructions are also applicable to the Canon 5DS.

Displaying the Electronic Level on the LCD Monitor

Turn your camera on.
Press the [INFO.] button on the back of your camera. The screen will cycle through different displays. The electronic level should, at some point, appear on the camera LCD screen.

Displaying the Electronic Level in Live View

Turn your camera on.
Switch to Live View.
Press the [INFO.] button on the back of your camera. Every time you press it, a different display will appear. The electronic level should appear after several presses, superimposed over the visual display of whatever your camera is pointed at.

What if the Electronic Level Doesn't Appear?

If your electronic level doesn’t appear on the LCD monitor, go into your Menu settings and scroll across to the ‘Set Up’ tab. This is usually the 4th tab on the screen, highlighted in yellow with an image of a wrench.

You’ll then need to go to the 3rd section within this tab, where you’ll see a display like this:

Select ‘[INFO.] button display options’, which will bring you to the next screen. Make sure that ‘Electronic level’ has a tick next to it and click ‘OK’.

The electronic level should now be enabled. Go back to these steps to check that it works.

The Electronic Level is Not Showing in Live View

If the electronic level doesn’t appear when shooting in Live View, or if you have lost it like I did, go into your Menu settings and select the ‘Shoot’ tab. This is usually the 1st tab on the screen, highlighted in red with an image of a camera.

You’ll then need to go to the 5th section within this tab, where you’ll see a display like this:

Now, here is where it gets interesting!

Despite thinking that I knew my camera settings inside-out and upside-down, I was wrong. What I didn’t realise was that during my previous shoot, I had somehow enabled a function known as ‘Face Tracking’.

Be aware that if Face Tracking is enabled, the electronic level will not appear when you are shooting in Live View mode on your camera.

As you can see in the image below, the ‘AF method’ has been set to Face Tracking. This is evident by the funny emoji face next to ‘+ Tracking’.

Scroll down to ‘AF method’ and press the ‘SET’ button. You should now see two options: 1) Face Tracking and 2) FlexiZoneAF▢.

Scroll down to ‘FlexiZone AF▢’ to select it (make sure it’s highlighted in blue), then click the ‘SET’ button.

The electronic level should now be enabled. Go back to these steps to check that it works.

Displaying the Electronic Level in the Viewfinder

If you prefer to look through the viewfinder to shoot, you can still turn on the electronic level to help you correct camera-tilt.

Go into your Menu settings and scroll across to the ‘Set Up’ tab. This is the 4th tab on the screen, highlighted in yellow with an image of a wrench.

You’ll then need to go to the 2nd section within this tab, where you’ll see a display like this:

Scroll down to ‘Viewfinder display’ and press the ‘SET’ button. The display should look like this:

Go to ‘Electronic level’ (on some cameras, this will show as ‘Viewfinder level’) and press the ‘SET’ button. You should then see an option to ‘Hide’ or ‘Show’.

Go down to ‘Show’ and press the ‘SET’ button.

The electronic level should now be enabled. Look into your viewfinder to check that it works.

I hope you’ve found this article helpful, particularly if you’ve lost your electronic level display or weren’t exactly sure how to turn it on in the first place. It’s a very handy tool to have in landscape photography to make sure that your horizons are straight, so unless you can intuitively set up your camera without a tilt every time, then it’s best to turn it on to reduce the need to fix your horizons later on with post-processing software!