Olympus E-PL5 / 60 2.8 Macro - double image with IS

Had been wondering why some of my images with my Oly 60 2.8 and E-PL5 have looked quite poor and stumbled upon the finding that at certain shutter speeds IS can severely degrade the image.

Not tested all shutter speeds but the problem is certainly present at shutter speeds of 1/125 seconds which unfortunately happens to be the one the auto-ISO function tries to maintain.



with IS off

with IS mode 1

The image degradation is clearly visible.

EDIT: The image degradation occurs seems to be present when the subject is at moderate to far distances. At near distances it seems to be fine. Macro distances not tested.

IS off

IS on

Even at moderate distances (approximately 4m here) the image degradation caused by IS at shutter speeds of 1/125 is visible (though more subtle).

I have that problem with my E-P3 at all focal lengths, although it is more noticeable with telephotos.

Frankly, I find IBIS to be more trouble than it is worth in the PEN cameras. I rarely use it. I have enough things to think about - aperture, shutter speed, ISO, composition - without having to ask myself whether or not IBIS is appropriate for the current lens/aperture/focal length.

The five-axis IBIS in the OM-D appears to be in a different league, although I do wonder how much of the praise is wishful thinking.

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Ibis on: 1/125 sec: Magical Epl5 using the Mystical Oly 60 2.8 Macro !

Love Vjim

Check my Gallery: 3 shots at 1/125: IS always on...

Are you using a tripod??? I'm not sure about Olympus but in Sony you can not use tripod and have IBIS on, the camera can try to compensate a movement that doesnt exists, therefore you get unsharp pics, I guess must be the same for Olympus

Not quite the same shutter speed, but in the ballpark.



OMD I'm afraid. Can't help with the E-PL5.

If you use a tripod you MUST not use IBIS. Switch it off. It will lead to blurry and unsharp pictures due to resonance effects...

see more of my work on http://www.klaweide.de ( some NSFW )

Is the problem definitely with IS? It could be shutter shock. Try selecting anti-shock 1/8sec and see whether the problem persists.

These IBIS problems have been going on for years. It's pathetic that Olympus keeps turning out cameras that have severe issues when IBIS is turned on and shutter speeds are around 1/100 sec.

That's the common solution for the issue.

In the Cog E - Exp/ISO custom menu choose a 1/8s delay under Shutter Shock.

In the AF Focus settings then you choose one of the settings with the diamond next to it to have the 1/8s delay enabled (rotate the selection backwards to go from plain S-AF to [diamond] S-AF).

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"Well, sometimes the magic works. . . Sometimes, it doesn't." - Little Big Man
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sometimes on my EPM1. I find it very frustrating hence I change format from Pen to Nex, the latter can handle higher ISO as well plus built-in panoramic and HDR features not available on EPM1 and EPL1. I have to manipulate the images on PC to get these features from PEN I don't want to do that.

I cannot believe it still occurs in EPL5, BTW it is not a cheap camera.

Thanks. I have tried the anti-shock setting and it didn't affect anything (tried some other values as well)

The problem occurs with handheld shooting.

IS mode 3 (vertical panning) does not degrade image.

Anyway, I now know when to turn IS off.

Note that my E-PL5 is upgraded to firmware 1.1.

of course the problem is with IBIS that can't compensate shutter shock at all and only makes things worse because the sensor is not solidly attached to the body.

It takes me, three days to fully examine any camera or lens: any problems, don't whine, send it back: The EPL5 and 60 Macro are still under warranty:

I've owned the EPL1, EPM1 and now the EPL5: Always shot IS on; never saw a problem !

I did return a Nikon 5000, and then bought a refurbushed 5000:

Unhappy - Return IT !

Vjim 

Anti-shock did nothing to fix the IBIS blur issue on my E-PM1.

If the E-PL5 has the same IBIS and shutter mechanism as the E-PM1/E-PL3, then anti-shock won't fix your problem.

You got a poor sample.  Just like sample variation in lens, Olympus tends to have sample variation in IBIS performance and you got a clunker.  My E-PM2 however is quite good...just tested 1/125 on 60mm on my 40-150, no IBIS issues.

On the otherhand I've gotten a string of poor decentered MFT lenses recently...right now my Sigma 19mm and 40-150 are the only lenses that are very good.

I don't think this is correct... no one really knows exactly what triggers the problem--maybe Olympus does but they're not telling us--so you don't know that you don't have the issue.

I think the IBIS problem is a design defect and not sample variation.

I think that the sensor being suspended by combination of magnetic fields and springs could potentially have mechanical or electromagnetic variances that can account for slight differences in IBIS behavior.  I also believe there is definitely a potential that hand holding shakes slightly differ from person to person as well but the issue here seems to be that 1/125 is always causing pretty large double image and not 25% of the time or 50% of the time but almost all the time.  If it was a random occurrence I would believe it to be more due to random handshaking movement.

It's been said you cannot 'wet' clean the sensors due to messing up the IS and alignment.  Thus the question is raised on whether or not sensors can be out of alignment due to all sorts of issues such as vibration during shipping, etc.  Wet cleaning to me does not seem like a hugely destructive force any more potentially dangerous than keeping your camera vibrating while in transport/shipping.

That was pretty much my philosophy regarding IBIS on my E-PL2--i.e., I never used it because I always got sharper images without it. Though the PEN Lites and PEN Minis have the "Lite" version of IBIS compared to the PENs, so for you to say that about the PENs IBIS is pretty telling.

In all fairness, the E-M5's IBIS is the real deal. I was never impressed with IBIS on the PL and PM models.

These are all fine educated guesses and you may very well be correct about some of them, but they are not "exact" knowledge, they are just guesses.

My educated guess is that there's a design defect, and that for reasons I do not understand, the problem does not manifest 100% of the time for 100% of the users, but it seems to manifest at least some of the time for most users.