Frustrating...

Rappasol · May 13, 2008

I was at a Conference gala this week-end and we were two shooting pictures, a lady with her Nikon D80 and me with my E-500. She was using a Quantaray external flash and a Quantaray lens (I can't remember which one), I was myself using a Promaster external flash and the 14-45mm.

The Frustrating part was seeing her shoot and shoot while I was trying to lock in focus to shoot.

The next day we shared our photos, she gave me 1150 shots while I gave her about 400, roughly a 3/1 ratio, that reflected how much more she could shoot.

On the bright side, comparing the photos I can honestly say that the ones from the E-500 are as good as hers from her D80.

Is there a big improvement in low light focusing from the E-500 to the E-510/E-3?

--
Equipment in profile.

I take a great picture, they ask me about my expensive cameras.
I cook a great meal, no one asks me about my expensive pans.

charli · May 13, 2008

i know your pain.there are many here who will tell you that you don't know how to use the camera.
fact is the low light focus on oly needs a faster lens than nikon.
--
charli

CharlesB58 · May 13, 2008

1150 shots over the course of a weekend conference? WHY?

The bane of digital photography is that people have replaced quality with quantity. Machine gun through photos and hope for some decent ones. sigh

Does anyone ever consider "the decisive moment" anymore?

To answer your question, low light focusing is better on more recent Olympus models according to all the reviews and user posts, though Nikons in general still have better low light AF capability than most cameras from other makers.

Rob MacLennan · May 13, 2008

There is some, but the biggest improvement I found was going to the 14-54 lens from the kit lens when I went from the E-500 to the E-510. More light = faster focus. Using an off-camera flash that has a focus assist light (FL-36/36R) is a great help too.

The E-3 is much better though. I've had it focus in very dim lighting, with the 14-54.
--
D620L -> D540 -> C750UZ -> E-500 -> E-510 -> E-3

mfbernstein · May 13, 2008

charli said:
i know your pain.there are many here who will tell you that you don't
know how to use the camera.
fact is the low light focus on oly needs a faster lens than nikon.

The 14-42 is pretty slow in low light, and the 14-45 is likely more so. The 12-60 (and 14-54) should be substantially better. That said, low-light AF is not a strong point of any current Olympus model that I've tried (E-3, E-510, E-420).

--
MFBernstein

'Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.' - Ed Abbey

TimT73 · May 13, 2008

Using an external flash with an AF assist lamp would solve this... it will practically focus in total darkness.

--
Tim
E3 + 14-54 + FL50R
Nikon S600

acwalbur · May 13, 2008

To the OP:

Can you expound on your E-500 settings?

With the E-500, Firmware V1.3, 14-54, S-AF, focus assist off, center point only I have little trouble focusing at 1 EV if there is a contrast line to point the camera at. Things get pretty hard around 0 EV, but that's why I have a Katz Eye.

I'm not saying that the OP is using their camera wrong, but in my experience there are setting that work better than others.

I agree with you Charli that the brighter 14-54 helps substantially.

charli said:
i know your pain.there are many here who will tell you that you don't
know how to use the camera.
fact is the low light focus on oly needs a faster lens than nikon.
--
charli

--
Good shooting.

Adam

Equipment in plan

Rappasol · May 13, 2008

CharlesB58 said:
1150 shots over the course of a weekend conference? WHY?

Why not?

With over 900 people attending, a multitude of events including Gala, lectures, awards ceremony, dance event, presentations by 70 different Clubs, free times at the resort (lunches, dinners, pool area...), Cultural show, etc.... there are lots of things to catch.

Having said that, I agree that 1150 shot was a bit overkill, I nicely covered the events with my 400 shots but the point remains that the Nikon was CAPABLE of shooting 3 times more pictures then the Oly and that ration wouldn't have changed had we shot 35 to 100 photos instead. The fact is that I did miss a few "special moments" because I wouldn't lock on focus.

CharlesB58 said:
To answer your question, low light focusing is better on more recent
Olympus models according to all the reviews and user posts, though
Nikons in general still have better low light AF capability than most
cameras from other makers.

Good to know there is an improvement in recent models. Thanks.

--
Equipment in profile.

I take a great picture, they ask me about my expensive cameras.
I cook a great meal, no one asks me about my expensive pans.

mfbernstein · May 13, 2008

TimT73 said:
Using an external flash with an AF assist lamp would solve this... it
will practically focus in total darkness.

True. But where's the fun in that?

But the OP was apparently using a flash and still couldn't get a reliable lock. A faster lens (and newer body) can help, but only up to a point.

(And why oh why do most manufacturers not have dedicated AF assist lamps on their bodies these days?)

--
MFBernstein

'Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.' - Ed Abbey

Rob MacLennan · May 13, 2008

With some of the more slowly focusing lenses, like the kit lenses, I've had the camera give up on focusing before the lens could get to where it needed to be, even with focus assist.

mfbernstein said:
True. But where's the fun in that? But the OP was apparently
using a flash and still couldn't get a reliable lock. A faster lens
(and newer body) can help, but only up to a point.

(And why oh why do most manufacturers not have dedicated AF assist
lamps on their bodies these days?)

--
MFBernstein

'Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.' -
Ed Abbey

--
D620L -> D540 -> C750UZ -> E-500 -> E-510 -> E-3

GregF · May 13, 2008

An ancient 20D will AF circles around the E-500 with default settings. In my opinion, low light focusing was the poorest performing aspect of the E-500, otherwise it took fantastic looking images.

Even an ancient D50 will run circles around it. Although it cheats with an honest-to-goodness dedicated AF light (Oly, please put these in your DSLRs!).

Greg

GregF · May 13, 2008

The "moments" are happening constantly, and there is no time to waste focusing, etc. Rapid fire shots are common and necessary. I would not call it the bane of digital, I'd call it the beauty of it.

Sure, anticipating a moment is important, but being able to fire a quick sequence because your camera is always ready is important too.

CharlesB58 said:
1150 shots over the course of a weekend conference? WHY?

The bane of digital photography is that people have replaced quality
with quantity. Machine gun through photos and hope for some decent
ones. sigh

Does anyone ever consider "the decisive moment" anymore?

To answer your question, low light focusing is better on more recent
Olympus models according to all the reviews and user posts, though
Nikons in general still have better low light AF capability than most
cameras from other makers.

shsdawg · May 13, 2008

I use my E-500 with a 14-54 and a 50-200 (old version). I've never had a problem at all in low light with the 14-54. The 50-200 usually does really well too. When it does hunt though, it will usually go all the way out and in before it locks. I shoot sports in all kinds of light.

acwalbur · May 13, 2008

No doubt that's all true (never tried either D50 or 20D).

But there are selections that can be made to help the old dog (E-500) along. The same can be said of the D50 and 20D for sure (there have to be settings that work better on those in low light than the defaults - it's the nature of the beast).

What I want to know is why someone hasn't made a hot-shoe mountable red LED light that picks up on the focus half press (sent through one of the hot shoe TTL pin outs). Make it battery powered so it doesn't drain the camera body battery and it would rock.

--
Good shooting.

Adam

Equipment in plan

Timskis6 · May 13, 2008

acwalbur said:
What I want to know is why someone hasn't made a hot-shoe mountable
red LED light that picks up on the focus half press (sent through one
of the hot shoe TTL pin outs). Make it battery powered so it doesn't
drain the camera body battery and it would rock.

This is a good innovative idea. I can't see why no one has offered it yet, especially Metz, etc. I'll check around ebay and see what comes up.

--
Tim
'Be the change you wish to see in the world.' -Mahatma Gandhi
E3/E-1/E410/7-14/12-60/50-200/EC-14/C8080
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timskis6/

Torsten Hoff · May 13, 2008

You can achieve this with the dedicated Olympus flashes (FL-36/FL-50 and the R variants) -- they allow the use of the red AF illuminator without using the flash itself.

Rappasol · May 13, 2008

acwalbur said:
To the OP:

Can you expound on your E-500 settings?

With the E-500, Firmware V1.3, 14-54, S-AF, focus assist off, center
point only I have little trouble focusing at 1 EV if there is a
contrast line to point the camera at. Things get pretty hard around
0 EV, but that's why I have a Katz Eye.

E-500
Firmware V.1.2
S-AF
Focus assist ON
center point only
-1/3EV
"A" priority set at 4.5 / 5.6

--
Equipment in profile.

I take a great picture, they ask me about my expensive cameras.
I cook a great meal, no one asks me about my expensive pans.

klownshed · May 13, 2008

I've found that my cheapo Nikon D60 + 18-55VR f3.5outclasses my E-410 with 14-54 f2.8 at focussing in low light by a large margin. I was really surprised at how much better it was to be honest.

But I much prefer my 14-54 to the Nikon kit lens so I still tend to use the Oly for that range, the Nikon tends to just do UWA for now.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johncompiani/

Rappasol · May 13, 2008

TimT73 said:
Using an external flash with an AF assist lamp would solve this... it
will practically focus in total darkness.

I did!
My Promaster external flash has the "red-beam" focus assist lamp.

--
Equipment in profile.

I take a great picture, they ask me about my expensive cameras.
I cook a great meal, no one asks me about my expensive pans.

illy · May 13, 2008

i know the feeling, tried to take a backlit pic in Thailand with some fill flash with a E300, for love nor money it would not lock focus on the face, nearly ended up throwing it in the nearest mangrove swamp i was so annoyed, used the D80 and it took 1st time with no fuss.
--
http://illy.smugmug.com

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