E5 Slow / poor focus in low light? Any similar experience - or need checkup?

One of my biggest beef's with the E5 currently is that in an indoor environment (think 15 foot ceiling) with ceiling lights at the front of your subject, the camera with the 14-54II seems to have difficulty catching focus on eyes. The overall contrast in the room has fallen granted, but this situation occurs even with the FL50R on the camera with IR strobing along.

I would have expected that the camera would catch focus very quickly...instead after pressing on the trigger, the camera has to 'pause', before it catches focus, making for a blurrier image than I would have wanted (obviously.).

Has anyone had such experience? Without the flash on and at ISO400 it would be like 1/15 @ F2.8.

As much as I like the E5, this is a major frustration and heck the EP3 beats it out of the water (dark) with their IR oncamera, zoom or 20 F1.7.

Would like some opinions whether this is 'native; to the system or my E5 needs a checkup.

Mark Chan said:

One of my biggest beef's with the E5 currently is that in an indoor environment (think 15 foot ceiling) with ceiling lights at the front of your subject, the camera with the 14-54II seems to have difficulty catching focus on eyes. The overall contrast in the room has fallen granted, but this situation occurs even with the FL50R on the camera with IR strobing along.

I would have expected that the camera would catch focus very quickly...instead after pressing on the trigger, the camera has to 'pause', before it catches focus, making for a blurrier image than I would have wanted (obviously.).

Has anyone had such experience? Without the flash on and at ISO400 it would be like 1/15 @ F2.8.

As much as I like the E5, this is a major frustration and heck the EP3 beats it out of the water (dark) with their IR oncamera, zoom or 20 F1.7.

Would like some opinions whether this is 'native; to the system or my E5 needs a checkup.

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I have the same setup (E-5 with 14-54 II) and sometime it takes a few secs to focus in low light... I use the FL-36R IR and does not take that much, but still I want a little faster focusing, maybe the SWD of the 12-60 would help.

Mine even after it take a while to focus... still focus correctly... no problem with that...

The E-1 is better, with its in-body focus assist light.

This is when shooting in very dim light... like only enough to read the headlines of a newspaper, not the fine print. If I have my radio slave sender in the shoe, I can't have a flash in the shoe for an AF-assist.

I understand the 12-60 makes things better... and thanks for your report on the MkII, as I guess I'll skip that step, though it does have CD-AF ability.
--
Barry

Same here

I have the E5 and 14-54mm mkI, in low light situations the AF is really a nightmare, takes 2,3 and 4 seconds to adjust focus.

I'm not sure how the camera behave with the 12-60 but some people report the focus respond well.

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http://www.pbase.com/marceloli

ISO 400, 1/15" at f/2.8 is EV5, which is about average indoors lighting.

The E-5 slows way down for me with any lens except the 12-60. Sigma 50mm likes to make tiny adjustments before locking and takes a long time. Sigma 24mm takes a while also. And the Sigma 150mm gives up unless its current focus setting is reasonably close.

I've had quick AF locks using a Nikon D2h where that camera's meter complains "Lo". :\ 7 years later, Olympus can't quite come up with low-light AF on par with that camera. I'm sure the EP3 and co. will do fine, though!

EXACTLY!!

Thanks for everyone who posted; the room I was in was under average / below average lighting.

It seems when any situation where u lose contrast or have greater shadows makes it more difficult for the camera to focus.

Anyone with experience usingthe 14-35? Hat will be the only reason I am keeping the e5 for. Saving up for that.

Mark Chan said:

Anyone with experience usingthe 14-35? Hat will be the only reason I am keeping the e5 for. Saving up for that.

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I have read in an italian forum that it's a pain to use in low light:

http://www.photocommunity.qtp.it/showthread.php/26590-Zuiko-14-35-f-2-Che-delusione

for less money you can have the canon 7D or 60D, both speed demons in low light photography, and the EF 17-55mm F2.8 IS.

the crop factor is 1.6x instead of 2x, the depth of field capabilities are the same or better with the canon, as at 55mm has an equivalent 35mm FOV of 88mm (great for portraits), the light stop advantage is gone when you look at the high iso advantage of the canon sensors that have also much more resolution (more crop or even less noise resizing)

another "hidden" to the 4/3 users, but very powerful advantage is the optical IS, you see the image steady in the viewfinder and this also helps a lot the AF that gets steady images to focus on

anyway it is not rated water proof, still it survived to a lot of water splashes during my own use and it's still working ...

so if you are keeping the E5 just hoping to get your dream piece of glass, look around to see if other glass can get you the same or better results ... many people use a mixed system just to have the choice of using some glass unavailable in other systems ...

no problem with 14-35.

Mark Chan said:

Has anyone had such experience? Without the flash on and at ISO400 it would be like 1/15 @ F2.8.

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I just tried it with the 50-200swd at 50mm/2.8 and it took less than 0.5 second from infinity to about 3 meters at that same EV. I don't have the 14-54 lens. With the Sigma 30/1.4 it takes about 0,6-0,7 seconds.

60d is far from a speed demon in low light. It's no better than E5. It might look better because it tends to give false positives.

14-35 is pretty good in low light, but you need to set SAF release priority to ON.
--
Cheers,
Marin

GatanoII said:

for less money you can have the canon 7D or 60D, both speed demons in low light photography, and the EF 17-55mm F2.8 IS.

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In EV4. One EV darker than the OP had experience with the 60D takes 0.53s, the E-5 takes 0.56s according to PopPhoto.

fiolmattias said:

In EV4. One EV darker than the OP had experience with the 60D takes 0.53s, the E-5 takes 0.56s according to PopPhoto.

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I don't know what glass they use for their tests, I don't have slower than f2.8 glass or without USM and I got for sure a lot less than half a second to focus in low light

msusic said:

60d is far from a speed demon in low light. It's no better than E5. It might look better because it tends to give false positives.

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till now I never had a false positives, it is really simple, If the focus point tells it is in focus it really is, am I lucky? maybe I don't use low end glass and the story can be different with non canon glass ... with F2.8 zooms the AF is fast and reliable even in low light,

if you want to be really impressed with AF speed with a zoom use a 70-200 F2.8 IS II with any modern canon with 2 digits or 1 digit name, still the 17-55 F2.8 IS is very fast to be used with moving subjects also in lowlight.

Thanks for the note on Canons - prior experience suggests i will not go down that route anymore (40D lemon and post processing horrors).

I am investing in the m43 also - just struggling a wee bit about keeping E5 for 'demanding' situations.