E-M5 and 60mm Macro: How to manally focus?

sinkas wrote:

You can change the magnification from 14x to 10x to 7x to 5x by rotating the front dial while manually focussing. You can turn off MF assist in Menu, Cogs, AF/MF, Mf Assist Off.

For macro photography at 1:1 turn off AF and you should move the camera not try and focus.

This is extremely helpful. In the hope that my own experience might be helpful to someone, I will briefly state it here.

I am about to undertake the digitization of thousands of slides, and I have discovered 3 ways of doing it rapidly in large numbers, using a camera. (A scanner takes 4 minutes a slide; commercial digitization costs $.69 per slide or only $.22 if I am willing to send my precioius slides to Bhutan).

My tests so far show that the Oly 60mm macro is superb for this purpose as well as being a fine portrait lens. This is consistent with the reviews of SLRGear, Ming Thein, and others, who find this lens superb. I am using an Oly EM-10.

Formerly I tried slide digitization with a Nex 5n and the Sony 30mm macro. The Oly 60mm is far superior; I returned the 30mm.

I have been using ShotCopy so far, to hold the slide and move the camera on the ShotCopy base. A very good system.

Recently I acquired from Dodd's Camera in Ohio, a Kiwi macro sliding rail for about $80, a small fraction of the price of similar units, and it turns out to be a precision instrument, calibrated, very well made.

I wish to work on a desktop rather than a tripod, so I will mount the Kiwi unit on the ShotCopy base and I will be able to move the camera a fraction of a millimeter in each of 4 directions: forward and back, or side to side. The ShotCopy slide holder can be moved up and down, or rotated on a vertical axis.

It is very helpful to know that for macro, the idea is to move the camera, not use autofocus or manual focus. I didn't know that.

The OM-10 has focus peaking, so that should be a major help as well.

The Kiwi unit will be helpful in the other two methods I have in mind, which are even faster and easier than ShotCopy (which can copy 12 slides in 2 minutes).

I also acquired for about $49 a very good light box, 10" x 12," with two internal lights, by PortaTrace, from Amazon, for use in a second even faster method of digitization. It looks to be of very high quality.

I hope this information will be helpful to other forum members.

(I have no connection with any of the firms mentioned here.)

Krugman