EM1 continous AF and tracking

Colin K. Work wrote:

Chris R-UK wrote:

Fri13 wrote:

Oh and E-M1 can beat cameras like 7D Mk2 in C-AF accuracy and speed.

Perhaps you could produce your evidence for that statement.

Do you own a 7D MkII? Have you shot with one?

I owned a 7D MkI for 6 years and I can tell you that my E-M1 with a red dot sight can shoot most of the things that the 7D could, but there is no way that the E-M1 has better C-AF accuracy and speed than the 7D MkI let alone the 7D MkII. The lack of cross type AF points in the E-M1 can be a serious restriction for some targets.

I'm not sure about this ... I would suggest the initial acquisition is faster and more reliable than the 7D, but once acquired the 7D holds focus better. But it does very according to subject and conditions. I think this accounts for the variety of reports on relative performance - depends what you shoot I guess.

Colin,

I have been shooting BIF recently with an EE-1 to find out what I can and cannot shoot with the E-M1. Using Sequential L and hybrid PDAF/CDAF the E-M1 is certainly worse at maintaining focus and tends to go in and out of focus as you track the bird. I have therefore switched entirely to Sequential H for BIF using the EE-1.

My impression using Sequential H is a little different to yours - I would say that the E-M1 is probably comparable to the 7D for maintaining focus but is sometimes slower at acquiring the initial focus. Shooting with an EE-1 you have to wait for the focus beep to know that focus has been acquired before starting to shoot and sometimes that takes a while. With the 7D the beep normally came faster and more reliably. I am having particular problems when the bird is coming head on in a very horizontal attitude and that could be due to the lack of cross type AF points on the E-M1 (although I would have thought that it would affect vertical targets more than horizontal).

The EE-1 has its own advantages and disadvantages - you can pick birds up extremely quickly but I get a lot of cut off wings because you can't see the viewfinder. I probably need to learn to shoot at a shorter focal length to allow more room for error. The EE-1 is great fun to use.

All in all, after about 6 months and 3000 or so BIF shots with the E-M1, I am at the situation where I can shoot everything with the E-M1/EE-1 that I could shoot with the 7D and I probably get comparable keeper rates, but I don't yet have the confidence with the E-M1 that I had with the 7D that I can nail a shot when shooting the most difficult targets.  If I was going out on a once in a lifetime wildlife opportunity I would prefer to have my 7D with me (if I still had it) rather than the E-M1, but not prefer it sufficiently to offset the disadvantage of carrying around heavy lenses like the 100-400mm that I used to shoot with.

I think that all this shows is that on-sensor PDAF is probably the way the mirrorless cameras are going to take over from DSLRs for C-AF. I hope that the next generation E-M1 has Liveview at higher fps rates, the option to choose between PDAF and hybrid AF and cross type PDAF focus points.