Setting up new E-PL6

Guy Parsons wrote:

alexisgreat wrote:

About the AE/AF thing, is there a way to focus from one part of the frame, but spot meter from a different part of the frame, and neither spot be in the center (in other words, not tie the metering spot to the focusing spot in spot metering mode.)

Olympus always spot meters the same position as the focus spot.

I think that's true in ESP by inference, but if I select spot metering, the little metering indicator stays nailed to the centre of the screen and if I move the focus point around, the metering still comes from where that centre marker is looking, rather than the AF point (I just tried it out to make sure).

In my case I 99% use matrix metering (called ESP?) then adjust via watching the blinkies to get what I want. Always central small focus spot, half press focus and recompose and shoot.

I'm the same (except I don't use the live non-blinky blinkies for the most part because they distract me for some reason - that, and I'm basically a lazy photographer who isn't that good a photographer in any artistic sense - I just love playing with cameras, probably due to a severe strategic error my mother made when I was very small [she put a folding Kodak in my pram for me to play with - long before the days of health and safety awareness, of course! ].

By using S-AF Mode 2 it meters at full press but the way it works I can aim at the final scene, see the blinkie activity and alter the exposure compensation to either get the blinkies right or to "see" into a dark corner, then do the half press focus on point of interest, hold, reframe and shoot and the exposure is how I adjusted it to in live view. Or, when using S-AF Mode 2 I can use the AEL button to lock exposure if unsure about what might change when I finally shoot.

Oh, me too!  In my case this comes from long exposure (pardon the pun) to Olympus since the early eighties (the decade!) - and it's a reason I get all wound up with current Canon cameras which lock the exposure on half press in S-AF mode and won't even show the exposure at all if you let go of the shutter release - maddening!

Next if using spot metering (I avoid that as I've seen too many errors from other users when they take some general scene and forget that they have spot metering enabled) then my take would be to still use S-AF Mode 2 then meter the spot needed, press AEL, move to put my central small focus spot where I needed, half press AF and hold, move to reframe, then shoot.

Tried that now, easier and quicker to do than writing about it. Now to make sure that I get rid of that spot meter setting.....

I've been thinking about this since posting for Alex and the other way would be to just have AEL set to spot metering - but I guess that's potentially more dangerous still and easier to overlook/forget.  Though at least it becomes obvious on instant review (which I have active).

In my case now E-P5 and 12-40mm, sitting in chair with one elbow on desk, shooting the dim computer junk under a table close by and was variously using 1.3 and 2.6 second shots at 14mm by aiming at different parts and getting the exposures that I expected.

What I didn't really expect was shake free results at those shutter times, but sure enough I got them. About 6 stops improvement, and when I think about it, that mostly due to elbow on table, I've done those stability tests before and elbows on table or chair arms gives about 3 stops on its own.

Anyway, using spot meter and spot focus is no problem, just involves a little more work by the user. Just remember to watch the AEL lock icon to make sure it's on or off as needed.

Absolutely - not that you need any reinforcement from me, as I know you're more expert than me!   But anyway, agreed - so there!