Pen F users - some quick questions...

acfo wrote:

Raist3d wrote:

So here's something that could make more of a difference in things for me to try at L.

Are you using

- spot focus point (touch square that you can move around with finger) AF point,

- small AF point from grid,

- Large AF point from grid

- all AF points in grid

- 3x3 AF points from gird

?

Which one you are finding gives you most confident results in L? I want to make sure I try the same settings. Thanks.

For sitting birds I use the single small AF point in the center. I do not use a tripod so C-AF helps keep the subject in focus while I joggle and sway.

For birds in flight I use the 3x3 AF grid centered. The great Rob Trek video on birding suggests shifting the 3x3 AF grid up a little as birds will more often be in the top half of the picture.

I have set the camera to JPEG fine + RAW. Some suggest setting the camera to only one of the two to decrease the load on the processor and buffer. I did not notice any difference in the results so I leave it set to both.

I have set the picture mode to natural. Some suggest setting the camera to vivid improves the AF performance. I have not been able to confirm this.

What I have noticed is that underexposing the subject reduces the AF performance. I use center weighted average metering and the exposure compensation dial to properly expose the subject.

Thanks again for answering with more details. So I did the following:

- verified it has focus priority for C-AF

- Chose JPEG super fine, but not with RAW

- On a reasonably fast memory card-> I have seen this affect the PenF responsiveness in the UI quite a bit after a shot

- Used 1 AF point (standard, not small), 3 x 3 grid

- Shot 25mm F1.8 and at F3.2, shot 75mm at F1.8 and F3.5

- Was shooting in default color profile 2

- Shot with diamond + square rectangle icon (electronic front shutter) L at 5fps

- Shot with diamond + square rectangle icon - 1 press in C-AF (no pre-hold with half shutter)

Subject: mainly cars coming in from an intersection at 10-30 mph, at about 12:20 pm

The results were better than expected with the 25mm. Both lenses did better (the 75mm much better) when he aperture closed

Continuous L shooting

25mm F1.8 - got some misses, but the camera performed better than I expected.

25mm F3.2- much more hit rate. I would even say pretty good.

75mm F1.8 - almost every shot had an issue with not having quite the right focus. On a 2nd attempt at a guy running that was mostly parallel to me, the camera mostly nailed it, but I already had noticed that for slightly moving subjects in the axis towards you, more like panning, the Camera does reasonably well.

75mm @ F3.5 - the hit rate went from being near zero to like 30-40%. So much better, but easy to get issues.

The trajectory of cars in this case is me on a sidewalk, cars coming on a street so at first you get a lot of movement towards you shifting slowly towards more of a panning movement. So no erratic movements per se.

The effective shooting rate often slowed down to 2-3 fps instead of doing 5 fps.

1 shot press down on C-AF results

Similar to above but it was easier to get a shot wrong. Ironically from previous experimentation seems like it's easier to get a shot in focus from the get go than holding the half shutter for a while then pressing the shutter, but I did not try that out specifically this time out.

Last shot - on a turn around and shoot at some ER workers, the camera with the 75mm failed completely making a shot completely blurred, 2nd try was better.

100% crop of the typical issue with 75 @ F1.8

Example of 75mm @ F3.5 nailing it. This was was further away and moving slower but still, I got some similar results similar to this at F3.5

Conclusions

At the right settings (aperture) and lens combination, in good light the PenF is doing better than I expected.

Wide open in general is pretty hard on the camera.

One issue I have is that I try to do C-AF in lower light on street subjects, which also means lenses are wide open too. Seems like much more difficult- as it is for all cameras in general in lower light, but I have more issues with PenF than EM5 MKII under those conditions.

It's also possible when I tried H mode I forgot it locks focus, though most of the time I have tried to use C-AF is for the first case you mentioned where you hold the button half pressed and then shoot- or one full button press on a moving object.

I know the EPL9 can focus better in a notable way than the PenF in the dark. The EPL9 issue with C-AF now that I remember is that it doesn't have focus priority as an option.