Pen F users - some quick questions...

whumber wrote:

Raist3d wrote:

You win. That’s what matters

Important to note than in MEDISN's example the subject is moving at approximately 2mph. That said, it's still a very good example for the Pen-F, I never saw results that good. I don't know if he's able to get results like that consistently or not but given that there's not much to configure on the Pen-F maybe he's just better than pressing the shutter button than everyone else, =). That or maybe Olympus made some stealth FW updates.

Sounds about right. 2mph = 3ft/sec, so roughly 7 inches per frame in the burst. The DOF at the beginning of the sequence was ~ 10 inches and narrowed to ~3 inches by the end. You would think the two OOF shots would be more likely to occur at the end where DOF is much shallower but they occurred at shot 16 and 26 so probably just random misses.

Notice I wasn't rack zooming either as hit rate drops with all of my mirrorless including the A9 and EM1X. Not so bad when the subject is coming toward the camera but everything starts to struggle when the subject is moving away from the camera. Or may just be my technique.

If you really want to make a camera hurt, try the swingset torture test. Get in close and shoot wide open with a fast prime, eye-AF enabled. Hold the shutter down until it starts buffering. When you sort through in post you might get 15-20% sharp on the subjects face even with the A9 and EM1mkII 

The 34 shot PEN-F sequence was firmware 3.0 but I don't recall experiencing any dramatic change in AF going back to 2016 when the camera was released.

As others have posted here it may well be lens dependent. My assumption would be that many PEN-F's are paired with compact budget primes most of the time which may yield disappointing results. Then factor in the other variables like settings, target contrast, light levels, and user ability and it's easy to see how results can vary.

The types of motion I shoot CAF with the PEN-F tend to be street/lifestyle/travel candid's and portraits plus kids at play as in the sequence above. For that type of shooting the PEN-F doesn't disappoint. I've never tried motorsports or surfing with it as it isn't weather sealed and the big lenses tend to balance better on the larger bodies.