Help Needed: E-M1 touch screen craziness

Guys, I hope you will be able to help me here, since I have started pulling my hair out.

When you enable touch screen in the EM1, you have three options:

1. Turn touch screen off.
2. Focus only, but not trigger the shutter.
3. Focus and trigger the shutter at once.

My question is about the 2nd mode, when I first bought the camera, touching the screen focused on what I touched, and more importantly, in video mode, I was able to pull focus by touching the screen.

Now however, and for my immense frustration, touching the screen in this mode turns on magnification, allowing me to choose the box location and size using the slider, but it does NOT always focus to what's inside that box. And I can't pull focus at all in video mode, I want to turn magnification off please, any ideas?

Not completely sure what's going on with your camera but I'll mention one possibility that comes to mind.

Like a LOT of the features of the E-M1, the touch-screen focusing options are affected by your choice of other options.

The touch-focus option you list as #2 (touching spot on monitor focuses but doesn't take picture) will only focus if the camera is in autofocus mode. If you've got the camera in MF mode, then touching the screen will NOT focus. It will simply move the autofocus point, a change that won't matter at all to you until you switch back to AF mode.

Will

mshafik wrote:

When you enable touch screen in the EM1, you have three options:

1. Turn touch screen off.
2. Focus only, but not trigger the shutter.
3. Focus and trigger the shutter at once.

Now however, and for my immense frustration, touching the screen in this mode turns on magnification, allowing me to choose the box location and size using the slider, but it does NOT always focus to what's inside that box.

mshafik wrote:

Guys, I hope you will be able to help me here, since I have started pulling my hair out.

When you enable touch screen in the EM1, you have three options:

1. Turn touch screen off.
2. Focus only, but not trigger the shutter.
3. Focus and trigger the shutter at once.

My question is about the 2nd mode, when I first bought the camera, touching the screen focused on what I touched, and more importantly, in video mode, I was able to pull focus by touching the screen.

If you are using the 12-40/2.8, 12/2, or 17/1.8 Oly lenses, insure the focus ring isn't in the MF position.

Now however, and for my immense frustration, touching the screen in this mode turns on magnification, allowing me to choose the box location and size using the slider, but it does NOT always focus to what's inside that box. And I can't pull focus at all in video mode, I want to turn magnification off please, any ideas?

Not sure what goes on there, in part for not using the touch screen much, and video not at all. Maybe that's the default response when in MF mode?  But that might apply only if the prior suggestion applies.  

William Porter wrote:

The touch-focus option you list as #2 (touching spot on monitor focuses but doesn't take picture) will only focus if the camera is in autofocus mode. If you've got the camera in MF mode, then touching the screen will NOT focus. It will simply move the autofocus point, a change that won't matter at all to you until you switch back to AF mode.

No, that's not right. Want to correct myself.

As I said, if you're in MF mode, then touching the screen will not autofocus. It just moves the autofocus point — or perhaps it's better to call it the target point. The terminology matters because this target point doesn't just matter to autofocus, and contrary to what I say above, moving the target point could matter to you even if you don't go back to AF mode.

The other thing — well, at least one other thing — it matters to is live view magnification. I have one of the front buttons (near the lens mount) set to magnify live view. If I touch the screen and move the little green box while in MF mode, and then I magnify the view, the area of the screen that is zoomed into is the area around the green "target" point. Which can be really really useful.

Will

Bob Tullis wrote:

If you are using the 12-40/2.8, 12/2, or 17/1.8 Oly lenses, insure the focus ring isn't in the MF position.

Bob, looks like you were replying at just the same time I was. Let me just add that it's not just a matter that affects the lenses you mention. The OP needs to check in a general way to make sure that he's got AF enabled. On lenses where there's a mechanical AF/MF switch, as you note, the switch needs to be set to AF. But the camera itself needs to be set to one of the various autofocus options as well.

And while I'm at it: This doesn't just affect the OP's "option #2" (moving the target point without taking picture), it also affects option #3 (move target point and take picture). If you've selected option 3, but you're in MF mode, touching the screen ANYWHERE will (a) move the target point and (b) take the picture but WILL NOT (c) change the focus.

I think this is a great example of how complicated the E-M1 can be. It's great example because it shows how various options interconnect, but without being very hard to understand. I've run into some other problems where the reason option 47 wasn't working was that I'd set option 192 to x and had forgotten to change option 305 from M to N.

I've started making a lot of notes on these interconnections. It's a bit like trying to understand the US tax code. Okay, that's grossly unfair to the E-M1.

WIll

William Porter wrote:

Bob Tullis wrote:

If you are using the 12-40/2.8, 12/2, or 17/1.8 Oly lenses, insure the focus ring isn't in the MF position.

Bob, looks like you were replying at just the same time I was. Let me just add that it's not just a matter that affects the lenses you mention. The OP needs to check in a general way to make sure that he's got AF enabled. On lenses where there's a mechanical AF/MF switch, as you note, the switch needs to be set to AF. But the camera itself needs to be set to one of the various autofocus options as well.

And while I'm at it: This doesn't just affect the OP's "option #2" (moving the target point without taking picture), it also affects option #3 (move target point and take picture). If you've selected option 3, but you're in MF mode, touching the screen ANYWHERE will (a) move the target point and (b) take the picture but WILL NOT (c) change the focus.

I think this is a great example of how complicated the E-M1 can be. It's great example because it shows how various options interconnect, but without being very hard to understand. I've run into some other problems where the reason option 47 wasn't working was that I'd set option 192 to x and had forgotten to change option 305 from M to N.

I've started making a lot of notes on these interconnections. It's a bit like trying to understand the US tax code. Okay, that's grossly unfair to the E-M1.

WIll

I can be confusing. I can't walk through a lot of settings and such in my head, but with the camera in hand it's easy enough if I have a few moments to dig around - but I've been using Oly m4/3 for several years now. The only time I get overwhelmed is when I start setting up features I don't really require (but sound neat from what others have to say) [g].

AFAIC, the OM-D's and Pens are easier to setup and use than to describe how to set them up, if you know your needs.   I think the thing that took me the longest was how to set up MySets for quick config changes that would be long-term useful, when MySets first arrived on the scene.    

Thanks for the replies guys, after pulling out a few more hairs that day, I figured out how it worked, although it still isn't what I remember it did when I tried it a while ago.

First of all, I didn't have the camera or the lens in MF, and here is what was happening with me when I had the issues, in stills mode, touching the screen changed the target point, while the magnification slider appeared on the right (same as setting a button to magnify), and the camera didn't necessarily focus on where I moved the box. And in video mode, moving the box didn't do anything as well.

Well, here's what I found out:

• Stills mode: touching the screen moved the target box and the slider allows you to change the size, without the camera auto focusing (I don't have continuous focus acquiring on, and no, this is not the same as the CAF mode, it is a setting in the menus that allows the camera to keep seeking focus all the time, even when not half pressing the shutter), and in order to make the camera focus at where you pointed, you have to long-touch the screen and then it will focus.
• Video mode: the camera has to be in CAF (bummer, it should work in SAF or even MF for focus pulls), and then touching the screen will pull focus where you touch, albeit very very slowly, which is sort of ok for video work.

I wish there is a way to make it focus in SAF or MF in video, since I don't want the camera to keep hunting for focus, just pull focus to a certain place and stop any further focusing. There is a way That Ming Thein described using the 12-40, if you pull the focus ring to MF and adjust your focus, when you return it back to AF it will re-focus to where it was before, or maybe vice versa, I haven't tested it myself.

mshafik wrote:

Stills mode: touching the screen moved the target box and the slider allows you to change the size, without the camera auto focusing (I don't have continuous focus acquiring on, and no, this is not the same as the CAF mode, it is a setting in the menus that allows the camera to keep seeking focus all the time, even when not half pressing the shutter), and in order to make the camera focus at where you pointed, you have to long-touch the screen and then it will focus.

Sorry, you're lost me here almost completely.

The only setting in the menus that sounds like it "allows the camera to keep seeking focus all the time, even when not half pressing the shutter" is in MENU > Gear > A (AF/MF) > Full-time AF. If you turn this option ON, the camera will work to stay in focus all the time, even if you're not touching anything. Where is it focusing? On the "target point".

Even if you turn Full-time AF ON, it doesn't do anything unless the camera is also in one of the several autofocus modes.

But if (a) you have Full-Time AF turned on, and (b) you're in autofocus and (c) the focus option for the touch screen is set to your #2 [sets target point but doesn't take picture], then the camera still doesn't behave the way you described. When all three of those conditions are met, touching the screen will indeed cause the focus to move to the point where you touched. It just seems to happen a bit slowly.

And it works in video, too. The only thing I noticed when I was testing this in video mode is that, I'd started in stills manual mode with the focus mode set to S-AF, but when I moved to video on the mode dial, focus mode switched automatically to C-AF. I guess that makes sense.

So, if I'm not using the right settings, then please let me know which ones I've got wrong. But otherwise, I think you should take another look at it — and be patient. If you have the focus target point on the right side of the screen and there's an object 3 ft away there, and you touch on the left side of the screen to focus on an object that's 8 ft away, wait one or two seconds for the focus to shift.

Will

Well, apparently you can't upload video to DPReview.com. So I tossed this up on my blog. Here's the link:

http://blog.william-porter.net/2014/04/olympus-om-d-e-m1-and-video-focusing.html

I am eager to be corrected by the OP if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that this is exactly what he wants to do.

The video has the advantage of showing what I see if I do this in normal still photo mode, as well. With Full-time AF turned ON, the camera takes a second or two to refocus at the new target point. I don't see this as an advantage in still photography, but it seems to me an advantage in video.

Will

William Porter wrote:

Well, apparently you can't upload video to DPReview.com. So I tossed this up on my blog. Here's the link:

http://blog.william-porter.net/2014/04/olympus-om-d-e-m1-and-video-focusing.html

I am eager to be corrected by the OP if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that this is exactly what he wants to do.

The video has the advantage of showing what I see if I do this in normal still photo mode, as well. With Full-time AF turned ON, the camera takes a second or two to refocus at the new target point. I don't see this as an advantage in still photography, but it seems to me an advantage in video.

Hi Will,

We are talking on the same page, and you're right about "Full Time AF", this is what I intended to talk about, but I forgot its name, I always have this option "Off".

I was finally able to watch the video today, it seems it was embedded as a flash object so I wasn't able to view it on my phone or iPad. I also tested my camera yesterday (with Full Time AF both on & off), all tests are in "Mode 2 - touch to focus" as per my OP, here's what I found:

• Stills Mode - Full Time AF ON: The camera keeps focusing continuously on the selected AF target whether it is in SAF or CAF modes. Once you touch the screen, the normal AF target disappears, and the green magnification box appears instead, placing that box anywhere does NOT focus the camera where the box is, and if you want it to focus where you touch, you have to long-touch the screen (touch and keep pressing) and the camera will focus very quickly.
• Stills Mode - Full Time AF OFF: Same as above, except that the camera doesn't focus all the time unless you half press the shutter, same touch screen behavior as well.
• Video Mode - Full Time AF ON or OFF: During video shooting (when the red recording icon is on), the camera never focuses using the touch screen in MF or SAF modes (I wanted it to focus at least in SAF when I touch the screen), however, if the focus mode is CAF, then the camera will focus really slowly when touching the screen to where the green box is located.

I hope my answer is clear, it is consistent with what you described.

mshafik wrote:

We are talking on the same page, and you're right about "Full Time AF", this is what I intended to talk about, but I forgot its name, I always have this option "Off".

If you always have Full-time AF off, you'll never be able to do what (I think) you want.

Stills Mode - Full Time AF ON: The camera keeps focusing continuously on the selected AF target whether it is in SAF or CAF modes. Once you touch the screen, the normal AF target disappears, and the green magnification box appears instead, placing that box anywhere does NOT focus the camera where the box is, and if you want it to focus where you touch, you have to long-touch the screen (touch and keep pressing) and the camera will focus very quickly.

To my knowledge there is no such thing as a "long touch" on the E-M1, so I'm pretty sure you're imagining that. That's a smart phone or tablet gesture. The E-M1 supports quick taps and swipes (and swiping only works, I think, when reviewing photos).

I strongly suspect that what you are seeing is exactly what I told you you'd see: there's a delay — one or two seconds — before the focus point moves. You're killing that time with your finger pressed against the screen, while I'm tapping quickly and waiting. But we're seeing the same thing otherwise.

And it works exactly the same in video as it does in stills.

Two notes possibly worth considering.

First: As with all touch screen devices, there's a chance that the device won't recognize a tap or interpret it correctly. I'm a fairly good "tapper" and better than 9 out of 10 of my taps on the screen cause the focus point to move (followed a second or two later by refocusing on the new target). But every now and then, I tap and nothing happens. Par for the course.

Second: I'm not shooting video simply by tapping the red video on/off button (while, say, in M or A mode). I'm moving the mode dial on the top of the camera to video. I doubt this makes a difference but I mention it anyway.

In short, I think I understand what you want the camera to do, and it's doing exactly that for me.

Will

p.s. I'm sorry about the problem with the video. Google puts the video on YouTube, I think, but I confess I can't see the video on my iPhone or iPad either. I put it in my Public Dropbox folder and you may be able to see it there on your iOS device. I can. Here's the link:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21403215/P4281706.mp4

I'll delete that in a week or so.

I'll shoot a video tonight and show what I mean.

I've fixed the video in my blog post. Here's the link again:

http://blog.william-porter.net/2014/04/olympus-om-d-e-m1-and-video-focusing.html

The video can also be seen on YouTube, here. But I recommend the blog post because that explains the settings necessary to achieve the changes in focus.

I don't know why but the blog post still doesn't seem to work on my iPhone 5. But it does work fine on my iPad.

Will

mshafik wrote:

I'll shoot a video tonight and show what I mean.

Rendering video rendering now, it turned out at 7 minutes long, sorry for that, but it explains the different scenarios really well. I hope I can upload and post before I sleep.

Hello Will,

Here's the video on YouTube, if you take the time to view it, you will find it very clear and descriptive.

I uploaded it @ 720p to preserve bandwidth, oh, and excuse the accent.

http://youtu.be/UNmFdsBv_tE

Watched your video. Very clear presentation.

But I don't think there's anything different between what you're seeing and what I'm seeing — except that you are interpreting what you see differently and, I think, incorrectly.

First, let's address your claim that "long touch" makes a difference. I am absolutely willing to be proved wrong, but as far as I know, "long touch" is NOT a gesture supported by the E-M1's touch screen. I've searched for any mention of it in the user manual and can't find it, and I've never read anything anywhere else that mentions long touch. Your video doesn't demonstrate that long touch works. It just demonstrates that some touches work and some don't.

I think your video demo has some other problems, as a demo of the problem you think you see. As you know, focus works on contrast. The back of the far chair and certain parts of the near chair simply may not have enough contrast to allow full-time autofocus to work well. To make things worse, you've made the focus area rather small. At 4:14, you touch the wood frame of the near chair and it doesn't change the focus. I'm not too surprised, because you seemed to tap right in the middle of the wood, where there isn't any contrast. Five seconds later, at 4:19, you tap on the stitching just below the wood. LOTS of good contrast there — and the focus changes.

I think that's all there is to it. Make the focus area larger and make sure you tap on a part of the scene that has some good contrast in it. Nothing more mysterious going on there than that.

Were you able to watch my video? I fixed it in my blog and it can be seen on an iPad, plus I gave you the YouTube link. In my demo, all of the areas that I tap on during the video have good contrast, and focus changes in response to every tap.

In short, I think you're video shows that it works but that, some of the time at least, you're doing wrong.

Make sense? It would be great if we could wrestle this one to the ground!

Will

P.S. By the way, you showed something interesting and new to me after the 6 minute point.

As you mentioned earlier, in still photo shooting mode, the touch screen has three options: (1) touch does nothing; (2) touch moves focus point but doesn't take photo; and (3) touch moves focus point and takes photo. Originally I thought option 2 was "touch changes focus." But that's not the case if full-time AF is not enabled. So your option #2 is correctly understood as "touch moves focus target (and doesn't take photo or necessarily change the focus)." To change the focus, you have to half press (or full press) the shutter.

And this carries over to video: In video, there aren't three touch options, but only two: options 1 and 2 above. Option 3 in video could in theory make sense: It could change focus and take a still photo. But I think it's reasonable that Olympus decided to get rid of option 3 in video. You want to take a still photo while shooting video, you have to press the shutter. AND the same is true if you want to move the focus point while shooting video (with full-time AF off). You tap to move the target, then half-press the shutter to change the focus.

As I think I have said fairly often in this forum, I'm not a video guy. But I think the options for changing focus provided by the E-M1 are pretty neat. If I were shooting a little movie, I think I'd make use of the technique you demonstrate around 6:30. Cheers!

William Porter wrote:

First, let's address your claim that "long touch" makes a difference. I am absolutely willing to be proved wrong, but as far as I know, "long touch" is NOT a gesture supported by the E-M1's touch screen. I've searched for any mention of it in the user manual and can't find it, and I've never read anything anywhere else that mentions long touch. Your video doesn't demonstrate that long touch works. It just demonstrates that some touches work and some don't.

Hi Will, all I can say is that you should try it yourself on your EM1, set the target box to the smallest size with Full Time AF to off, and test it.

And by the way, touch AF for stills is not that important, video AF is more important.

I think your video demo has some other problems, as a demo of the problem you think you see. As you know, focus works on contrast. The back of the far chair and certain parts of the near chair simply may not have enough contrast to allow full-time autofocus to work well. To make things worse, you've made the focus area rather small. At 4:14, you touch the wood frame of the near chair and it doesn't change the focus. I'm not too surprised, because you seemed to tap right in the middle of the wood, where there isn't any contrast. Five seconds later, at 4:19, you tap on the stitching just below the wood. LOTS of good contrast there — and the focus changes.

I think that's all there is to it. Make the focus area larger and make sure you tap on a part of the scene that has some good contrast in it. Nothing more mysterious going on there than that.

I understand this point, but when I touched right in the middle of the wood, this was the only time it wasn't able to focus due to lack of contrast, ALL the other times it did. And not only in this video, I tried this in a lot of different places and it is always the same for me.

Were you able to watch my video? I fixed it in my blog and it can be seen on an iPad, plus I gave you the YouTube link. In my demo, all of the areas that I tap on during the video have good contrast, and focus changes in response to every tap.

Yes, I did watch the video the first time, I see it works like what happens with me (apart from the once where I touched the bare wood).

Make sense? It would be great if we could wrestle this one to the ground!

It all makes sense, but I am not intending to wrestle or prove anything further. The video I posted shows my experience and how it works on my EM1.

P.S. By the way, you showed something interesting and new to me after the 6 minute point.

As I think I have said fairly often in this forum, I'm not a video guy. But I think the options for changing focus provided by the E-M1 are pretty neat. If I were shooting a little movie, I think I'd make use of the technique you demonstrate around 6:30. Cheers!

I am very happy with this discovery myself, during video shooting I won't use it to pull focus between subjects (because of the hunting it does), but rather to change focus from one place to another, without showing the focus pulling in the output video.

mshafik wrote:

William Porter wrote:

First, let's address your claim that "long touch" makes a difference. I am absolutely willing to be proved wrong, but as far as I know, "long touch" is NOT a gesture supported by the E-M1's touch screen. I've searched for any mention of it in the user manual and can't find it, and I've never read anything anywhere else that mentions long touch. Your video doesn't demonstrate that long touch works. It just demonstrates that some touches work and some don't.

Hi Will, all I can say is that you should try it yourself on your EM1, set the target box to the smallest size with Full Time AF to off, and test it.

Well, well. I think I see what you mean!

I've played with it a good bit more now. Okay, I've spent a ridiculous amount of time tapping on and touching the back of the camera. Anyway, I now understand what you were thinking of when you started the thread with the word "craziness".

Once again, for sake of clarity (and for the benefit of those who are joining this thread in the middle), my settings:

1. Full-time AF "off" (MENU > Gear > A)
2. Focus mode set to AF-S
3. Touch screen focusing set to your #2 (touch moves target but doesn't take photo)

I know video matters to you but I'm talking here only about shooting stills. Doesn't matter but let's say I'm in A mode with lens stopped down a bit so that shifts in focus from near to far are more visible.

•

So what do I see now after all this tapping and touching on the E-M1's monitor?

First, I see now that a tap sometimes does NOT cause focus to move, even when the object tapped on has good contrast.

And second, I see that a slow, deliberate touch will usually force the focus to change, when a previous quick tap failed to do so. This is what you called "long touch."

•

And I think I have an idea what's going on here. The touch screen system is getting confused. Even if it's been responding to quick taps pretty well, I can confuse it in two ways.

The first way to confuse the system is important because it's easily reproducible. If I tap on a near object and then very quickly tap on a far object — requiring autofocus to respond to the second tap before it had finished responding to the first tap — then it will get "confused" and the result will be a focus somewhere in the middle. I can make this happen pretty close to 10 times out of 10.

The other way to confuse the autofocus system (with the settings described above) is not so easy to reproduce, but seems simply to involve a "bad tap." Sometimes I'm tapping away, refocusing nicely after each quick tap, and then I tap badly — and the autofocus system starts messing up. I can't do a bad tap on purpose, but I've observed the effects of it. I think you made a "bad tap" in your video at 2:14.

Note that when the system gets confused, it is still responding — it's just not responding well.

•

What to do when the AF system gets confused?

The main remedy is to use a "slow, deliberate touch". 99% of the time, autofocus will respond as you wish. You illustrate this in your video just after 2:35.

Beyond using the slow deliberate touch, `I haven't figured out how to get the camera responding once again to quick taps. I've tried turning the camera off and back on, and that doesn't seem to reset the autofocus reliably. Sometimes touching the magnifying glass icon on the screen (lower right, under the focus area size adjustment slider) seems to help. And sometimes, while I'm tapping away on the screen, it seems to fix itself. That to me looks suspiciously like a firmware bug.

•

The "bottom line" then seems to be that short taps work a lot of the time, but that deliberate touches are much more reliable. Which is good to know.

And by the way, touch AF for stills is not that important, video AF is more important.

I know you're interested in video, but as a portrait shooter, I rather like tap-to-focus on the E-M1. Works nicely when camera is on tripod. That's part of the reason I've been willing to struggle with this problem until we sorted it out. Thanks again for staying with me.

Will

Quick footnote to the previous post.

For what it's worth: I am pretty sure the "slow, deliberate touch" I describe in my previous post is NOT really a "long touch" as we know long touch from the iOS. [I assume Android has long touch too but don't know.]

On the iOS, the long touch or long press is a named and documented gesture distinct from the short tap, like the difference between left-click and right-click on a mouse. I do not think that is the case with the E-M1. I suspect instead that the touch screen technology employed in the E-M1 is simply a bit iffy, and that a slow, deliberate touch is a more reliable way to trigger the desired response.

The touch screen technology in iOS is much more sophisticated than on the E-M1. Even so, anybody who's worked with an iPad or iPhone much knows that the touch-screen technology on those devices is also iffy, compared to the consistent reliability of the mouse as a point and click tool. In iOS 7, I have a heckuva time pulling up on my home screen to get to the flashlight. I also often have to tap in a password field several times before the "paste" command balloon appears. That sort of thing is common. By far the most reliable way to interact with the touch screen is to touch and hold — the long touch or long press.

There's of course a software component here, too, and indeed, I think the problem we've been observing in the E-M1 is partly if not mostly with the software. On the iOS, if you tap properly, the device responds as you expect, even if you had previously tapped wrong. But on the E-M1, once you throw the camera into confusion, it doesn't seem to matter how carefully you tap — nothing but a deliberate touch is going to work for a bit. Maybe this could be fixed in firmware.

Will