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Olympus E-M10 & 75-300mm II Birds in flight practice

Started Jul 26, 2014 | Discussions
MarkLeeds2k5 Regular Member • Posts: 115
Olympus E-M10 & 75-300mm II Birds in flight practice
2

I've been practicing with the above combo to improve my skills and useability of the camera. Sadly in the north of England, we're not exactly overrun with exotic birds, so it's mostly gulls, etc. but anything is better than nothing to get some experience and practice.

I'm no B.I.F. expert, and still have much to learn, but so far I'm really noticing that the Continuous Autofocus with this camera and lens is just not very good for small fast moving targets. I'm consistently finding that the smaller the target, the better the results when using Single Autofocus.

To combat this, I've set up a few different MySets each assigned to a different position on the mode dial. That way I can very quickly switch a bunch of camera settings (focus mode, focus box size/number, burst speed, etc.) depending on the circumstances. The more I use them, the more I get a feel for which MySet is best for which circumstance, which is resulting in a much higher keeper rate.

Here are some of the better results. Just wish they were more interesting birds!

I'm pretty pleased with these initial results, and I'm hoping that with more time and practice I'll get better, particularly with regard to smaller birds.

Olympus M.Zuiko ED 75-300mm 1:4.8-6.7 II Olympus OM-D E-M10
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tinpusher
tinpusher Senior Member • Posts: 1,393
Re: Olympus E-M10 & 75-300mm II Birds in flight practice

Continuous focus with or without tracking is no good for action shots with the EM10.

Using Single AF and setting the shutter to fire in focus only has proved worthwhile while rapidly mashing the shutter action to take multiple shots.

Both continuous Low and High Speed shooting has been less useful.

Shooting "RAW only" gives the body less processing to do and stabilisation is pointless while waving your lens around. In my case the Lumix 100-300 inbuilt stabilisation seemed better than OIS but in practice it seemed just as effective (sometimes better) to switch the thing off and rely on smooth panning.

The bottom line is that we are still a long way from a DSLR with the latest m4/3 cameras.

Here's an action sample from last weekend ; easier to shoot than a bird in flight !

OP MarkLeeds2k5 Regular Member • Posts: 115
Re: Olympus E-M10 & 75-300mm II Birds in flight practice

tinpusher wrote:

Continuous focus with or without tracking is no good for action shots with the EM10.

It's certainly not great, but I've found it can do an ok job if the action is just slow enough - for example the pictures of the swan were taken in Continuous AF, and about 70 percent of the set were in focus. Also tried it on batsmen and bowlers playing cricket with surprisingly good results. Havent had any luck with tracking focus though...

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