Olympus Pen F autofocus

Hi to all!

guys I need your help to investigate a problem that I have with the autofocus of Pen F .

i own this body 4 months now and the problem of autofocus at lower lighting conditions .. I am using the 12-40 f2.8 and the 40-150 f2.8 and it cannot autofocus at incadesense lighting 80% of the times ..in good lighting it can af fast and reliably but not in lower lighting conditions ...I had the e-p5 body the previous year and this thing was autofocusing fast and reliable ...however I have sold it before I acquired the pen f so I could not compare them side by side...However today I came across the e-p5 to a friend and I tested them side by side...and guess what...

the p5 can autofocus Fast while at the same lighting conditions (indoors medium to low light ) the pen F is haunting and struggles...so it was not my imagination..I also tried the lenses today with the gx85 which also auto focuses fast even at lower lighting conditions...

i have contacted Olympus and told me that I could send it to the OLympus service and test it but it will take around 2 months!

can anyone confirm this ...?is it because of a faulty body ? Or a faulty body would always struggle to autofocus which my body definitely does auto focuses in good lighting conditions .. Or is it because of a firmware bug which will be solved in the future with a firmware update from Olympus?

thank you very much for your help!

i really appreciate !

P.S.

Trying with the f1.8 primes the pen F autofocuses faster and more reliable than the zooms f2.8 but again it cannot be compared with e-p5 which is a LOT faster and reliable !

zikman wrote:

Hi to all!

guys I need your help to investigate a problem that I have with the autofocus of Pen F .

i own this body 4 months now and the problem of autofocus at lower lighting conditions .. I am using the 12-40 f2.8 and the 40-150 f2.8 and it cannot autofocus at incadesense lighting 80% of the times ..in good lighting it can af fast and reliably but not in lower lighting conditions ...I had the e-p5 body the previous year and this thing was autofocusing fast and reliable ...however I have sold it before I acquired the pen f so I could not compare them side by side...However today I came across the e-p5 to a friend and I tested them side by side...and guess what...

the p5 can autofocus Fast while at the same lighting conditions (indoors medium to low light ) the pen F is haunting and struggles...so it was not my imagination..I also tried the lenses today with the gx85 which also auto focuses fast even at lower lighting conditions...

i have contacted Olympus and told me that I could send it to the OLympus service and test it but it will take around 2 months!

can anyone confirm this ...?is it because of a faulty body ? Or a faulty body would always struggle to autofocus which my body definitely does auto focuses in good lighting conditions .. Or is it because of a firmware bug which will be solved in the future with a firmware update from Olympus?

thank you very much for your help!

i really appreciate !

P.S.

Trying with the f1.8 primes the pen F autofocuses faster and more reliable than the zooms f2.8 but again it cannot be compared with e-p5 which is a LOT faster and reliable !

when you say " it cannot autofocus at incadesense lighting 80% of the times", can you describe what kind of lighting is that, I thought the light ranges for AF is from 0EV for OMD, but -4 EV for Panasonic, and from my experience OMD does struggle to AF in low light.

I mean indoors lighting...Ceiling lamp

the f2.8 and the shutter speed 1/20 at iso of 400 and the metering shows 0.

And it struggles ..

I have owned E-P5 like you and now have Pen-F and  Zuiko 12-40 mm as well. My combination focuses absolutely fine indoors in low or dim light. I think you have faulty camera and should send it to Olympus for repair. Pekka

Ouch..!

It seems strange that it can focus very good at good lighting conditions!

zikman wrote:

Ouch..!

It seems strange that it can focus very good at good lighting conditions!

Not at all. Olympus has always been like that. If there is more contrast in the elements of the frame it will focus faster. It takes a little getting used to.

This my not help, but at times I notice that I can't get focus in lower light due to the CDAF. If I look for something close by where I'm trying to focus that has a more definite edge to focus on, I can get focus, and just reframe the shot. You might give that a try to see if it might help...

so ..what to suppose ? is the body faulty or not?

Trying this morning with P5 i could focus fast picking an edge at low light conditions but not with my Pen F!

It is not as good as focusing my E-M10 (original). In low light it is slightly more hunting, but not that bad as you describe. Most of the time i use single spot focussing an search for an high contrast area.

It helps when you switch off the facial recognition.

Olympus Europe just told  me to send the unit to them in order to test it...

I just again compared to the 16Mp sensor from Pen e-P5 and the GX85 and with the artificial light the difference is TREMENDOUS...!

It just struggles to focus and 70% of the time it fails only in artificial medium to low lighting ...!

I will send them tomorrow morning...

I don't want to send it too ...since I need it...however a user above said that he has the p5 and the pen f and cannot actually see a difference ..for me the difference is HUGE ..the thing struggles to focus at artificial lighting even pointing a face or a surface ..the motor of the lens is sounding and the subject stays blur after some tries ...if yours pen F has the same behavior at artificial lighting then of course I don't want to send it too..of course outdoors behaves very very fast as the p5 ..

waiting for your response in order to act !

thx !

zikman wrote:

I mean indoors lighting...Ceiling lamp

the f2.8 and the shutter speed 1/20 at iso of 400 and the metering shows 0.

And it struggles ..

I just did a super quick test and mine focuses very confidently with both the 12-40 Pro and 40-150 Pro under incandescent lighting with f/2.8 | 2" | ISO 200 (+1 EV) on a dark target. Your lighting scenario is at +5 EV which the camera should be able to handle very easily. Sounds like something is amiss with the camera.

EDIT: I will add though that while the Pen-F is decent, the E-M1 definitely focuses better in lower lighting conditions.

can you try to focus at something red or yellow at artificial lighting at an environment with f2.8 speed 1/20 iso 400 resulting at around 1 -0.7 EV and post the result?

the target is not dark when i am trying to focus...

Its also weird that Helen above sees the same behaviour with mine while you say that everything is perfect...

thx again!

Interesting findings even though I have not experienced it

I no longer have the 12-40mm but I tested with the Leica 15mm at f2.8 ISO 200 at speeds of less than 1/5 s and have had no issues with AF

Of course at f1.7 wide open the AF was slightly more responsive but it by no way struggled at f2.8 (fraction of a second)

If you said the E-P5 focuses faster in the same conditions then I'd like to think it's a body defect

Cheers,

of course the p5 focuses MUCH MUCH FASTER!!!

sending it todayo to olympus

dv312 wrote:

Interesting findings even though I have not experienced it

I no longer have the 12-40mm but I tested with the Leica 15mm at f2.8 ISO 200 at speeds of less than 1/5 s and have had no issues with AF

Of course at f1.7 wide open the AF was slightly more responsive but it by no way struggled at f2.8 (fraction of a second)

If you said the E-P5 focuses faster in the same conditions then I'd like to think it's a body defect

Cheers,

You do realize that with the PL 15 mm f/1.7 lens set on f/2.8, the camera autofocuses through the wide open aperture then stops down to f/2.8 at the time of the exposure. There should be no difference in focusing speed regardless of the aperture selected and your test has no bearing on the focusing speed of a lens with a smaller maximum aperture.

If that were not the case we would have no need for a DOF preview button.

Peace

Lee