Olympus E-m5 mark III auto exposure on detected and tracked face

[BogdanIC]

Hi,

I Just bought the Olympus e-m5 mark III as my first camera. Not sure if it was a good decision given the fact that I would like to mostly photograph my family. But this is another discussion...

It has some face detection capability and I would like to conveniently expose the face of the detected person.

This does not happen by default. The face of the person is detected and it focuses on it... but the exposure is still automatically calculated based on what is in the center of the frame (especially if I select "spot metering")

I read the manual and already searched the internet... but I still can't figure out.

Does anyone know how to expose automatically and continuously the object/person in focus?

Ideally... the camera will focus continuously on the selected subject and adjust the exposure automatically and continuously based on it even it I change the framing and the subject moves.

If this is not possible on my new Olympus E-m5 mark III which cameras can do this?

I can still return it, but I would be sad to do this, as it has a lot that I like and it also was a very good deal...

Kind regards,

Bogdan

 

[Electro35]

On p. 67 the manual says about automatic exposure of tracked faces:

"When set to [p] (Digital ESP metering) (P. 82), metering is performed with priority given to faces."

And again on p. 82:

"Digital ESP metering: Meters exposure in 324 areas of the frame and optimizes exposure for the current scene or portrait subject (if an option other than [OFF] is selected for [I Face Priority])."

HTH!

 

[BogdanIC]

Oh.... the keyword here is "ESP". I wanted to have "spot metering" or "Center weighted averaging metering"... so that the face is even brighter in a high contrast scene. ESP tries too much to level the picture light level.

I do understand how they thought the functionality of the camera now...

Thank you very much for your response.

 

[Bassam Guy]

Hi,

I Just bought the Olympus e-m5 mark III as my first camera. Not sure if it was a good decision given the fact that I would like to mostly photograph my family. But this is another discussion...

It has some face detection capability and I would like to conveniently expose the face of the detected person.

This does not happen by default. The face of the person is detected and it focuses on it... but the exposure is still automatically calculated based on what is in the center of the frame (especially if I select "spot metering")

I read the manual and already searched the internet... but I still can't figure out.

Does anyone know how to expose automatically and continuously the object/person in focus?

Ideally... the camera will focus continuously on the selected subject and adjust the exposure automatically and continuously based on it even it I change the framing and the subject moves.

If this is not possible on my new Olympus E-m5 mark III which cameras can do this?

I can still return it, but I would be sad to do this, as it has a lot that I like and it also was a very good deal...

Kind regards,

Bogdan

From the E-M5 III manual (which is hard to grasp short of my 3.5 year experience with)...

You can control whether the Spot meter reading follows the focus area or the center:





And you can control when exposure is locked. To not lock exposure until the shutter is fully pressed, as you seem to want, use mode2 or mode4 (C-AF only).

 

[BogdanIC]

Thank you very much to you all for your all answers. I now have a good idea of how this camera works and I tested it further, following your suggestions/answers. I can't really choose an answer, as all your replies make sense and they kinda complement each other. They all matter to this thread.