what would you like to see next part 2

[Trevor Carpenter]

I've been thinking about this and after shooting small BIFs today I've come up with my perfect improvement.

Set a focus limiter by taking a picture and then store that distance. Then have the ability to set a distance either side of that limiter and make that the focus limited range. Any distance but I would probably use it as 50m either side of my stored distance. This could be a gamechanger for OM wildlife BIF shooters and would add to their reputation as wildlife specialists. I'm no expert obviously but I think this would be a fairly simple thing to do.

Ummm, current OM micro 4/3rds and some earlier Olympus micro 4/3rds cameras already support this. It is called AF limiter:

• OM-1 mark I, page 92
• OM-1 mark II, page 130
• OM-3, page 129
• OM-5 mark I, page 312
• OM-5 mark II, page 140
• Olympus E-m1x, pages 143-144
• Olympus E-m1 mark III, page 211
• Olympus E-m1 mark II, page 111
• Olympus E-m5 mark III, page 163

You can save 3 different ranges, and also control whether release priority will prevent you from taking pictures if it can't find something in the range specified.

You typically can set up a button so it brings you to the menu to select which focus range to use.

There are some restrictions of when you can use the AF limiter:

• When the focus limiter is enabled on the lens
• When using focus bracketing or focus stacking
• When recording video
• When using starry sky AF (on the cameras that support it)

Reply to MM

Forgive me if I am wrong Michael but I don't think the existing solution does what I want. It assumes that I know what my starting distance is and I don't know that. All I have is a successful focus on a bird but I have no idea how far away it is so I can't set the limiter.

 

[ahaslett]

It seems there is a way of displaying focus distance using Pre-MF. Do a search on displaying focus distance on OM1 and there is a video.

Andrew

 

[Trevor Carpenter]

It seems there is a way of displaying focus distance using Pre-MF. Do a search on displaying focus distance on OM1 and there is a video.

Andrew

Thank you. Found Mike Lane's video OM-1 camera. A quick guide to mastering the Focus Limiter.

I shall try it although I suspect a swallow 100m away may be a bit more difficult than a close tree.

-
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[ahaslett]

Those birds are a pain.





Trees in a high wind or close up in a breeze can be a bit tricky too.

Focussing on a raging sea is definitely MF only.

A

--
Infinite are the arguments of mages. Truth is a jewel with many facets. Ursula K LeGuin
Please feel free to edit any images that I post

 

[john isaacs]

I've been thinking about this and after shooting small BIFs today I've come up with my perfect improvement.

Set a focus limiter by taking a picture and then store that distance. Then have the ability to set a distance either side of that limiter and make that the focus limited range. Any distance but I would probably use it as 50m either side of my stored distance. This could be a gamechanger for OM wildlife BIF shooters and would add to their reputation as wildlife specialists. I'm no expert obviously but I think this would be a fairly simple thing to do.

Ummm, current OM micro 4/3rds and some earlier Olympus micro 4/3rds cameras already support this. It is called AF limiter:

• OM-1 mark I, page 92
• OM-1 mark II, page 130
• OM-3, page 129
• OM-5 mark I, page 312
• OM-5 mark II, page 140
• Olympus E-m1x, pages 143-144
• Olympus E-m1 mark III, page 211
• Olympus E-m1 mark II, page 111
• Olympus E-m5 mark III, page 163

You can save 3 different ranges, and also control whether release priority will prevent you from taking pictures if it can't find something in the range specified.

You typically can set up a button so it brings you to the menu to select which focus range to use.

There are some restrictions of when you can use the AF limiter:

• When the focus limiter is enabled on the lens
• When using focus bracketing or focus stacking
• When recording video
• When using starry sky AF (on the cameras that support it)

Reply to MM

Forgive me if I am wrong Michael but I don't think the existing solution does what I want. It assumes that I know what my starting distance is and I don't know that. All I have is a successful focus on a bird but I have no idea how far away it is so I can't set the limiter.

I want to use the current focus distance, without having to take a picture. I would also prefer to use the manual focus ring to set min and max focus limits. If the display showed the current focus distance, then I could focus on a perch, and adjust the focus ring to set one or both limits (but I would nominally just set maximum, to avoid switching to the background). This is, in fact, how Panasonic has set it's interface in the G9ii.

Speed is the issue. In the time it takes to use PreMF to get a distance and then dial it into the AF Limiter interface, a bird could have landed and taken off from a perch I am interested in. It just takes way too much time to set these limits.

Note that AF Limits can also be used to set limits for focus bracketing, and my proposed approach would help greatly with that as well. I works with my G9ii.

 

[Michael Meissner]

Note, it was weird in the reply, it didn't include my name.

Reply to MM

Forgive me if I am wrong Michael but I don't think the existing solution does what I want. It assumes that I know what my starting distance is and I don't know that. All I have is a successful focus on a bird but I have no idea how far away it is so I can't set the limiter.

The EXIF information has what the camera thinks is the focus distance. I usually use exiftool to display all of the information. I don't think OM displays the information in the photo review. But if you have it on the computer, you could use exiftool to tell you the distance.

The field you are looking for is 'Focus Distance'.

I've heard of photographers that have trained themselves to judge distances, but that seems there is a lot of work to do that.

I don't know if there are fairly cheap electronic meters that you could use in the field that would allow you to find a bird's distance. I would hope there are.

 

[David5833]

I assigned the range limiter on/off to a button and use it in conjunction with a C mode. I turn it on mainly to limit the range for the hummingbirds that are just a few meters away on the bush near the back of my deck. It's excellent for that kind of known, constant range. Each memory bank, C1-C4, can have its own range limits. It can be complicated to program the range limits with the different C banks and it seems like it isn't worth it to try to use them when the birds aren't in those known ranges, which happens a lot when I'm in the field rather than in my yard.