E-M1ii questions

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ConchyJoe

Contributor
Messages
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Location
South Sound, Grand Cayman
# of dives
5000 - ∞
I am starting to use my E-M1ii more and have a few questions for other E-M1ii users.

Rig:
E-M1ii
Oly housing and macro port
60mm macro
2 X S-2000 Inon
+10 and +15 diopters

Challenge:

It seems like everything is soft on focus.
_5060227.jpg

This was shot at 250th, F22, ISO 200 with a +10 diopter.

Any thoughts?

Questions:

Are you using any IS features? I have them all turned off.

Are you shooting at less than F22 and getting better results?

Was there a setting change you make that help with sharpness?

Have you tried CAF?

Also understand that I have Benign Essential Tremors, and I have always thought that this tremor is partial the cause.

Thanks for any feedback, jokes, anecdotes, and general or serious hilarity.
 
While I don't shoot with a diopter lens, I have the same camera, lens and housing. Overall frustration in getting tack sharp focus is something I have struggled with, as well as a coworker which the same gear. I'm having much better success at "point-and-shoot" with IS on and single focus tied to shutter release, as well as using the viewfinder against my mask for stability.

Depth of field is very shallow and your use of a diopter makes it even more so. Motion in the water is very hard to eliminate. By setting the camera to focus and only release when it thinks the image is in focus, betters your chance of getting a shot in focus. The in body stabilization helps as well. You are already setting the lens to maximize DOF, but at risk of other artifacts due to dispersion. I tend to back off from closing down the less all the way.

In the past I have tried to use focus on a button followed by shutter release. This technique works best when your DOF is much larger and the object is swimming around within an area the remains in focus, where you trip the shutter when the geometry is correct. But for limited DOF there is no way to focus then trip the shutter without loss of focus, or at best you attempt to focus by moving the camera to achieve fine focus.

With the improved phase detect focus system in the Mk II body, the camera's ability to measure and set the lens is very quick and accurate, a vast improvement over the prior focus systems such as contrast used in the E-M5. By coupling focus to shutter release, your motion in the water is minimal given the latency between focus completion and release is very small.

In fact on my last trip my in focus macro shots using what I outlined in the first paragraph was >>50% on a point and shoot basis. And with a few shots of the same subject I am always able to get a very usable result. I'm very happy with the MkII in this regard.

Perhaps not the best example...

_8120135-Edit-Edit.jpg
 
Well there are a couple of issues. At f/22 you will have serious diffraction issues with the 60 macro.
330-Olympus60mmMacro_MTF_1369915071.jpg
shows you the resolution of the lens (MTF) at various f stops.
I shoot most of my macro stuff at f/11 of f/16. Also you should use something like Michael Tapes's focus tune and the Olympus software to make sure your lens focuses where you think it does. Of course you could use a simple ruler but the commercial gear works great. Take a look also at focus pyramid (it is like $25).
Cheers

Bill
 
Awesome stuff guys!!! Thank you so much. Great ideas to work from.

If you have updated your firmware it seems there are new focus modes. Do you like one better than the other? The cross one seems to work best for me.
 
CJ--I shoot an "ancient" EM5 and so I can't speak to newer focus modes however I'm more than willing to opinionate. Bill offered a great chart to show why the high f/stop approach isn't helping here.Trying to get more overall depth of field comes at the expense of resolution. What the 60mm does so well though is to sharply define a distinct area while allowing for very pleasing soft focus backgrounds, so f/8-f/11 might be upper end.

There was a recent thread about the Oly 30mm macro which points out how that lens may be a good/better overall macro choice, while the 60mm remains a very useful specific macro tool. (Yeah I know, more stuff to buy.) For an under $300 USD lens though it may be one of the better optical bargains out there. There are some limiting factors ("slow" f/3.5 lens, shorter focal length behind a longer port can cost you some loss of close-up capacity) but it is a great option.

Using the 30mm macro

I won't give up my 60mm but I find I use the 30mm a lot for close-ups needing depth of field. Not that it is a higher resolving lens (as far as I know!), just that it doesn't magnify the challenges of doing close work like the 60mm does. Nice luxury to have both tools available.

Couple other points. Are you using any sort of focus light? Might help, especially with a diopter. Why turn off IS? 5 axis stabilization isn't a detriment to sharper images that I know of. Was this a RAW file? If so, what sort of post process sharpening was used? I'm not a fan of razor line over-sharpening but RAWs will benefit from some sharpening. (If it was a jpeg what sort of res and sharpening settings are you using?) Post-process sharpening wouldn't save this shot but a modest amount could help.

Oh, any chance the diopter is not seated flush in it's holder or that it isn't sitting as close to the port as possible? Are you happy with your 60mm shots when not using the diopter? Guess the diopter should be factored in to this discussion. // ww
 
I do have a focus light, but I find in a lot more cases than my EM5(Yes I have one too!) it is not needed.

Bill can you provide A source for the chart so I can look at other Oly lenses?

I had been shooting with the 12-50 ED and I think I will go back to it, but wondered what the numbers were on it, the 30mm macro and the 12-40 ED Pro lens.
 
Olympus publishes some MTF (modulation transfer function) data for their lenses, mostly though I look at imaging resource for data. Just google Olympus MTF chart and you should find some interesting data. Here is the 30 macro suggesting to shoot at f8 or so,
olympus-30mm-f3-5-macro-MTF-Chart_1507533451.jpg


and here is the 12-40 The lessons are the same, shoot at f/8
e2f276d4f4c846818d28b9406a241081.PNG
 
MTF, got it! I was not searching for that. How do these lens compare to other manufacturers lens? I have always shot Oly with the exception of an AE-1 Program. ;-)
 
you can find MTF data on photozone.de they have tests data for most of the the M43 lenses. You really don't need to stop down a lot with M43 lenses. At f8 it is the same DOF you get at f16 on full frame sensor cameras at equivalent magnification. You do have to be a bit careful with manufacturer MTF data, it is often calculated, the data on photozone is from testing of actual lenses.

on the topic of 30mm macro lenses, I'm using the 30mm f2.8 Panasonic, with the EM-1 MkII. I find it focuses a lot easier than the 60mm macro with less hunting and locking onto particles in the water.

on settings I have IS on, it is going to help a lot with keeping an image stable and make it easier to keep the AF point over the subject. In general if you are using a diopter and getting to 1:1 or higher mag, then DOF is razor thin, this means you need to be very stable and not moving back and forward when shooting, otherwise it's just luck whether or not the focal plane will be sitting where you want it when you take the shot. Anything you can do to stabilise things will help, good buoyancy of course and also using a muck stick in your left hand to try to keep your distance constant.

I use C-AF plus tracking and find it works really well, you would have to try to see if it also works with a diopter. What I do is hold down the rear AF button and hold it on target and squeeze the shutter when I think it's all aligned. It will be constantly adjusting the AF as long as you hold down the button and I find it generally tracks well enough to stay on target. I generally just stay at f8, but I also don't do a lot of high magnification work, but I can't imagine going beyond f11 for any sort of macro work.

Here's a larger subject, giant cuttlefish about 300mm long: http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~chrisx2/images/GiantCuttlefish10.jpg

This is a smaller subject, about 60mm long shot with 30mm macro: http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~chrisx2/images/Doriprismatica_atromarginata3.jpg

This is getting closer to 1:1 with the 60mm: http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~chrisx2/images/SplendidChromodoris.jpg

All shot at f8, which I find is enough DOF for the subjects I'm shooting.
 
Very interesting post guys. I have just started using the 30mm and have had the 60mm for about 4 years. This resolves some of my issues with focus on the 60mm. The 60mm is more difficult to use than the 50mm I used on the old Oly.
Is anyone using C-Af with the EM5? I have tried it with bird photography and it struggles, which is kind of me, it is close to useless.

Like WWW, I love the 30mm lens, so easy to use and within its capabilities, more useful than the 60mm. Particularly if things are moving.
 

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