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On a walk in the woods this am, the cows in nearby field looked cute so quick snap but when I got home and looked - out of focus!! Was set up for static birds using single point focus and AF-S. Focus point on pic as shown in OM Workspace. Tracking was set to 'birds' but that shouldn't make any difference, I'd just taken some pics of a Roe deer on the same settings and they were fine.
I don't recommend single point focusing with the OM-1 for general use. I suspect the much smaller points are just too small for challenging situations and in your shot the focus point is in a shaded area, which doesn't help.
I wouldn't normally use single point except for static birds in trees or bushes. This was just a happy snap, the AF seemed to work OK, even though the focus point area was in shadow, the lighting was still quite good.
Prior to 1.4 there was a known bug where S-AF would take pictures if focus was not achieved. Now there is a much more consistent beep when focus achieved and silence when not.
S-AF does struggle to achieve focus when area is dark or does not have detail to focus on. Half pressing shutter twice often solves problem.
Following one of your previous thread I spent some time testing S-AF single with 150-400 and came to conclusion it worked well if slow. The slowness was due to me not keeping focus point on subject and lens focusing on something else. It then takes time to refocus on what I wanted. Also subject move and I was constantly refocussing. If I got a beep it was pretty much always in focus.
Firmware 1.4, I hope I get forgiven for keeping raising AF questions but I can't achieve the consistency with the OM-1 I have had with Nikon and Sony. I'm frustrated
Geof, no problem to keep asking. Several people on your other thread said they have problems with S-AF and single point. We might actually find out what real the problem is one day.
Am sure you have S-AF Early release set to off which would have been my only other setup comment.
I do tend to "pump" focus button to make sure I've got the point I'm interested in in focus. Either because lens or subject has moved or I've focus on a wayward blade of grass.
It is set too OFF! I tend to do the same with birds with twiggy surrounds to try and make sure some images will be in good focus. The annoying thing is this shouldn't really be necessary, if eye AF would find and stick!! I just don't have the confidence in my gear that I should have. Off to Costa Rica on Wed and I'll probably end up taking thousands more pics then necessary!
something very wrong there , if I remember correctly there were problems with S-AF right from the release of the OM1 it could be that the bird i.d is conflicting with the S-AF but that's a guess ? even if I'm shooting buildings etc I always use C-AF never as yet on any model felt the need to change
I always used to use C-AF but was complaining that the focus was often missing the subject in tight situations even though the single point was on the subject.
I was told by David Smith "When using single point and CAF mode, the camera is able to see around that point in cases of user movement and as such we recommend SAF with single point" I can't win!
My guess is the placement of selected AF group did not provide the AF system with an area of enough contrast (or a sharply enough defined edge) to use.
If I understand correctly, you were told that the camera will look ‘outside’ the selected AF group if it needs to.
That sounds about right to me but I’d guess that that ‘area outside of the selected AF group’ isn’t going to be very much larger than the selected AF group.
Sony “listened to their customers” and added an even smaller (and a larger) AF group to the a9III. That suggests to me that when you used your Sony stuff you did not have/use an AF target as small as the Olympus/OM Systems have and therefore we’re not required to be as particular with the Sony AF group. I don’t know about Nikon’s stuff.
When encountering a heavily cluttered background/foreground I use the smallest AF group often and with great results. I strive to place the AF target over the subjects eyes even with the smallest song birds.
I’ll say that technique will provide me with a ‘slightly’ higher keeper rate than using a slightly larger AF group (and with or without Bird Ai).
It sure enough takes a little more effort than using a larger AF group but my main concern is coming home with keepers.
When the subject is out in the open I most often use Bird Ai with great results.
Your camera has a centre priority AF option and customizable AF Target groups. You can make just about any size/shape AF group (with centre priority) that you find works the best for you.
I’ve been shooting Sony FF milc for a decade for people stuff. Easy work for AF.
At the time I was using an EM1X I decided to try an a9 and FE200-600 with a 1.4x. (My hope was I could go with one system).
I couldn’t buy results from the a9 kit that satisfied me. Always real close but never perfect. Good from far but far from good. Whereas the m4/3 AF often failed me miserably but when it hit, it hit perfect and it hit enough times.
I spent a tremendous amount of time researching the a9 camera’s AF system and redoubled that effort before the end came. I finally gave up on the a9 kit for reasons of sanity.
I do know how you feel.
Personally it looks to me that your trying to achieve a 100% hit rate , that’s never going to happen with any system ,no matter how much money and time you throw at it .. I treat it like buses ,take long bursts and hope that the perfect shot comes out of it .
Having only had the om1 for a week I can’t add much but the shots I have got so far have exceeded expectations. Looking forward to seeing your results from the jungle
Surely a single focus point should be the most reliable of all the options for a stationary target in normal lighting conditions.
When placed on a subject and focus confirmation achieved there should be no reason for failure.
This is clearly a fault and given the amount of evidence it should be rectified with a firmware update.
Unfortunately no. S-AF works on contrast AF, so it is looking to maximise the contrast it see's within a focus point. With such a small focus area it is less like to have enough contrast to work well. If you look at the focus point it is near a white area with no contrast. A larger area is likely to have more contrast, especially when longer lens's move about. S-AF however seems to work with multiple small areas. Thus "Magnify's" 14x focus area which is a contiguous area but bigger than single might actually work better in lower light, this is mentioned by Thomas Eisl.
Surely a single focus point should be the most reliable of all the options for a stationary target in normal lighting conditions.
When placed on a subject and focus confirmation achieved there should be no reason for failure.
This is clearly a fault and given the amount of evidence it should be rectified with a firmware update.
two issues here.
how can any AF group, including a single focus point, be reliable if it is given nothing (no edge, no contrast) to work with?
i'm looking at this on my computer (not my phone) now and I see the grass well in front of the cow appears to be in good focus.
there is a green box on the cow's face which I assume indicates that the camera's AF sytem had locked (somewhere).
i agree there is a fault here in that the camera should not have indicated it locked focus in an area that it clearly did not.
would the camera do that though had the AF target had something to bite on?
i guess that doesn't matter much...the camera should not lock, nor indicate a lock, if it hasn't locked where the user directs it to lock.
it's as though the camera has purposed the AF target point as an AF lamp.
So we do agree its a problem if focus confirmation is given erroneously.
Also it looks to me that the AF box is transecting a lighter and darker area.
I would expect in reasonable light that to be enough of a contrast to allow focus.
I see the grass well in front of the cow appears to be in good focus.
there is a green box on the cow's face which I assume indicates that the camera's AF sytem had locked (somewhere).
I recall reading somewhere that in OM Workspace the green square which is supposed to show AF point isn’t always in the correct place. Ie doesn’t show where actual focus occurred (which seems bonkers to me - why have the feature in the software if it doesn’t show the right location!).
I've also read that, however the green box shown would have been very close to the actual focus point as seen in the viewfinder which was on the cow's face.
I can forgive all AF problems, but false confirmation is a deal breaker. I found exactly this within a day of using the OM1 back when it was first launched. Seems it’s still an issue.
Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this (see title)?
More testing this evening suggests my OM-1 has intermittent difficultly acquiring a focus lock in S-AF mode where my E-M1 MkII locks perfectly without fail.
I get the focus acquisition beep in mechanical shutter mode but through the viewfinder and in the resultant
I had a long exchange with OMDS on this issue and had a final answer last year but forgot to post it here. really sorry.
Summary below
The OM-1 can specify a narrower range than the previous model with a single target, but in dark places or subjects with low contrast, the single target S-AF lacks contrast and cannot be focused. A so-called false focus phenomenon is likely to occur, in which it is determined that the subject is out of focus, or an in-focus display is performed when it is determined that the subject is out of focus. This is the characteristic of OM-1's S-AF.
Currently, depending on the shooting environment, I would like you to either increase the target or use C-AF.
At this time, we cannot promise how much S-AF will improve, but we will do our best to meet your expectations through updates.
That is an interesting one, was that before any firmware updates?
I suspect so, but from the evidence on this thread, it seems that the SAF false confirmation problem is still there. Cardinal sin in my view. I suspect it’s low priority for OMDS since CAF doesn’t seem to have this problem and since most OM1 users are into wildlife it’s not something they’ll encounter.
Big mistake by camera functionality even top end stuff was removing Auto setting,I found it handy by always leaving camera on this setting for snap shots,would sacrifice C4 for Auto any day on my OMDS OM1.Ever tried giving your camera to somebody unfamiliar with it to take a picture you want to be in,the results can be bizarre.They call it progress technically ,my name for it is unprintable.
I use MF with CAF, works well for me, if it cant find focus or bird behind branches I manual focus while finger is on the shutter and when sharp take the image
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