Oh look, a photo of a kart. Yawn. But no gentle reader, this is rather exciting (for me anyway); because this particular photo was taken with a Micro Four Thirds camera; and they are not meant to be able to take shots like this.
Remember DSLRs? Big fat bastards with flapping mirrors and a tendency to do your back in? Yes, them. What they are good for is tracking moving objects. Their secret is a predictive focus mechanism known as phase detection, which focuses on the object being tracked and then follows it until you press the shutter button, and then it predicts where the object will be by the time the camera has calculated focus, lifted the mirror and opened the shutter; and sets the lens focus to that point. All very clever and staggeringly efficient on my previous Canon 1D Mk4 with a 300mm F2.8 lens; which it bloody well should have been for $10,000.
Micro Four Thirds cameras focus in a different manner. They take their focus directly from the sensor and move the lens towards a focus point. Once the lens overshoots the focus point due to its enthusiasm, the camera slams on the focus brakes and focuses in reverse, until the lens overshoots again and it stops and comes back again; until perfect focus is obtained. Sound a lengthy process; but with lenses designed to work this way and with well-developed software controlling the process, Micro Four Thirds cameras are faster to focus than a DSLR, and more accurate because the focus is coming off the sensor; which is where your pretty picture comes from.
All well and good, but where Micro Four Thirds and other mirrorless cameras fall down is in the area of focus tracking. Their focus mechanism, known as contrast detection, is no good at following objects in motion and working out where they might be next. Nikon were the first to do something about this by building some phase detection points into the sensor of the diminutive V1/J1 series; and now Olympus have done the same with the E-M1.
Any money I have earned from photography in the past has come from shooting sports, courtesy of my monster Canon. Now the Canon has gone to live in Ireland, I had resigned myself to never shooting action again. How fine it would be if I could grab the occasional action shot with the E-M1.
To evaluate the tracking performance of the camera I stood by the side of the road and photographed cars and bikes coming towards me. Not at all interesting photographically, but I will be sticking the results on microfourthirdsinfo in due course. For a more real world experience, I went to a kart track this afternoon and took a few shots before the rain came down and threatened to test the waterproof capabilities of Kevin’s camera (but I had already soaked it in an oily puddle earlier to test this feature and it had only leaked in a couple of places).
The results were, as expected, not at the level of a Canon 1D. The camera beeps when it has acquired focus, and then beeps again when it thinks it is tracking; this can take longer than you would like if you want an instant shot. Although the camera did pick up the focus after the karts had rushed past my nose and were heading into the first corner, and gave me this shot, quite impressed:
The tracking success rate is around 70%; which is possibly on a par with mid-range DSLRs but a long way from the pro models. But it is a very good first attempt from Olympus and means that you can go to an action event and come home with some satisfactory shots; which you certainly could not have done with the E-M5.
Here are a few more from this afternoon. A word on IQ: These are all JPEG, straight out of the camera, because the RAW converter in Lightroom is not working as it should. Plus, I turned down the ISO to a fiddled 100 for some shots, to slow down the shutter speed, and the results are some noise which is most unpleasant; won’t use that again in a hurry. But never mind the IQ, the little beast could actually focus on the karts; which is one more nail in coffin of my bank account, I have to have an E-M1.
Comments 🔗
2013-10-23| Kevin Moore saysGlad to see you’re back on track with the testing Spike. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the E-M5 takes great images. My main reason for the upgrade was that I missed the large viewfinder a lot so that alone was enough reason to make the change, all the other improvements are icing on th cake for me.
As for the few drops, bumps and scrapes, if you wipe the oil off then black duct tape should cover up the marks ok. Please be kind when you wash it and use the tap water at home and not just dangle it off the pier into saltwater.
2013-10-23| Spike saysToo late… But the barnacles add a certain something.
2013-10-23| Andrew saysWondering why the extra noise at below base ISO? thought you were just supposed to lose dynamic range and if anything it would be smoother but less contrasty? Curious….
2013-10-23| Ron saysWaiting to see what you can do with the ponies. Like the drifter with one wheel off the track.
2013-10-24| Spike saysSurprised me too; let’s see how it looks in RAW.