A long video, but a good one. I enjoy his reviews. I am surprised though to see his keeper rate of sharp images was worse with bird AF turned on than when left off. That’s unfortunate.
Yeah, it’s extremely disappointing. I do trust Mathieu’s reviews, but it is interesting that others have suggested better results. I still haven’t downloaded the firmware, nor have any opportunity to do any birding to test myself, but I was hoping for some sort of improvement. I do think that there could be a difference in familiarity and success rate between reviewers who solely use one system versus those who use and test many. But even then, I would think that the bird AF would have been more of a help, unless he was somehow fighting the process – which is something I have heard other photographers discuss when advising people on how to use Olympus bird AF.
In the comments, Mathieu mused that maybe Olympus needs a new sensor in order to improve AF further. I suppose that’s possible. It is the oldest thing in the E-M1X, and could be what’s holding it back. There are times when I get 100% hit rate with normal AF, so it could be the conditions and how the sensor is able to resolve them.
On more positive notes…
His findings on the highlight and shadow recovery, even with the R5, were very interesting. I’m sure a lot of full frame fans would not have anticipated that!
One thing that Mathieu didn’t mention in his comparison, but that I think must be discussed when talking about Olympus Bird photography, is Pro Capture. I think it is a extremely heavy advantage for Olympus that definitely distinguishes the system and its viability as a choice for wildlife photographers. It’s really that, coupled with the flexibility and image quality of a extremely sharp and bright zoom, and it’s portability (which he did laude) that I think really is this combinations strength.
