Had the day off but it was overcast with occasional light rain, so not the best shooting conditions. While I would have loved a nice bright day this was a good test of how well it performs in what is one of my favorite shooting conditions. So I headed someplace to try some BiF shooting to test the CAF ability.
When I get a camera I like to slowly make changes in the setup after evaluating each stage before moving on to the next. For this trip I wanted to test tracking and how it performs right out of the box and just the CAF using a single point as well as playing around with some of the boxes. I also played around with the sensitivity for both tracking and just CAF.
- Tracking sucked (even tried the intelligent AI thing using the plane setting), it would keep jumping to the background. Next I want to play around with the focus limiter in hopes that I can keep it from jumping to the background.
- CAF worked great when I could keep it on the bird. Turning down the sensitivity helped when I would come off my subject. Nothing changed with my view of using a single point or some sort of box setup, I still prefer using a single point. I like having control over what I am focused on and the multi-point ones can and do on occasion focus on a wing tip or something else. Now I know it has the settings to weight a certain point and that is how mine was setup. It did seem to help but I need more time to really evaluate that setting.
- All the images I am posting were taken with the electronic shutter, actually I have yet to take a photo using the mechanical shutter. Now that I say that I am going to do that because I probably should make sure it works while still under warranty. Ok, it works but I probably should fully test it in the field. I did have a few cases of rolling shutter in the shots with the flock of birds, but nothing that most would ever notice. So I am pretty impressed so far with the electronic shutter. My one wish is the ability to turn on the focus confirmation sound when running the electronic shutter. I am so use to using that as my que for focus, I basically focus pass the green box to my subject. So this is going to take some getting use to as I am hoping to use the electronic shutter as much as possible for the faster fps.
- I am still working out how much I want to crop with this camera. With my old EM1 I would never crop below 4000px as I found that the minimum for a 40x30 print. That 4000px part is still the same but I want to find a happy medium somewhere between that the 5184px I start with. I am thinking 4800 may become my new norm except for special images where 4000px will be the minimum. One of the images I am posting is uncropped in length (did take it to 16:9) and two that are just above 4600px. I do have one that is at 3544px and I am happy with it for such a large crop but it is the one of the flock of birds, so super fine detail isn't needed. If it was a single subject than I may feel different due to the loss of detail from the large crop.
- I took photos today up to ISO 1250 but I am not ready to make any comment about high ISO ability. I am not much of a BiF shooter so my technique can be in question and I have not fully evaluated the focusing system. All of that combined can effect the amount of detail in an image at base ISO and only made worse as ISO increases. I would have to be shooting static wildlife images to really make a decision on high ISO. Right now I consider anything above ISO 1600 as being high, as I stated above........I have high standards.
* I want to mention that when I talk about image quality it is based on my standards and I have very high standards. I am sure in cases of like cropping many are happy with much larger crops than I would ever do. I am not going to debate image quality with respect to amount of crop, I have my standards and everyone else has their own standards. Now I will talk image quality with respects to uncropped images.
- I went to three locations (one of them being the foxes, no foxes today) and it wasn't until the 2nd (foxes) that I remembered to turn on the GPS. Actually thought it was turned on but guess when playing with it at home I turned it off. I mention this because I am not impressed with the battery life. Now I do need to look at the power settings, it is currently just on default, but with only 400 shots over a few hours I am down to 42% on battery one. That seems a little terrible to me, will have to play with it more. I also have the GPS setup to prioritize GPS accuracy and will keep it there for a bit while comparing it vs my Garmin. Then I will switch it to prioritize battery life and compare vs the Garmin and see what the difference is.
The last part above brings up something I noticed while researching the EM1X. I watched a lot of videos the last 10 days about the EM1X and there is a lot of bad information out there. There are professional photographers out there telling people how to setup the EM1X who have no idea about a particular setting and how it effects something like say auto focus. So I hope to only post factual information (like my GPS accuracy data) about the EM1X.
Since it was overcast I went with B&W processing for the images. I love doing B&W on overcast days.
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Comin @ Ya Live by
Phocal Art, on Flickr
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Fly Bye by
Phocal Art, on Flickr
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SAR by
Phocal Art, on Flickr
This last one is the only one with the MC-14. It is also what is for me an extreme crop, taken down to 3544px on the long side.
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The Swarm by
Phocal Art, on Flickr
Phocal
