Camera Labs

What ridiculous price differences for the different colour versions I found.

Olympus E-P1 Body White: €544.00
Olympus E-P1 Body Silver: €605.00

With lens on special offer
Olympus E-P1 Kit (E-P1 Body (White) + 14-42mm (Silver)): From €773.00 now €555.00
Olympus E-P1 Kit (E-P1 Body (Silver) + 14-42mm (Black)): From €834.00 now €675.00

Ben
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When in doubt..... Press the shutter.

I guess my posting belongs in the E-P1 thread and not E-P2 even if they're mostly the same...

I just managed to get the 1.4 firmware update. I can confirm an AF responsiveness improvement over version 1.3, at least on the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens. I haven't tried the kit zoom yet. It feels like there is less "overshoot" when it scans the focus range.

That is, normally it will adjust the focus. At some point the target is in focus, but it will go a little bit past that, and back again before taking the shot. The amount it goes past feels much reduced.

I even tried the continuous focus mode. With original 1.0 firmware, this was a complete joke since you were looking at up to 1 second complete cycles of focus scanning. With this latest firmware, it is probably usable, as it just rapidly vibrates around the focus point. I haven't tested it for moving subject tracking yet.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Just been pointing it around the office at random subjects and distances. It definitely feels a lot more responsive! It is able to quickly decide which direction to adjust focus in. Movement speed is then limited by the lens itself how fast it gets to the focus point. Once it finds it, it overshoots a little and goes back again for the shot. If the subject is a short distance away from the previous focal point, then it is much faster than if the lens has to seek further.

I haven't really analysed it yet, but there are some cases where it seems too eager to focus, giving lock when the shot is not in focus. These were mostly with self-lit subjects (monitors, lights).

Also I just quickly tried the continuous focus on two targets, moving it back and forwards in front of the lens. Not impressive unfortunately. Seems slow to respond and sometimes doesn't respond at all just hovering over the initial focus distance.

My initial verdict is:
For single-shot AF, it is almost as good as a DSLR.
For continuous AF, it is still of questionable usability.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

I completely agree popo, it's not that it's much faster at focusing, but by minimising the overshooting during the process, it gets there a lot quicker than before. (I'm speaking for the E-P2 anyway!)

To follow up, I tried the kit zoom lens again with this new firmware. Sadly it still doesn't feel fast and seems to seek more than the Panasonic 20mm. As it has been a long time since I used the kit lens, I can't remember clearly enough to say if it improved or not. Maybe it's the smaller aperture, maybe it's the AF mechanism.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

I love my E-P1 to bits but that manual is appalling.

I am experimenting with the camera indoors trying to get the old 'water blur' effect on a bathroom tap - in preparation for a site visit in a few weeks which includes a rather nice waterfall which should be perfect for this effect. I'm using a tripod.

In Auto mode my Pen delivers bang on exposures. However when I go into 'S' mode and experiment with slower shutter speeds - the finished picture is never correctly exposed. All I get is a grey flat image which reminds me of those old film and print days & nights in the lab. I've tried several shutter speeds

I expected the Pen to set an equivalent aperture for correct exposure - or warn me accordingly? Am I doing something wrong here.

Help much appreciated thank you

The camera will adjust the aperture for you, up to the limits of what it can adjust! As you use longer shutter time, you get more light and it will need to reduce the size of the aperture. That can only go so far. ISO can also get varied too. At some point, you'll be getting more light than it can cope with. To go beyond that, you can try a ND filter which simply reduces the light. This is commonly used if you want to use a big aperture in bright sunlight for example.

To be sure if that is the case, it would help if you can post examples, with EXIF intact. Might be best to start a fresh thread as it isn't necessarily camera related.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Thanks - that's probably it. I have no ND filter.

Sorry for not opening a new thread - my first post etc - I assumed it might be something simple and not worth a new thread. If the Oly manual was even passable I might not have had to ask in the first place.

E-P1 9/10
Manual 2/10