There have been claims from several photography bloggers and Olympus themselves that the E-M1's new phase detect auto focus system when using legacy 4/3rds lenses is pretty competent, so earlier today I decided to head down to the beach to test out whether my Olympus E-M1 and Olympus 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD plus MMF-2 adapter can deal with surfing photography.
It's been a long time since I did sports photography seriously. The last major event I can remember shooting was the penultimate year of the ill-fated A1GP World Cup Of Motorsport back in 2008. I had a press accreditation for that series and some of my shots ended up in magazines here in South Africa. I never got paid much, but it was good fun and a nice thing to add to my CV and portfolio. Prior to that I also photographed the Natal Sharks Super 12 Rugby matches at their stadium for about 4 years running.
In those days I was shooting DSLR's obviously, with a variety of lenses. I never could quite figure out how the Nikon (or Canon) auto focus tracking system worked, so I tended to use a single AF point in or near the middle and put the camera into AF-C mode. Usually this got me the results I was looking for, so I didn't bother to try any other options.
Old habits die hard, so when I was on the pier today I had initially set the E-M1 up in a similar way, using AF-C mode with the central AF point as my target. I found that the lens was very nervous using this mode and acquiring initial auto focus wasn't as swift as I have been accustomed to with a DSLR. I switched to the AF-Tracking mode (I like to call it Top Gun Mode because the AF target looks like a pilots gun sights!) and things improved a bit. You can hear this particular lens (50-200mm) shifting the elements rapidly to keep focus, but once it locks onto something that it can differentiate from the immediate surroundings it works very well in tracking that object properly.
The problem with doing surfing photography using this method is that quite often the camera can get confused about what it's supposed to be tracking which often makes the Top Gun target turn orange and drift off the screen, or go off the wrong way when you want it to stay on your surfer. This is especially so when the surfer is wearing clothing that closely matches the colour of the surrounding water, or they're on a white surfboard coming out of the foamy part of the wave. You have to be very accurate in finding your initial point of focus and then pan the movement with the camera, taking care to not let the subject disappear out of the frame. There are many settings for the E-M1's auto focus system that I still have to check out before I can feel more confident about shooting fast action.
I did notice one weird thing happening that makes no sense to me. If I put the camera into AF-Tracking mode, my frame rate on continuous shooting drops dramatically below the claimed 10fps. I can't understand why this would be the case because this situation is when you'd want as many frames per second as possible. If I put it in AF-S mode I get the 10fps. I suspect it is something to do with one of the many settings that I need to explore, but right now it has me stumped. If any E-M1 users have an explanation please chime in.
One of the issues I had with the E-M5 doing this kind of photography is that once you've taken your shots the EVF wants to display them immediately, so you miss action in the finder. On the E-M1 if you keep moving your finger up and down on the shutter you can re-acquire the live view very quickly. It's certainly different to shooting with a DSLR, but once you get the hang of it you'll get good results.
So, here are some of my results today. Please click on them to view the large version.
This was literally the 2nd shot I took while on the pier today:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
This guy was the only other surfer out there (he wasn't that good!) and its where I found the AF-Tracking tended to drift off of him because his shirt was a bit too dark.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Unfortunately the weather in Durban this time of the year is about as appealing as living in somebody's armpit and these two guys weren't out there for too long. With nothing else interesting to shoot I decided to head back home.
I will be back there soon, hopefully with better surf and more surfers to photograph. I had also taken with me the Olympus 75-300mm II but the surfers had left the water before I could get any shots with it. Shooting this kind of fast moving action is certainly challenging with the E-M1, but it's not impossible to get good results if you practise your technique and learn the different approaches you can take.
As for the image quality of the 50-200mm? Well, these are pretty much unsharpened and the only processing I did was to recover highlights and shadows in Lightroom. I like this lens very much. For slower action stuff (like on safari) I think I will be getting amazing shots with it.
More to come soon!
It's been a long time since I did sports photography seriously. The last major event I can remember shooting was the penultimate year of the ill-fated A1GP World Cup Of Motorsport back in 2008. I had a press accreditation for that series and some of my shots ended up in magazines here in South Africa. I never got paid much, but it was good fun and a nice thing to add to my CV and portfolio. Prior to that I also photographed the Natal Sharks Super 12 Rugby matches at their stadium for about 4 years running.
In those days I was shooting DSLR's obviously, with a variety of lenses. I never could quite figure out how the Nikon (or Canon) auto focus tracking system worked, so I tended to use a single AF point in or near the middle and put the camera into AF-C mode. Usually this got me the results I was looking for, so I didn't bother to try any other options.
Old habits die hard, so when I was on the pier today I had initially set the E-M1 up in a similar way, using AF-C mode with the central AF point as my target. I found that the lens was very nervous using this mode and acquiring initial auto focus wasn't as swift as I have been accustomed to with a DSLR. I switched to the AF-Tracking mode (I like to call it Top Gun Mode because the AF target looks like a pilots gun sights!) and things improved a bit. You can hear this particular lens (50-200mm) shifting the elements rapidly to keep focus, but once it locks onto something that it can differentiate from the immediate surroundings it works very well in tracking that object properly.
The problem with doing surfing photography using this method is that quite often the camera can get confused about what it's supposed to be tracking which often makes the Top Gun target turn orange and drift off the screen, or go off the wrong way when you want it to stay on your surfer. This is especially so when the surfer is wearing clothing that closely matches the colour of the surrounding water, or they're on a white surfboard coming out of the foamy part of the wave. You have to be very accurate in finding your initial point of focus and then pan the movement with the camera, taking care to not let the subject disappear out of the frame. There are many settings for the E-M1's auto focus system that I still have to check out before I can feel more confident about shooting fast action.
I did notice one weird thing happening that makes no sense to me. If I put the camera into AF-Tracking mode, my frame rate on continuous shooting drops dramatically below the claimed 10fps. I can't understand why this would be the case because this situation is when you'd want as many frames per second as possible. If I put it in AF-S mode I get the 10fps. I suspect it is something to do with one of the many settings that I need to explore, but right now it has me stumped. If any E-M1 users have an explanation please chime in.
One of the issues I had with the E-M5 doing this kind of photography is that once you've taken your shots the EVF wants to display them immediately, so you miss action in the finder. On the E-M1 if you keep moving your finger up and down on the shutter you can re-acquire the live view very quickly. It's certainly different to shooting with a DSLR, but once you get the hang of it you'll get good results.
So, here are some of my results today. Please click on them to view the large version.
This was literally the 2nd shot I took while on the pier today:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
This guy was the only other surfer out there (he wasn't that good!) and its where I found the AF-Tracking tended to drift off of him because his shirt was a bit too dark.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Unfortunately the weather in Durban this time of the year is about as appealing as living in somebody's armpit and these two guys weren't out there for too long. With nothing else interesting to shoot I decided to head back home.
I will be back there soon, hopefully with better surf and more surfers to photograph. I had also taken with me the Olympus 75-300mm II but the surfers had left the water before I could get any shots with it. Shooting this kind of fast moving action is certainly challenging with the E-M1, but it's not impossible to get good results if you practise your technique and learn the different approaches you can take.
As for the image quality of the 50-200mm? Well, these are pretty much unsharpened and the only processing I did was to recover highlights and shadows in Lightroom. I like this lens very much. For slower action stuff (like on safari) I think I will be getting amazing shots with it.
More to come soon!