I don't know if it's practical or not since I don't know your actual
shooting conditions but the first thing I would do would be to separate
the focus control from the shutter button... easily done on the E-M5.
The most difficult thing is deciding on which button to put it on.
I assume these guys are running a circle or an oval. Where they come
around toward you as in your sample shot they are at likely a reasonably
narrow distance range. If you're already focused on that spot with good
depth of field you can just shoot.
Just to have some numbers to play with I assumed you were at a distance
of 100 feet shooting at 200mm at f/6.3 (all based on an assumption (or
SWAG) of likely distance and a guesstimate of 9 foot horizontal field of
view. Given some relaxed assumptions for CoC on a 4/3 sensor (due to
motion blur) my guess it that (at 100 feet, 200mm and f/6.3) you have at
least 20 feet on either side of your focus point for depth of field...
more than that if you're only going to make large web images and/or
there is quite a bit of motion blur.
Anyhow, if you separate the focus control from the shutter button you
can settle on some central focus point where the action seems to be,
focus with the focus control button and then leave it be when you're
happy with it. Shoot away and have fun and don't worry about focusing.
Chuck Norcutt
(who has been so busy with other stuff he's
hardly shot anything with his own E-M5)
On 1/26/2013 7:18 PM, David Young wrote:
> I had a fascinating time, today, testing a friend's Oly OM-D (a.k.a. the E-M5)
> out at Stake Lake. It's a camera I've been considering purchasing.
>
> I am most impressed with it's performance, on relatively static subjects. The
> auto-focus is quick, and the image quality is close to that of the Leica
> R8/DMR
> combination I used to use, but with far better high ISO performance and a 16mp
> sensor.
>
> So, what better test it with action, than the maniacs who race motorbikes and
> Quads, reaching 50 to 80 kph on a frozen lake?
>
> The camera is tiny - making it a delight to travel with, but a pain to use,
> with even light, leather gloves.
>
> Problems were that the finder jumped, horribly, when I panned horizontally,
> across the field. This, I was able to cure by switching to the high frame
> rate
> for the finder. Sadly, this then consumes the rather small battery much
> faster.
>
> I'm sad to report that, at least with the lens I tried (the 75~300 f4.8-6.7
> M-Zuiko), results were not impressive. The camera hunted wildly, trying to
> lock on to it's subject , most often failing. Even with Continuous tracking,
> the camera was able to focus fewer than 10% of the shots.
>
> However, when the OM-D did get it right, the results were pretty good!
>
> http://www.furnfeather.net/temps/TheBoys-1.html
>
> CAUTION: This jpeg is 1.1mb - so it will take a while to load, if you are on
> dial-up!
>
> For now, I guess I'll stick with my E-3, which performs much better with
> these sorts of subjects, and wait, impatiently, for the rumoured semi-pro
> version.
>
> David.
>
--
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