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Re: [OM] OM-D Manual focus

Subject: Re: [OM] OM-D Manual focus
From: Jan Steinman <Jan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 11:17:48 -0800
> From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
> 
> On 1/17/2018 1:40 PM, Jan Steinman wrote:
>>> From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> 
>>> On 1/16/2018 4:20 AM, Mike Bloor wrote:
>>>> Can anyone point me to a guide on using my OM-D E-M5 II with MF lenses?
>>> First, you need to set the camera to shoot without a lens attached, an AF 
>>> lens, that is. Menu *C, "RlsPriority S" set to ?On"
>> Do you need to do that with the OM-D line... I don?t recall doing (or 
>> seeing) such a setting on my OM-D E-M1.2.
> 
> Did you actually check?… "Rls Priority S - If [On] is selected, the shutter 
> can be released even when the camera is not in focus."

No, I didn’t, so you’re probably right. I would have immediately disabled 
anything that kept me from taking a picture. (“DAMMIT! I WANTED a fuzzy shot of 
the inside of my camera bag!”)

>> The E-M1.2 (at least) has one other nicety for legacy lens users: a place 
>> you can ?register? ten of your favourite manual lenses. This not only tells 
>> IBIS their focal length, but stores the focal length, max aperture, and your 
>> descriptive text into the EXIF data, which is invaluable for later 
>> evaluation.
> 
> New with the E-M1 II, so of course I didn't mention it in response to a 
> question about use of an E-M5 II.

Didn’t know that. I hope Oly puts it in all their cameras. I sent them a 
suggestion that the list me made much longer, and to keep it ordered by last 
used.

>>> 2. Peaking... set an Fn button to turn it on and off. I just leave it on.
>> You can do that with a Panny? Cool!
> 
> Huh? Where did Panny come into this?

Sorry for the assumption, based on your camera’s Focus Peaking 'behaviour being 
so much different than mine.

What I mean was the “just leaving it on” part. I’d LOVE to be able to do that, 
but:

> My experience is the E-M1.2 finds EVERY OPPORTUNITY it can to turn focus 
> peaking off!

> Still mystified. I was not writing about Panny, nor did I mention Panny. I 
> was describing my experience with Oly E-M5 II 
> bodies.

Good, you can teach me something!

Just how do you manage to “leave on” Focus Peaking? On my E-M1.2, it’s as 
slippery as a politician caught bribing a porn star, to the point that I waste 
a lot of time toggling it, re-focusing, over and over, to see if it’s really on!

>> I find it extremely precise, and excellent for evaluating DOF, as you can 
>> see it change as you change manual aperture settings.
> 
> A difference may be that I was most recently using it with a manual f1.2 
> lens, and the camera body has no way, with my 
> bodies, of knowing the max aperture of a manual lens.

Interesting. Perhaps the ability to tell the E-M1.2 the max aperture of a 
manual lens has something to do with it.

I find it works very well with the OM Zuiko 55/1.2, especially with a focal 
reducer. Which is another reason I lobbied Olympus for a longer menu; by the 
time you combine all your manual lenses with and without a focal reducer, 
you’ve easily used up your ten manual-lens slots!

> Where 
> I'm not as comfortable is in the middle of that street - could get run down. 
> :-)

As Jim Hightower put it, “The only thing in the middle of the road are yellow 
lines and dead armadillos.”

> Reading comments and questions about old lenses, it's clear than there are 
> lots of folks who think old MF lenses may be 
> "sharper" than later MF and/or recent AF lenses. They are almost uniformly 
> wrong…

I agree, that if you’re *purchasing* a MF lens, get the newest one you can.

But the lens you have takes a better picture today than the one evilBay 
delivers tomorrow.

>> For starters, I find the OM Zuiko Macro 90/2 to be outstanding on micro 
>> 4/3rds. Works wonders on the Telescoping Extension Tube, too! The TET is my 
>> ?gotta have? bit of manual kit.
> 
> TET, yes. 90/2 NO! Hated it, sold it, having it gone made me happy. If it 
> didn't have the "Macro" designation, perhaps 
> I'd have liked it, although what magic it had the the 85/2 didn't I don't 
> know. Any lens marked macro that starts to get 
> worse past 1:4 is blatant mislabeling.

Wow. Perhaps a bad sample?

It got stellar reviews, from magazines, photo websites, and independent testers 
like Gary Reese. I haven’t done formal MTF tests, but I have done comparative 
shots with other macros, and it hasn’t displeased me in any way. Well, it could 
be lighter, but then you’d have a lump of plastic crap, like the otherwise fine 
ED 50/2.

        http://www.biofos.com/cornucop/opage_1.html

Could it be that you weren’t cranking it all the way? It has a “floating 
element group” that is engaged only at close focusing. I put it on the TET, 
crank it all the way close, and I find it does great things even well beyond 
its naked 1:2 repro ratio.

>> I also love my collection of limited-range OM macros (135, 80, 38, and 20).
> 
> I have the first three, and agree. However, I use the 38 on the A7, FF, more 
> MegaPickles, wonderful results.

Good to hear, especially with the contra-message that modern optical 
engineering is so good that one should’t bother with older lenses. (The hated 
90/2 is one of the newest OM-System designs.)

>> I went to the trouble of buying micro-4/3rds ?T? mounts for them, then put 
>> the OM T-mounts back on when I discovered the magic of focal reducers.
> 
> Why make the long ones shorter?

To push the defects further away? For an extra stop of light? For the 
versatility?

>>> Thus speaks the guy with the gear to handle eight different mounts on my A7 
>>> and five on ?4/3, unless I've missed one. Hahahahaha.
>> 
>> Tell me about it! I just scored a Leica --> micro-4/3rds adapter for $5 
>> shipped, as if I?m ever going to afford Leica glass...
> 
> Nice Paperweight?

Just in case I come across a Summicron in a thrift store for $15… :-)

:::: Who says we need big factory farms. We just need a whole bunch of little 
factory farms. -- Gene Logsdon <http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=Gene+Logsdon>
:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality Co-op <http://www.ecoreality.org/> ::::

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