Just loaded it up. Significant improvements in speed, especially when refocusing on similar distances, and in good light. (Low light performance is still slow). The 17mm focuses pretty darn fast now...akin to a non-USM SLR lens, I'd say.
Glad to hear that, will download it tomorrow and give it a spin. DPreviewers seem to also concur that AF on the 14-42 is improved, less so in low light photos. Great news, it sounds like.
With the 14-42, it may be faster, not really sure though. It is adequate but it still behaves like a compact camera to me. The lens focus has to travel back and forth completely when refocusing the same scene. That algorithm IMO is the main cause of it's slowness and it still isn't fixed, assuming it is possible.
The lens focusing in fact is moving pretty fast. In fact I'd say it's at the level of faster Canon USM lenses like 85/1.8 due to the short travel distance and silence. It looks like there is still potential remain to be exploited.
Navyblue wrote:
With the 14-42, it may be faster, not really sure though. It is adequate but it still behaves like a compact camera to me. The lens focus has to travel back and forth completely when refocusing the same scene. That algorithm IMO is the main cause of it's slowness and it still isn't fixed, assuming it is possible.
The lens focusing in fact is moving pretty fast. In fact I'd say it's at the level of faster Canon USM lenses like 85/1.8 due to the short travel distance and silence. It looks like there is still potential remain to be exploited.
Are you using back button AF? I noticed that the routine for refocusing is not sped up on back button AF, but is significantly faster when using shutter button AF.
Jman13 wrote:
Are you using back button AF? I noticed that the routine for refocusing is not sped up on back button AF, but is significantly faster when using shutter button AF.
I am using the shutter button for focusing. And btw both the body and lens are updated.
The absolute focusing speed itself is actually very decent. If typical entry DSLR with a kit lens have to focus back and forth it wouldn't be any faster than the E-P1 with the 14-42, if not actually be slower due to the short focusing throw of the m43 lenses. The problem is just that E-P1 has to do that back and forth thingie, which it still does.
Has anyone tested the new firmware with non m43 lenses? I've only got 4/3 lenses on this camera via adapter... maybe I'll download it tonight and see. The AF is actually so bad that I almost exclusively MF these lenses, and have learned to do it better and faster than the AF on the camera.
I wonder if it would be a good idea to go for a 2 step hybrid manual/auto focusing method for contrast detect systems.
AFAIK the current systems work as such:
First of all the system initially has no idea where to the best focus will be and just scans the whole range. During that scan it constantly analyzes the edge contrast of the focusing area and remembers the focusing distance with the highest contrast. After the scan is complete it focuses to that distance (and maybe repeats the process with more accuracy in a small window around the found point).
Now I never really used a MILC so I'm not sure if manual focus actually works better than I imagine (prefocus, hit enlarge button, maybe even move enlarged window around, focus, close enlargement, shoot) but I could imagine something like that could work pretty decent most of the time for me:
User knows the ballpark where to focus and prefocuses there (which needs a good manual focusing ring). The camera constantly stores contrast maps of the whole frame in recent times (in reduced res but the longer and faster the better obviously). Now user presses the focus button (or half press shutter if you prefer it that way). The camera now moves the focusing window to the area with the current highest edge contrast (make the size customizable to change the prefocus precision/AF speed trade off). If you actually prefocused past the best focus the camera can then just move the focus there as it has recorded a falling contrast in that area, otherwise it just moves focus further in the direction of raising contrast until it starts falling and backs up to the best focus. Obviously this still works far better in good light (i.e. high refresh rate) but it avoids the a full focus scan and the fiddling with focus point (which I hate). Now this is no good for the P+S crowd but for guys like me who usually manual focus on an SLR it might be a good way to speed up focusing.
What do you guys think? Am I talking rubbish or could this work?
Olympus has announced that they will be releasing firmware updates for the E-P1, E-PL1, and E-P2 which will improve the AF speed on April 22. More info:
