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birdied wrote:
My two cents from my limited experience with the Olympus gear.
Having switched from the D500 / 200-500 to the EM1Mk2 and 300f/4, there is no comparison on auto focus for small moving birds . The D500 is going to be much more consistent with acquiring focus.
Anything smaller than a hummer that is moving , the Olympus struggles to acquire focus using the 300mm .
I have tried some of those suggestions in the article, and my experience is not what the author has. However, I am not shooting large birds. Maybe it all works well with large birds in a blue sky, but for smaller birds with foreground and background , I find single point AF-C to be the best option.
I'm not saying you can't get the shots with the Olympus. You can , but you may have to work harder to get those small, quick moving subjects. If you can acquire the focus, and keep up with the subject in the viewfinder, it will track. I find acquiring initial focus is where the Olympus shows its shortcomings.
I switched to Olympus for the size and weight savings -
D500 + 200-500. is a little over 7 #
EM1MK2 + 300mm is a little over 4 #
Birdie
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Thank you Birdied, I take all the info I can 
I was down at the store last evening, they have en expo with all manufactures and makes invited. I used the D500 and E-M1, tried some tracking with the E-M1 rep but only with walking people. It worked OK but still saw some soft and out of focus shots, I'm sure it can be improved though by learning how to use it and hopefully a FW upgrade. The camera in it self has got all the right hardware for it so should be doable.
Olympus reps were very friendly and helpful, didn't try to push anything on me but they did say I shouldn't worry about the tracking, it was much better now. Got several names to photographers who made it work well and spoke to one in the end.
His advice was to use back focus AF and constantly work with it. Keep it pushed and shoot shorter bursts (meaning not 4-5 second bursts I guess). He also had another advice which I think might be useful for your Hummers Birdied.
He mention the AF-limiter, not the physical one on the lens but the new digital one. He used it quite often when he knew at about what distance he was gonna shoot birds in flight. He limited the AF to anything beyond that and had a higher hit rate. Might be something to try with your Hummers?
mitesh wrote:
I am in agreement with Birdie, and my experiences mirror hers when it comes to C-AF on the E-M1.2. I have tossed hundreds of shots of BIF that are inexplicably out of focus or soft. I've tried default settings, and have tried to adjust settings like the article suggests, all with no noticeable improvement in results. I really hope that a firmware update for the E-M1.2 can make it better, or worst case, that the E-M1.3 significantly improves the C-AF and tracking abilities.
Mitesh, I too hope a firmware update can fix it. It would be quite awful to wait for another generation of m43 cameras before being able to fully track. Not only that but given Olympus price increases the damn thing will cost $3000 at release. Funny enough, no other make has made such huge price increases even though their new cameras are also stuffed full of technology. Take the D500, again, for example. It's got an unlimited RAW burst with the right card. Same pixel count as the E-M1.2.
But no, I hope it gets corrected in firmware, the camera like I said, has got everything going for it.
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