Super helpful, thank you! I just bought the mark2 and finding it can't see little birds on the ground, but setting up a wide short focus rectangle seems like a great idea. Lots of other great tips, thanks!
Really appreciate this video, Robert. I'll be making some changes to my wildlife custom settings. Really great to find someone who's still shooting in Manual, I've never shot in Aperture Priority and based on so many OM-1 photographers I follow I was thinking about experimenting with that for a bit, mainly for easier exposure compensation. But a decade plus of learning to shoot in Manual really isn't something I feel like stepping away from. Still looking into getting some custom button functions sorted for Exposure Compensation. Thanks again for the info, looking forward to learning more.
Good tips there mine is set very similar to yours , but I find - Ex comp of -3 or -7 to give better results +1 seems very over exposed. The -3 or -7 seem to give similar colour accuracy to my older Nikon d500.
Are you referring to subject detection or subject detection with the addition of CF-tracking? I haven't come across anyone saying the subject detection is bad.. only that you shouldn't use SD plus Tracking.
You might want to try SH2 @ 50fps for birds in flight, especially when there is a small window of opportunity to track and shoot. It provides for a greater number of wing positions, which in turn allows you to choose the optimum shots. For the first couple of months I did not use 50fps, thinking it a bit of a gimmick. I then decided to give it a go and have been using it for the past 9 months. You mentioned an issue with S-IS auto when half pressing the shutter button, but have you tried disabling it and just using BBF? I agree with the point about the all focus points, though I always use this setting for BIF, it hardly ever misses, even when the subject flies behind a tree/branches.
Yeah the 50FPS mode can be very useful for getting the best wing positions! The only downside is that it fills the rather meagre buffer of the OM-1 very quickly. For the IS I found that I was often just setting it to the vertical-only setting and leaving it there, as that caused fewer issues without losing access to it entirely 😀
50 FPS.. sounds great in theory... until you need to come home and sort through 900 images of the same bird flapping in the sky! If I can't get the shot I want from 10FPS... Forget=about-it!
Very informative video. Thank you. You don't speak much about customising buttons - I have one set up for magnification, which is useful for distant small birds. Also, I have set up focus peaking but without the magnification.
I think I go through some of my custom function buttons on another video, though I'm not too sure which one 😅 I always like to have one to toggle subject detection on/off. Using one for the magnifier is a good idea!
Hi Robert, just came across your video. I just bought the OM-1 with the 100-400. A recent sale on the 300f4 pro made me jump to it. While the 300 will be my main lens some places I venture around in Brisbane, Australia does require something shorter than 300mm but with the flexibility to zoom quickly. I’m a hobbyist, walk around bird shooter. My question relates to AF-C+Tr around the 7 minute mark. Since your video the firmware has gone from 1.3 to 1.5. Has this changed your views on using tracking. Also do you prefer ON-1 or ON-2. I’m in a bit of a toss up. Thanks.
Thanks Tony! That sounds like a great setup to me - there were certainly some times with the 300mm where I wish I had a zoom. I spent quite a lot of time swapping teleconverters on and off 😅 I don’t actually have the OM-1 any more, as I was doing so much low light photography that I needed something better suited to that. However it’s a very popular camera at my local reserves so I do keep up on how people find the updates, and so far the consensus seems to be that the tracking mode is still a bit weird. It always had a tendency to get bored and just start randomly tracking things in my experience. They haven’t explicitly stated that they’ve improved the tracking so my suspicion is that it’s still the same. Thankfully I never felt like I was missing out as the C-AF mode works really well without it, especially for birds in flight. For ON-1 or ON-2, do you mean the live view boost?
@@robert_may Robert, the AF area pointer. As the AF is focusing in a plane it doesn’t really matter much. But I guess ON2 may show if it has wandered off target a bit, or do I have another setting I could use. It seems for fidgety birds C-AF is better than CA-F + TR if other videos are correct. Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been that favourable for getting out and about. Lots of rain, hot and consequentially high humidity. And the weeks forecast is for more of the same.
@@tonyblake8841 Aaah gotcha. Yeah all the AF area pointer modes can be useful, though I largely didn’t use them for birds in flight as just the object detection box is enough there. And yeah agreed, C-AF would be my choice still just as I find it more consistent and predictable. Thankfully with the super fast sensor in the OM-1 it performs really well. I definitely sympathise on the rain front, though here in Wales we’re less familiar with the heat aspect 😅 I hope you’re able to get out shooting soon!
I'd probably use something similar to how I set it up for birds. I did once photograph some hoverflies that way using the OM-1 and it seemed to work well overall!
are you sure that the smaller AF area size in conjunction with bird/animal AI AF helps to prevent focusing on foreground? I havent tested that in particular, I was just lately thinking about it, and I would assume that since om-1 focuses at the recognized bird as long as any part of the box over the bird touches the AF area, the position of the area or size doesnt help much as long as the box over the bird contains foreground elements. but again, i have not had a chance to play with this much. so interesting that you mention it. I would imagine this to be useful if it worked like with some other mirrorless cameras and would search for animals only inside of the selected AF area.
and I can confirm the ca-f sensitivity settings, I tried -2 to prevent it from focusing at foreground reeds when tracking herons landing there - it seems it rather stops trying to focus"" at all or becomes uselessly lazy. I can imagine this being useful when panning subjects that move in pre-defined plane/distance. One of our pro wildlife photographers say he uses mostly +2 to 0.
I'm glad it wasn't just me confused by the sensitivity setting seemingly breaking the AF at negative numbers! When it comes to the AF grid size - it's really weird but I see a big difference in foreground swapping between the large area and the "all" area. At a guess, I'm assuming it has a bias to front-focusing, and when it can't see a bird it's defaulting to the AF points at the bottom of the screen (the ground/water) as they're closest 🤔
So from what I can tell, the setting is irrelevant when using a lens that supports "sync IS" like the 300mm f/4. Supposedly it's just used for lenses without an IS switch on the barrel, like some of the Panasonic ones. I tried toggling it on and off on the OM-1 and saw no effect on the result so that seems to be the case, I think 😅 As far as I can tell there's no way of disabling part of the sync IS system, like disabling the lens IS and only using the sensor. But the menu options around this are pretty barebones!
Thanks for the useful video Robert! I know the OM-1 is an excellent camera, I'm still trying to decide for myself though if I can justify the expenditure on that over picking up a good deal on an E-M1 III. The object detect features would be an obvious bonus to sway me towards the OM-1, so it's interesting to hear your comments on its performance. When you say you have given up on AF-C with tracking, in what way does this differ to standalone AF-C? Does it pick up on the first object and try to follow that? I can't picture how this would give any benefit over standard AF-C with object detect turned on.
Yeah you're absolutely right! The tracking version in theory tries to track an object as it moves around the picture, whereas AF-C would be re-identifying the subject in every frame. However the tracking on OM cameras is notoriously weird and has a tendency to drift about randomly, so it's generally more reliable to leave that off as the OM-1 is very quick at identifying objects and if anything the AF-C mode tracks moving subjects better than AF-C + Tracking.
@@robert_may Great, thanks for clarifying! The tracking mode on my Fuji X-T4 is also pretty much useless due to drift, so I never use it. It sounds like normal AF-C + object detect would work well for me. It's very rare that I have more than one subject in the frame, so tracking wouldn't give me any benefit anyway
I found this really good. I’m new to Olympus and finding so many options quite confusing, but will give all your tips a try. Currently I only have 40-150 f2.8 with mc-20 and not getting much that’s at all sharp. Interested that you have the 300 I’ve never used a prime and was looking at the 100-400 but reviews re light needed are not good. Do you have any advice re that choice please. I do have Topaz and a video on how to best use that linked into Oly and birds would be great , many thanks from a new subscriber
Personally I really like the 300mm f/4, it's a great lens! The only downside is that you'll be putting teleconverters on and off more often than with the 100-400mm, but it's a very sharp lens and the wider aperture is very useful with a micro-4/3rds camera. I do plan to do some more videos around the different noise reduction software soon 😀
@@davidryan9808 If in doubt, higher shutter speed is always a good starting point! If you’re in the northern hemisphere right now you’ll also be experiencing an awful lot of heat haze on any vaguely warm day, which will affect sharpness dramatically. I don’t do a huge amount of wildlife photography in the summer for that reason.
@@robert_may My Olympus OM-1 has NOT been used since quality digital cameras came in. It's on/off switch needs fixing. You can have it, if you want it. Getting it to you is not that hard.Let me know. This is not a joke. its a good camera but being wasted here in Australia.
@@Helliconia54 That's very generous John, thanks for the offer! 😄 Sadly it would most likely sit unused here for quite a while too as I have a huge backlog of things to sort out before I can do any film photography again, so I won't take you up on it, but I do appreciate the offer.
Great video.Just switched to OM.I do not regret it a second.
Super helpful, thank you! I just bought the mark2 and finding it can't see little birds on the ground, but setting up a wide short focus rectangle seems like a great idea. Lots of other great tips, thanks!
Really appreciate this video, Robert. I'll be making some changes to my wildlife custom settings. Really great to find someone who's still shooting in Manual, I've never shot in Aperture Priority and based on so many OM-1 photographers I follow I was thinking about experimenting with that for a bit, mainly for easier exposure compensation. But a decade plus of learning to shoot in Manual really isn't something I feel like stepping away from. Still looking into getting some custom button functions sorted for Exposure Compensation. Thanks again for the info, looking forward to learning more.
Good tips there mine is set very similar to yours , but I find - Ex comp of -3 or -7 to give better results +1 seems very over exposed. The -3 or -7 seem to give similar colour accuracy to my older Nikon d500.
Thank you for talking about the failures of Subject Detection. It misses so much that I no longer use it.
Are you referring to subject detection or subject detection with the addition of CF-tracking? I haven't come across anyone saying the subject detection is bad.. only that you shouldn't use SD plus Tracking.
You might want to try SH2 @ 50fps for birds in flight, especially when there is a small window of opportunity to track and shoot. It provides for a greater number of wing positions, which in turn allows you to choose the optimum shots. For the first couple of months I did not use 50fps, thinking it a bit of a gimmick. I then decided to give it a go and have been using it for the past 9 months. You mentioned an issue with S-IS auto when half pressing the shutter button, but have you tried disabling it and just using BBF? I agree with the point about the all focus points, though I always use this setting for BIF, it hardly ever misses, even when the subject flies behind a tree/branches.
Yeah the 50FPS mode can be very useful for getting the best wing positions! The only downside is that it fills the rather meagre buffer of the OM-1 very quickly. For the IS I found that I was often just setting it to the vertical-only setting and leaving it there, as that caused fewer issues without losing access to it entirely 😀
50 FPS.. sounds great in theory... until you need to come home and sort through 900 images of the same bird flapping in the sky! If I can't get the shot I want from 10FPS... Forget=about-it!
Very informative video. Thank you. You don't speak much about customising buttons - I have one set up for magnification, which is useful for distant small birds. Also, I have set up focus peaking but without the magnification.
I think I go through some of my custom function buttons on another video, though I'm not too sure which one 😅 I always like to have one to toggle subject detection on/off. Using one for the magnifier is a good idea!
Really useful, thank you. Am now going to try and find yr other settings :)
Hi Robert, just came across your video. I just bought the OM-1 with the 100-400. A recent sale on the 300f4 pro made me jump to it. While the 300 will be my main lens some places I venture around in Brisbane, Australia does require something shorter than 300mm but with the flexibility to zoom quickly. I’m a hobbyist, walk around bird shooter. My question relates to AF-C+Tr around the 7 minute mark. Since your video the firmware has gone from 1.3 to 1.5. Has this changed your views on using tracking. Also do you prefer ON-1 or ON-2. I’m in a bit of a toss up.
Thanks.
Thanks Tony! That sounds like a great setup to me - there were certainly some times with the 300mm where I wish I had a zoom. I spent quite a lot of time swapping teleconverters on and off 😅
I don’t actually have the OM-1 any more, as I was doing so much low light photography that I needed something better suited to that. However it’s a very popular camera at my local reserves so I do keep up on how people find the updates, and so far the consensus seems to be that the tracking mode is still a bit weird. It always had a tendency to get bored and just start randomly tracking things in my experience. They haven’t explicitly stated that they’ve improved the tracking so my suspicion is that it’s still the same. Thankfully I never felt like I was missing out as the C-AF mode works really well without it, especially for birds in flight.
For ON-1 or ON-2, do you mean the live view boost?
@@robert_may Robert, the AF area pointer. As the AF is focusing in a plane it doesn’t really matter much. But I guess ON2 may show if it has wandered off target a bit, or do I have another setting I could use. It seems for fidgety birds C-AF is better than CA-F + TR if other videos are correct. Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been that favourable for getting out and about. Lots of rain, hot and consequentially high humidity. And the weeks forecast is for more of the same.
@@tonyblake8841 Aaah gotcha. Yeah all the AF area pointer modes can be useful, though I largely didn’t use them for birds in flight as just the object detection box is enough there.
And yeah agreed, C-AF would be my choice still just as I find it more consistent and predictable. Thankfully with the super fast sensor in the OM-1 it performs really well.
I definitely sympathise on the rain front, though here in Wales we’re less familiar with the heat aspect 😅 I hope you’re able to get out shooting soon!
So what AF mode would you use for dragonflies?
I'd probably use something similar to how I set it up for birds. I did once photograph some hoverflies that way using the OM-1 and it seemed to work well overall!
are you sure that the smaller AF area size in conjunction with bird/animal AI AF helps to prevent focusing on foreground? I havent tested that in particular, I was just lately thinking about it, and I would assume that since om-1 focuses at the recognized bird as long as any part of the box over the bird touches the AF area, the position of the area or size doesnt help much as long as the box over the bird contains foreground elements. but again, i have not had a chance to play with this much. so interesting that you mention it. I would imagine this to be useful if it worked like with some other mirrorless cameras and would search for animals only inside of the selected AF area.
and I can confirm the ca-f sensitivity settings, I tried -2 to prevent it from focusing at foreground reeds when tracking herons landing there - it seems it rather stops trying to focus"" at all or becomes uselessly lazy. I can imagine this being useful when panning subjects that move in pre-defined plane/distance. One of our pro wildlife photographers say he uses mostly +2 to 0.
I'm glad it wasn't just me confused by the sensitivity setting seemingly breaking the AF at negative numbers! When it comes to the AF grid size - it's really weird but I see a big difference in foreground swapping between the large area and the "all" area. At a guess, I'm assuming it has a bias to front-focusing, and when it can't see a bird it's defaulting to the AF points at the bottom of the screen (the ground/water) as they're closest 🤔
Lens IS priority will disable sync IS I assume? Especially paired with 300mm pro, this might reduce the effectiveness.
Good question. I think it still does IBIS when lens IS is enabled but I haven't actually checked that - I'll see if I can confirm it.
@@robert_may Thanks for checking! Very helpful video indeed.
So from what I can tell, the setting is irrelevant when using a lens that supports "sync IS" like the 300mm f/4. Supposedly it's just used for lenses without an IS switch on the barrel, like some of the Panasonic ones. I tried toggling it on and off on the OM-1 and saw no effect on the result so that seems to be the case, I think 😅 As far as I can tell there's no way of disabling part of the sync IS system, like disabling the lens IS and only using the sensor. But the menu options around this are pretty barebones!
Thanks for the useful video Robert! I know the OM-1 is an excellent camera, I'm still trying to decide for myself though if I can justify the expenditure on that over picking up a good deal on an E-M1 III. The object detect features would be an obvious bonus to sway me towards the OM-1, so it's interesting to hear your comments on its performance. When you say you have given up on AF-C with tracking, in what way does this differ to standalone AF-C? Does it pick up on the first object and try to follow that? I can't picture how this would give any benefit over standard AF-C with object detect turned on.
Yeah you're absolutely right! The tracking version in theory tries to track an object as it moves around the picture, whereas AF-C would be re-identifying the subject in every frame. However the tracking on OM cameras is notoriously weird and has a tendency to drift about randomly, so it's generally more reliable to leave that off as the OM-1 is very quick at identifying objects and if anything the AF-C mode tracks moving subjects better than AF-C + Tracking.
@@robert_may Great, thanks for clarifying! The tracking mode on my Fuji X-T4 is also pretty much useless due to drift, so I never use it. It sounds like normal AF-C + object detect would work well for me. It's very rare that I have more than one subject in the frame, so tracking wouldn't give me any benefit anyway
@@robert_may OM Systems recommends using CAF and not use tracking at all when using any of the subject detection modes.
I found this really good. I’m new to Olympus and finding so many options quite confusing, but will give all your tips a try. Currently I only have 40-150 f2.8 with mc-20 and not getting much that’s at all sharp. Interested that you have the 300 I’ve never used a prime and was looking at the 100-400 but reviews re light needed are not good. Do you have any advice re that choice please. I do have Topaz and a video on how to best use that linked into Oly and birds would be great , many thanks from a new subscriber
Personally I really like the 300mm f/4, it's a great lens! The only downside is that you'll be putting teleconverters on and off more often than with the 100-400mm, but it's a very sharp lens and the wider aperture is very useful with a micro-4/3rds camera. I do plan to do some more videos around the different noise reduction software soon 😀
@@robert_may many thanks
I’m in the same situation, om-1 40-150 2.8 mc20 and without I can’t seem to get a single sharp picture. Not sure what I’m doing wrong.
@@davidryan9808 If in doubt, higher shutter speed is always a good starting point!
If you’re in the northern hemisphere right now you’ll also be experiencing an awful lot of heat haze on any vaguely warm day, which will affect sharpness dramatically. I don’t do a huge amount of wildlife photography in the summer for that reason.
Thanks
My OM-1 is pure manual. What film do you use?
This is the digital OM-1 so no film at all 😁 Though I would love a film OM-1 - lovely camera.
@@robert_may where do you live?i mean country.
@John Colley I'm in the UK 😀
@@robert_may My Olympus OM-1 has NOT been used since quality digital cameras came in. It's on/off switch needs fixing. You can have it, if you want it. Getting it to you is not that hard.Let me know. This is not a joke. its a good camera but being wasted here in Australia.
@@Helliconia54 That's very generous John, thanks for the offer! 😄 Sadly it would most likely sit unused here for quite a while too as I have a huge backlog of things to sort out before I can do any film photography again, so I won't take you up on it, but I do appreciate the offer.