Last updated: 2024-04-15
Focus
focus facilities of my camera
It wasn't until I had a situation where I actually need them that I realized I should delve more deeply into the advanced features that my camera has to offer.
Using focus to tell the story
Ofcourse I do! How could I ever say "NO"?
A spider's web
I spy a spider's web on my driveway gate. It is lit up brilliantly from behind against a dark background by the rising sun. I wonder if I could capture that on camera.
Alas, by the time I've got my camera set up a cloud has taken the light and it doesn't stand out against the dark background at all. Instead I spray the web with water droplets. I see it is more visible against the bright sky now.
As expected my camera auto-focuses on the clouds, no matter what I do, so I manually adjust it again to be on the spider's web. Olympus camera manual-focus-assist magnifies and highlights edges in red (peaking) where the focus is. As long you keep the button pressed half way after refocusing it should not attempt to repeat the auto focus. Alternatively one can simply select manual focus mode from the detailed camera options (gear icon) as the automatic operation is a hindrance, but this time I swap to my, manual-only equivalent lens rather than mess with the camera menus.
60mm f/2.8 - Olympus v 7 Artisans
With the 7 Artisans lens the camera can't sense when I am adjusting focus and so I've got fn2 button set to toggle focus peaking on and off. The result is the backdrop for this page.
The auto-focus Olympus lens weighs 200g but even though the manual one has no motors or electronics it weighs 550g. I suspect there is a difference in quality of the glass, but also the 7Artisans lens is fundamentally the same optics as they make for cameras with APSC size sensor. APSC sensor has about twice the surface area of Olympus micro 4/3 and so the glass in the lens all has to be larger (and consequently heavier). Indeed, with a simple adapter this 7 Artisans manual macro lens works just as well on my Sony APSC camera, but would probably not work on a full frame sensor that has 4 times the surface area.
OMD lens on Sony
Although I could also fit the Olympus lens with the same adapter, without electrical connection its manual focus ring seem to do nothing at all. I have heard one can do the focusing and aperture on an Olympus camera and then when swapping the lens to the Sony camera it will take the picture with those setting, but I can see absolutely no reason I would ever want to do that especially because there would probably be severe vignetting on the larger sensor. None the less I was intrigued and tried it.
First I took the picture on my Olympus, then disconnected the lens and put on the Sony 6300 with an adapter. First thing I noticed is that I had to move back to about twice as far to get it in focus with the current settings. I had been expecting it to be the same focal plane, but maybe something got jolted. I was also expecting a lot more vignetting on the APSC sensor and it definitely captures a much wider area than on the m4/3 sensor.
One thing I really like about the Olympus lenses is they are much lighter and more compact, but OTOH I might as well just use the Olympus camera in the first place especially as Sony is migrating to full frame format and I don't need it for what I do.