Big test
PERFORMANCE: EXPOSURE LATITUDE
that recognises cars, bikes or planes but maybe that will come in a firmware update. For the first time in an Olympus camera is the Starry Sky AF mode, made possible thanks to a new algorithm, and general AF has been enhanced too with improved face and eye detect with more accurate tracking and greater sensitivity. I thought all round that the OM-D EM-1 Mark III’s AF performance was very good. I had a Mark II available at the same time and certainly the AF of the new camera was significantly better for still and video use. With the camera and 12-100mm f/4 lens on a tripod in video mode and with continuous AF and face detect (I tried with and without right/left eye priority), ALL ROUND THE OM-D EM-1 MARK III’S PERFORMANCE WAS VERY GOOD; THE AF WAS SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER FOR STILLS AND VIDEO
I videoed myself ducking and diving in front of the lens. The AF system proved tenacious as I moved and leapt around, and walked in and out of the frame and face detect worked from several metres away although you had to be quite close – no further than 1.5m – for the eye detect focus box to show. Another challenge I threw at the AF system was using the camera for some wildlife snapping using the Olympus 50-140mm f/2.8 and 300mm f/4 lenses with 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. For grouse in the Yorkshire Dales I placed the single point AF using the multi controller to get focus on one eye. Again, the AF system coped well. Some shots weren’t quite there but that could have been user error, a bit of camera shake or subject movement and the 300mm f/4 with the 2x converter combination is a 600mm f/8 – 1200mm in the 35mm format – so depth-of-field is very, very shallow. Lastly, I had one clear night in my town garden to try Starry Sky AF. The mode has two options, accuracy and speed, and I went for the former using the 12-100mm f/4 lens. Once set up, a push of the AFL/AEL button starts the focusing process with a message on the monitor and a few seconds later this goes so you’re ready to shoot. Using the monitor, I roughly framed up in the Plough which was almost directly overhead, and to test the
-3EV
-2EV
-1EV
0EV
+1EV
+2EV
+3EV
To check out the exposure latitude of Raw files from the OM-D EM-1 Mark III, I shot a nine-shot exposure bracket at 1EVsteps from the correct exposure – the +/-4EV shots are not shown here. In this scene, themetered correct exposure was 1/160sec at f/8 and ISO200 and the bracket wasmade inmanual exposuremode. The Raws were exposure corrected in Lightroom. The underexposed Raws respondedwell at least in terms of tonality, contrast and saturation. If there was any downside it was with the digital noise gainwith the -3EVshot.The -2EVand -1EVshots looked almost identical to the correctly exposed shot. Overexposure was handled less well by the camera, however, and even the +2EV image picked up a slight cyan colour cast in the blue sky and contrast was higher. Both aspects can be corrected though.The corrected +1EV looked spot on.
To sumup, exposure tolerance of this camera’s Raws was good but not exceptional which was probably due to the sensor capturing 12-bit Raws. Nevertheless, Raw exposure latitude is good enough for most people.
20 Photography News | Issue 76
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