How to turn your E-P1 into a speed demon ;)

Hello everyone,

the E-P1 is incredibly flexible and configurable - and one reason I'm enjoying hosting this Team Review Diary, is that there is no 'conclusion' based on a finite time or single reviewer's opinion... we can all continue to help each other with new experience and discoveries - and even asking questions is helpful to our early adopters... to prompt their own efforts to understand this new camera.

One issue which is being hotly discussed on the forums, based on preview perceptions is the ability of the E-P1 to shoot fast action. I've been exploring the settings to see just how fast I can get the E-P1 to shoot for action purposes.

So, I've discovered a couple of things you can do to dramatically speed things up.

Here is the speed of the camera in C-AF mode, shooting with the Olympus 14-42mFT kit lens, IS disabled, shooting raw.

And here I'm shooting with the same setup - but with the slightly faster Lumix 14-45mm kit lens.

As you can hear, there's not that much of a focus speed difference between the two lenses - but it's there.

Here's an interesting one... Panasonic G1 with Lumix 14-45 fitted - configured for burst shooting as the E-P1... notice the smaller 6 shot buffer before the burst rate slows dramatically. Notice also, the difference in shutter sound to the E-P1.

Here's the 17mm mFT kit lens on the E-P1, same setup.

Now for a couple of original, non-optimised Olympus ZD lenses - I had to continually re-press the shutter release here - because the lenses do not automatically continue to C-AF. Note these lenses are pretty heavy beasts! the camera has no problem whatsoever driving them, doesn't even get hot (and it's a very hot day here today)

Here's the ZD 14-35mm f2

and here's the ZD 35-100mm f2

Now - here's the CDAF optimised ZD 14-54mm mkII

So, we know that CDAF is slowing the burst speed down... how about focusing manually?

Here's the E-P1 shooting with a legacy lens fitted, being focused manually with IS engaged.

And finally, here's the fastest rate of shooting in raw (you can go a little quicker shooting jpeg)...

Briefly, I have the camera set to the following... recorded in my 2nd Custom Reset memory.

• Auto ISO (enabled for manual shooting),
• Manual Focus (physically geared lenses only - fly by wire doesn't work during burst shooting)
• Manual exposure, setting the shutter speed for the action...
• Record View switched off,
• IS switched off

Hope that's of interest - please Post a comment below with your questions and comments. I will post further step by step configuration instructions if requested.

Kind Regards

Brian

Comments

[JD Hodges]

Thank you Brian, it was nice to get a feel for shooting speeds under a variety of different conditions. I hope most online reviewers take the time to experiment with the E-P1 settings for optimal performance, as you have, rather than just declaring it "slow".