Focusing System

The E-3 has been announced as the fastest focusing camera on the market (when used with the 12-60mm lens). After 10,000 frames I would have to agree, it is very quick to focus, it is also very accurate. I would say that my keeper rate is much higher than ever before. In fact, I very rarely am stuck waiting for the camera to find its focus. It usually, in nearly all situations, finds it quickly.

The Continuous Auto Focusing (C-AF) mechanism on all previous E system cameras was next to useless. In fact, I had given up on this feature completely. The E-3 and its 44 planes of focus within the 11 focus points, has changed my opinion. For action shots I am able to get about 3-4 Frames per second (FPS) in which the camera takes a shot and then focuses again before it shoots off another exposure. In my opinion this is much more useful than its competitors on the market. Where as the competitors can claim to shoot at 10 FPS or more, the focus keeper rate is next to none, because the camera is not able to focus quick enough to keep up with the number of exposures that it takes and the subject moves from the focal line. 5 FPS also allows me to get the exact look I want off my subjects. When shooting multiple subjects it is often very tricky to get them all to look at the camera at the same time. In fact it is often nearly impossible, but with 5 FPS I have a much greater chance to achieve this than when I am only shooting 3 FPS.

All shots were taken with the 90-250 with the 1.4 teleconverter

The 5 FPS is very useful when shooting in bracketing mode. I am able to quickly shoot (within 1 second) 5 shots each spaced at 1 stop over and under from the camera. This means that I have the correct exposure and will not have to chimp to test my exposure when I am shooting. For example, within this shot, I just was a bit worried about the metering off the snow with the camera (which in reality I had no issues with). So I setup a 3 stop bracketing at 1 stop. I was able to quickly shoot, and move on, as my family was out for a cold morning walk.

Took with the 12-60mm handheld, after a fresh snow

Still most of the time I shoot in Single Auto Focus (S-AF) mode. It really is for my shooting, mostly PR, weddings, family, fun, and personal projects, the best method. But if I shot sports in which the action moved very quickly, the C-AF would be invaluable. S-AF allows me to focus on my subject, and then with the shutter button still held halfway down, reframe my shot, so that I am able to get in focus just what I want. So if I am shooting the tractor picture like that one above, I can quickly grab the focus lock on the tractor, and then reframe to bring it down to the lower third of the shot, and still have my focus point locked on.

Here is a interesting test that I performed. Basically I had the E-3 90-250mm and 1.4 teleconverter, the camera was on a monopod. I shot shutter priority at 1/1000 a second at f4.0. All the shots in the batch were focused correctly.

Click photo for 100% crop from center.

Here is the whole series in a Gif that you can view.

For more info about how the Focusing system works please see this article.

Focus Setup

I have used the E-3 in both C-AF and S-AF quite a bit. I have found very few issues with the E-3. First I have C-AF lock on, as well as AF sensitivity set to normal. I also have release priority set to off for both the C-AF and S-AF. If either of these is set to "On" then the camera can take a photo before it has found a focal point. The camera in C-AF slows down a bit in this mode, however, at least my shot is in focus.

I also usually use 1 focus point on my camera, however, for indoor basketball I found it was easier to keep my subject in focus with the diamond pattern. Really I have used it a bit, and right now, I am pleased with it, but it adds another learning curve if you are moving from a previous system camera.

My [...] is setup to sprial, basically when scrolling through the menu it will go through each row of focus points, and then instead of staying on the same row as it does in loop, it instead goes down to the next row. The illustration above shows the spiraling pattern. More camera settings have been grouped on this page.

Under CM1C- For RLS Priority I have both setting set to "OFF". When one is "ON" the camera doesn't have to find a focal point before it takes the photo, and can lead to focus issues. Also my L fps are set for the standard 3 FPS.

Focusing issues -

Overall I have had two E-3 bodies during the last month. Both have performed nearly flawless in nearly all aspects. I have shot still life, studio, PR, indoor sports, outdoor sports, some wildlife shots, and even my hardest subject a running two year old. All in all there are some exposures that are out of focus. But for the most part very few. Some lenses work better than others such as the 12-60mm. However, I must admit I am really impressed with the focusing system of the E-3. I have attempted to help others both on the forum and off the forum work out the issues, and some have seemed fixable and others not. So if you already have a E-3 I would encourage you to simply vote on the poll if you are having focusing issues or not. For the group which is having issues we will open up a special part of the forum, to attempt to work out those issues. Which will be away from trouble makers. To vote simply click here.

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