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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Olympus OM-D EM-1 (1 Viewer)

Will be following shortly to fix focus stacking glitch. Any macro stuff needing in camera focus stacking can be done quite nicely on the TG-4 anyway.

J
 
I have again gone back to Metabones v2.1. 2.6 kept blacking out on me and is slower focusing on both the Sigma and the 400/5.6. Had to give the borrowed 100-400 II back. Wonderful lens. I like it better than either the Sigma or the 400/5.6, but it is just too slow. If it is near to focus, it is snappy enough but if it has to go searching....:-C
8 seconds from infinity to 3 meters and back, or 13 seconds :eek!: with the 1.4x Extender III attached.
 
Dan,
To compare, what times do you get with v 2.1, with the Canon 400 & Sigma?

I wonder if feeding extra power via the usb-port on the MB, may shortening AF times, speed things up?
 
The lenses take their power from the camera only. The USB power is for controlling the diaphragm on certain lenses in video.
The times... this is measured at 400mm from infinity to 3 meters and back with the camera pointing at the featureless sky:
v2.1
400/5.6 1.9 sec
Sigma 1.2 sec
v2.5 (about the same as 2.6)
400/5.6 1.8 sec
Sigma 3.3 sec
These are the times for searching. When the lens is near to in focus, the phase detect kicks in and both go pretty quickly to focus, the Sigma somewhat snappier, directer, and quieter than the Canon, but the difference is small and difficult to quantify. My back and forth focus tests showed the Sigma to be perhaps 10-15% quicker.
Neither is what one would call fast when put up against a DSLR like the 7D2 or the D7200 or D500.

I tried attaching a USB power bank and all it did was crash the Metabones. I was afraid I had bricked it, but after a few tries I was able to reload the firmware. After that I found the explanation on the Metabones home page about the external power. Wasn't easy to find and they never responded to my question about just this question.
 
Dan,

Thanks for the test result. That was interesting news.

Between v 2.2 and 2.6 Metabones says there is for example some "Improved Olympus OM-D E-M1 PDAF performance". Do you perceive some lesser good AF performance with v 2.1 ?
 
Niels,
I don't have a PL 100-400 to compare to. Besides, I am not sold on that lens on the long end where I would need it most. The Canon 100-400 II on the other hand is superb and takes the TC very well.
Anders,
What Metabones says and what I have experienced don't jive completely. Only S-AF is usable anyway, and it seems to me that their efforts to make C-AF work anyway may have compromised the really useful S-AF on the earlier versions. I have found 2.1 to be faster than either 2.5 or 2.6 on all three lenses I have tested, the Canon 400/5.6, the 100-400 II, and the big Sigma. The in between versions had lots of bugs. 2.1 is stable, as is 2.5 and 2.6 more or less.
What they say could be true for other lenses though, so I can ONLY speak about the lenses I have tried.
 
Dan wrote
I don't have a PL 100-400 to compare to. Besides, I am not sold on that lens on the long end where I would need it most.

I cannot decide what you do. I wrote what I did because I would like to see the results of such a comparison, nothing beats going from third hand to second hand information ;) (or for yourself, to first hand). Lack of access to the lens is a problem for that request :-O

Niels
 
Dan,

Have you had a fully loaded battery when doing time measurements?
Maybe battery energy status effects the results?

Have you tried the Sigma at 600mm, I guess it will be used there a lot :), V 2.1 vs 2.6 ?
 
Always test everything with a full battery. At 600mm it is somewhat slower, which is to be expected. I may be wrong, but I assume the focusing elements have to travel further the longer the focal length. 2.1 is faster than 2.6 there also.
 
Haven't risked it yet as it seems not to have any advantages for me. SpeedBooster users should be careful because it will no longer be possible to go back to earlier versions.
 
I have updated my smartadapter now, it seems to work ok with AF.
With the lens cap on my 150/600 C, mounted on the E-M1 MkI & Ext2x & MB, it takes 11,0 s to go from infinity focus distance to the shortest and back.
It is an improvement of 1 s.... hope it will remain...:)
 
11 seconds is not that bad considering the 2x TC. That will slow things down considerably. I assume you tested it at 600 (1200) mm....
 
I was getting 1.2 seconds at 400mm with V2.1 and 3.3 seconds with V2.5, with the limiter turned on to be about the same as the Canon 400/5.6. The Canon is usually around 1.9 seconds.
Three questions.... have you gone through the calibration process with the Sigma? Have you tried V2.1? Have you tried to re-load the firmware? I have found that it sometimes does not load properly first try.
I have installed V2.7 and everything seems fine. The search speed is maaaaybe 1/10 slower ;-) but the general AF seems perhaps a bit snappier. I will give it a good workout next week on a short trip to the countryside.
 
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