An Overlooked Very Cool Feature of the Olympus E-M1 That I Had Previously Overlooked!

The last of a blooming rose.  No pleasant bokeh with M4/3?  Oh yes there is! (click to enlarge)

The other day, I was out photographing with my E-M1 and stumbled upon a very cool feature that, somehow, I had totally missed.

Olympus provides users of the E-M1 two helpful manual focusing aids.  One is the feature called "focus peaking."  The technology provides colored highlights that appear only on the parts of the image that are in focus.  This makes it easy to see, when focusing manually, exactly what parts of the image is in sharp focus.  I find this useful but sometimes too many highlights appear, therefore not giving me specific enough information as to where the exact point of focus is located.

The other helpful manual focusing feature, and one I use more than the focus peaking, is a "magnified" central portion of the image.  The way it works in manual focus mode is, as soon as you start to turn the focusing ring on your lens, the center of the image magnifies greatly so you can critically focus.  I find this very helpful, especially with telephoto lenses.  This feature allows me to critically focus on an exact spot.  Additionally, it reassures me that that exact spot, which is usually critical to the image, is in sharp focus.

Inadvertently I discovered that you can change the magnification factor of that center portion of the image!  Default is 14X, which is a tremendous magnification factor.  But sometimes, if you are close to your subject, 14X is too highly magnified.  Here's how to try out and change the magnification when needed.

Start to turn the focusing ring and the image will magnify.  Then move the rear dial while the center of the image is still magnified.  You then have a choice of 14X, 10X, 7X or 5X.  Rotating the rear dial to the right will increase magnification while rotating it to the left will reduce it.  Very cool!  The setting is also "sticky," meaning the next time you turn your camera on, the magnification will remain how you last set it.

I don't know how I missed this feature.  I pretty much read the owner's manual from front to back when I first received the camera.  I guess, because there are so many features, one can't remember them all.  Or at least that is the excuse I will use!

UPDATE:  As announced at Photokina, Olympus is now providing a firmware update to the E-M1 and E-M5.  One of the features announced is adding another magnification, 3X, to the manual focus assist function.  There are a large number of other useful functions that either have been improved or added.  I will write about that on Friday. These cameras just get better and better.  Thanks, Olympus!

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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