Pro Capture On The Olympus E-M1 Mark II

Laughing Gull (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 lens @ 38mm; 1/1600th sec. @ f/4.5; ISO 200

Pro Capture is one of many features designed into the newish Olympus E-M1 Mark II.  I like this feature.  I believe this feature will be very useful.  I think you will as well, if you have a use for a feature that allows you to capture peak action or other exact moments that, otherwise, are difficult to precisely catch.

The other day I was out and about and had my "Grab and Go" camera gear with me.  At some point, I decided to take a short ride over to one of my favorite photographic haunts. I didn't have photography in particular in mind.  It was just a nice summer day, I was out and Messick Point in Poquoson, Virginia is a relatively secluded and quiet place where a few deadrise crabbing boats are based as well as some other fishing related activities are located.  I enjoy being there.  Its quiet.

As I arrived, I spotted a Great Blue Heron perched on the gunwale of a small fishing boat moored against the seawall.  I don't often see one so close to man made objects and the parking lot.  You can see that image here.  Scroll down as it is in the middle of the post.  I parked my vehicle, grabbed the Mark II with the 12-100mm f/4 lens attached, got out and slowly approached the heron on foot so I could position myself for a pleasing composition. In fact, I was able to make some images of it from several angles.  I was a bit surprised as typically in my experience Great Blue Herons are very skiddish and fly away before you can get close.  But I digress.

As I kept getting closer, the heron finally flew away, but I felt I made a few interesting images.  I was pleased that I had my Mark II with me in the Grab and Go kit.

I then spotted a Laughing Gull sitting nearby on a piling.  Immediately, I thought of trying out the Pro Capture feature on the camera and see if I could capture the peak action of the bird taking off from the top of the wooden support.

What is Pro Capture?  Here is a short description right from Olympus' website:

Pro Capture Mode ensures you’ll catch the exact moment you want without any lag. Pro Capture uses the silent electronic shutter to start buffering a running series of full resolution JPEG / RAW images when you press the shutter release button halfway. Then, fully press the shutter release to capture an image plus the 14 previous frames all at once. You can keep the shutter release fully depressed to continue sequential shooting. 

In the Super Control Panel (SCP) on the LCD, I dialed in Pro Capture Hi in the frame advance options menu.  I had already set the parameters for Pro Capture Hi when initially setting up the camera.  I had set the camera to continually capture 14 images (you can set this to fewer if you so choose) upon half-press of the shutter, and then unlimited images upon full press.  There is an option to limit the number of subsequent images to 25 upon full press, but I thought I would rather make the decision as to how many subsequent images are optimal based upon the individual circumstances at hand.

My plan was to frame the gull in the viewfinder with my finger pressing the shutter halfway as I slowly walked toward the bird.  My hope was that at some point when the bird no longer felt safe, it would fly away.  That is exactly what happened.

As I crept forward, I kept zooming out and refocusing since I wanted to keep some space between the gull and the edge of the frame for compositional purposes.  However, I was able to come much closer to the gull than I anticipated and was within 8 or so feet when it finally spread its wings and flew.

When it did finally fly away, I pressed the shutter fully and captured the images I wanted. I was very pleased with the results which you see at the top of the post as well as all of the images shown below. I captured a total of 28 images, 14 before the bird left the pilon and 14 after.  One thing did surprise me and something of which you should be aware, those 14 shots that are continually buffered in-camera turn out to be a very short time period.  I'm not sure at what shutter advance speed the camera records them, but the 14 images represent only a small fraction of a second.  It would be nice to have a control to adjust the time frame for those 14 images so one could record just a bit more of the scene before the full press.

Here are all of the images in sequence.  In some, the bird is partially out of the frame as the bird was faster than the photographer!  Click on any of these images to see them in greater detail.

The image below is the first one recorded after I fully pressed the shutter.  You see that I easily missed the best action as my shutter press was very late.  I thought I was better than this but, obviously, I'm not.  I certainly need much more practice.  Pro Capture can really help you be a much better action photographer.

Pro Capture works.  No doubt about it.  It worked for me the very first time I tried it. That is saying something when you can use a brand new feature to capture a difficult situation and be successful the first time.

Could I have made these series of images with my X-T2 and 50-140mm f/2.8? Let me put it this way.  Yes and no.  Yes, if I were a pretty good bird photographer and had practiced and had experience in photographing birds at the exact moment of flight.  No, if I would have had my Fuji out there that day as I'm not a good bird photographer and haven't practiced this particular skill.

As I said in my previous post, the Olympus E-M1 Mark II is pack full of specialty features that allow even a novice photographer to make images he or she otherwise wouldn't be able to make without more understanding and experience.

In the future, I'll explore more of this camera's special features and report as to how well they work.  Stay tuned.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

All content on this blog is © 2013-2017 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.