A while back we had a discussion of the EVF delay in the OM-D E-M5. I
found that it lagged significantly behind real life--enough that it was
very difficult to nab a fleeting "decisive moment." Example: I could
not catch the instant of ball meeting the raquet in a very gentle family
game of duffer tennis. I have no trouble doing such things with a Leica
RF or a DSLR. I also found that if I put an external optical viewfinder
in the hot shoe, the problem went away, and results were similar to a
Leica RF. So the problem is not *shutter* lag, but the EVF. I later
confirmed that the viewfinder had lag by photographing an electronic
metronome with the sound turned off.
Someone (I believe Moose) suggested that that there was a custom menu
option to speed up the viewfinder refresh rate. This week I tried using
this. I do not believe it helped.
The setting is in Custom Menu J (EVF). The item is Frame Rate. "Normal"
is 120 frames per second, and "High" is 240 frames/sec. The manual says
that High reduces viewfinder lag. Fooling around with photographing the
metronome, I got pretty much the same results with High as with Normal.
Yes, my fallible human reaction time is part of the measurement, but
things average out to about the same.
My guess is that the "viewfinder" lag they refer to is image tearing in
video, not the lag behind the action in front of the lens. Also, the
delay I'm experiencing appears to be something like 1/8 of a second, or
125 ms, as seen on my metronome. The difference between 120 and 240
frames/sec is 8.3 vs. 4.2 milliseconds. Nowhere near enough to account
for what I'm seeing. So the lag has nothing to do with the refresh
rate--it's built into the chain between the sensor and the EVF.
So my question now is: Has the E-M1 improved on this significantly?
This subject is rarefied enough that no reviews I've read address it.
Steve Huff says that everything about the camera is faster, but I'd like
to know what and how much. I'd also like to know how much if any the
shutter shock has been mitigated, because this means I must add yet
another 1/8 second delay if I want sharp pictures.
Sometimes all this doesn't matter--often actions and expressions "peak
and hold." But somtimes the E-M5 doesn't cut it for fast "people
photography." A pity, because it is so very, very good at so much else.
--Peter
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