Skip to main content

Back Side: Focus Area

Lesson 11 from: Olympus PEN-F Fast Start

John Greengo

Back Side: Focus Area

Lesson 11 from: Olympus PEN-F Fast Start

John Greengo

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2000+ more >

Lesson Info

11. Back Side: Focus Area

Lesson Info

Back Side: Focus Area

next up is are focusing area, and so choosing where and how we focus is very important. And so let's kind of dive into this little topic here. And so we have a wide area that we can focus, and we can choose many different ways in which to focus. And so the first thing we need to do is you need to activate the focusing area, and then we can move the focusing point around by simply going up, down, left and right. If we want to change the way it's focusing, we're gonna press the info button. And then we can go up and down to change between the four different options between a small, normal sized target, a group and then all targets. And then finally, there is the option of using face detection. And so this camera does have facial recognition. In fact, it can even choose the eye or the right eye or the left eye in which to focus. And so that's That's the basic layout of the way it works. So now let's do a little demo in camera to show how this actually works. So let's go ahead and hit the ...

focusing button first over here on the left side of the camera, and that activates the focusing area. Now I can simply change my focusing point by going down left and right. And one of the things to notice is, if I just continue going all the way to the right, it then becomes all focusing points. And if I continue right, it comes back on the left side. And so any time you go to an edge, it's gonna become all of them and and then back to a single what? All right, And so always look for more information down here. It says info, and it's got a little gear bite. So let's hit the info button over here. And now we have more information. So if we go up and down, notice how we change from the small point to a group of points to all the points back to the normal point, and so you can choose whichever one you want. Now, if you choose a group of points, for instance, hit. Okay. Lips pressed the wrong button. There. I get out of there. Okay. I'm turning the camera off. Who? The camera won't turn off. Wow, folks. We have ourselves a real locked down on the camera right now. So how do we handle that? Well, I don't think I've ever seen this on this camera before. So what? I'm gonna dio because the camera look at this, folks. I literally have the camera turned off and it is stuck for some reason. All right? I don't know why. So what you do is you pull the battery out. Now if it works without a battery, folks, we're gonna admit witness a miracle here, So I do not know what happened. I don't have a good explanation for that. So just put that back in. We'll turn the camera back on and see if we can get back to normal working conditions here. So let's go back. We're going to do the focusing mode. And I wanted to hit the info button, and I wanted to go to the three boxes because that's kind of a nice area Hit, OK, and it down on the shutter release. Now I can take these boxes and I can move them left, Right, So you see this a little bit easier left down and you say you could move those anywhere you want. So once again, once you go to the edge, it activates all of them. So let's go back to the info and let's go back to choose a single point. And if we go left and right, you'll see the little happy face over on the left hand side. And so this is for facial recognition. And so we have off normal face recognition. It's looking for the eyes. It's looking for the right eye. It's looking for the left eye and it's off, and so it can actually recognize the face and it contract it. Now. This works very, very well. But if you have multiple faces in the scene, it could get a little confused as to which one to go for. And so this is something that I would generally leave turned off unless you have a single face in there that you were specifically working with. And so my favorite mode on the camera. Let's go ahead and adjust it back to my favorite mode, so I'm going to hit the left focusing button to activate it. I'll hit the info buttons so that I can make sure that my face detection is off, and I like this just the standard size focusing box right there in the middle on. I will normally leave it there. And then, if I need to adjust it, I'll hit the focusing tab, and then I will move it around to the various different settings. And so that's the focusing options on where you focus. There's another focusing option we're gonna get to in a moment, but this is where in the frame that you get to focus. All right, so on the back of the camera we have direct functions. And so we've just gone through each of these different functions about eso, white balance, flash drive and focus area. And so this control wheel on the back of the camera that is the direct functions. Now, if you find that you accidentally bump those buttons all the time and you're changing things when you don't want to change them, you can simply have all of these features turned off, and you can access them through the menu system or through the super Control panel, which we'll get to in a moment, or if you find that you are constantly moving the focusing bracket around and you find it cumbersome to activate the focusing system and then move the bracket around you would like to do it in a single step motion. You can do that by turning that on as an A F target area, so you can simply use that as a directional keypad, moving the focusing bracket up, down and left and right. And if you want to do that, that's right. You're gonna need to go into the custom menu and customized that particular dial button on the camera. So that will be in the custom menu buried in the button and I'll but functions. And so if you're changing those focusing points all the time, you can make it a little bit quicker and easier to dio.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Olympus PEN-F Recommended Settings
Olympus PEN-F Keynote

Ratings and Reviews

Jay Linsenbigler
 

Awesome course and thorough description of the PEN-F capabilities and functions. HOWEVER, John's "big boy camera" bias comes through when he describes some of the creative functions as "just fun". I highly disagree- because like other tools and features- it depends on HOW the photographer uses the tool or feature. Like HDR, the creative features can be used tastefully or look "overcooked". Film photographers who use a variety of different films in film cameras- is this "just fun", or do they offer creative options? I encourage John and any listeners to look up the Olympus Visionaries and many other professionals using Olympus cameras in their daily work to see the amazing results they create with them. Instead of the same old Nikon and Canon "muscle-flexing" biases- lets look at what the pros produce with the camera tools. All modern cameras are superb and capable of great results. And this PEN-F camera offers groundbreaking control over the image making IN CAMERA at the time of exposure- which can be used to adjust an accompanying RAW file if needed. Not everyone wants to sit in front of a computer for hours doing post processing.

Jay Linsenbigler
 

Awesome course and thorough description of the PEN-F capabilities and functions. HOWEVER, John's "big boy camera" bias comes through when he describes some of the creative functions as "just fun". I highly disagree- because like other tools and features- it depends on HOW the photographer uses the tool or feature. Like HDR, the creative features can be used tastefully or look "overcooked". Film photographers who use a variety of different films in film cameras- is this "just fun", or do they offer creative options? I encourage John and any listeners to look up the Olympus Visionaries and many other professionals using Olympus cameras in their daily work to see the amazing results they create with them. Instead of the same old Nikon and Canon "muscle-flexing" biases- lets look at what the pros produce with the camera tools. All modern cameras are superb and capable of great results. And this PEN-F camera offers groundbreaking control over the image making IN CAMERA at the time of exposure- which can be used to adjust an accompanying RAW file if needed. Not everyone wants to sit in front of a computer for hours doing post processing.

Kate Mooney
 

The Pen 5 is an amazing camera - however it is capable of so much that getting to know it can be somewhat overwhelming at first. John systematically and logically works through every part of the camera in really clear and easy to understand steps, quickly converting my initial apprehension into confidence and excitement for the endless possibilities of this camera.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES