Olympus 60mm macro focus issues

Hi all. I have an olympus OM-D EM-5 MkII setup in a Nauticam housing, specifically this is with the 60mm lens in Nauticam port. At macro distances with a focus light when needed AF is quit acceptable. I often want to shoot smaller fish as well up to around 200-300mm, which requires backing off and shooting from further back if I want to get the whole fish in the frame. I generally dive around Sydney in temperate waters and the visibility is often not that great with floating snot algae at times and other particulate matter.

The issue I have is that when trying to focus at greater distances, like 0.5 to 1m away the lens/camera often seems to not even attempt to focus. Yes I know I should be closer, but often times you have to take what you can get. I suspect it is locking onto particulates and deciding not to move any further. I've tried various tricks like focusing on my hand and progressively increasing the distance, but that seems hit and miss. I thought I'd try the focus gear, (setting AF to S-AF plus MF) but the slow manual focus speed Olympus has provided for the lens coupled withe slow gearing on housing/gear combo means I need to spin the housing focus/zoom knob 30-60 times to get the system in the ballpark so the AF can take over.

Anyone have any tips to get the camera to re focus at greater distances? Yes I know closer is better, but there are plenty of worthwhile targets in the size range I'm talking about as well as smaller macro stuff. Thanks in advance for any tips......

Hi all. I have an olympus OM-D EM-5 MkII setup in a Nauticam housing, specifically this is with the 60mm lens in Nauticam port. At macro distances with a focus light when needed AF is quit acceptable. I often want to shoot smaller fish as well up to around 200-300mm, which requires backing off and shooting from further back if I want to get the whole fish in the frame. I generally dive around Sydney in temperate waters and the visibility is often not that great with floating snot algae at times and other particulate matter.

 

The issue I have is that when trying to focus at greater distances, like 0.5 to 1m away the lens/camera often seems to not even attempt to focus. Yes I know I should be closer, but often times you have to take what you can get. I suspect it is locking onto particulates and deciding not to move any further. I've tried various tricks like focusing on my hand and progressively increasing the distance, but that seems hit and miss. I thought I'd try the focus gear, (setting AF to S-AF plus MF) but the slow manual focus speed Olympus has provided for the lens coupled withe slow gearing on housing/gear combo means I need to spin the housing focus/zoom knob 30-60 times to get the system in the ballpark so the AF can take over.

 

Anyone have any tips to get the camera to re focus at greater distances? Yes I know closer is better, but there are plenty of worthwhile targets in the size range I'm talking about as well as smaller macro stuff. Thanks in advance for any tips......

 

 

I find myself avoiding shots over 18" / 45cm away. IF the lens tracks focus and I get the shot it's generally a milky, washed out image due to particulate etc.

As a work-around to these focus issues I've tried using Single Auto Focus / Manual Focus setting. If you can't lock on your subject try locking on an easy nearby subject at a similar distance. Then switch to Manual and either dial, or rock the camera to achieve focus on your original target.

BTW one of my Function presets is set to toggle to AF/MF

Regards,

Adam

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

OP - have you tried playing with the focus limit switch at all? What do you normally have the focus limit switch set to? I keep mine set at .19m-infinity. What I find when moving from close to "far" (like 1-2m) distances is that the lens hunts too much and sometimes never locks, so I have adopted my own technique of "walking" the focus to the more distant subject (I always use auto focus). If I'm shooting close and then want a fish portrait, I focus a little past the close subject, then a little farther, little farther, etc. until the more distant subject will focus. Then, moving back to close, I have to do the opposite. This is much more effective for me when using the .19m-infinity setting. I have been able to capture large subjects, like sharks, but only with this "walking" technique.

Good suggestions. Back the dark ages before reliable AF, we would pre-focus as mention above on the palm of the hand, fin, or a appropriate distance object with enough contrast.

Thanks for replies so far, I always use the 0.19m - infinity setting. Luckily I'm usually not completely washed more a lot of discreet particles. What would be ideal is a firmware tweak to have the lens respond more quickly to MF input, it's even slow when using on land without the gearing down of the focus gear, or even assigning AF to some buttons.

Just a comment...Macro/micro lenses have often been designed with the slow manual focusing specifically to allow very precise manual focusing of particularly tiny things. Although it is a problem in this application, I believe it was intended as a feature/benefit. Perhaps for the use you are describing, the 12-50 lens or a 30 or 45 macro lens would provide greater flexibility.

Yes, above. I have both the 60mm and 12-50 lenses (they both fit in the 12-50 port). If I am on anything other than a "pure" macro hunt I use the 12-50. You get very decent macro, but you can instantly switch out to regular zoom, much better for fish portraits and even big animals/scenics as you get a much wider view than the 60mm.

I'd actually argue that too slow focusing makes it difficult to get to the right spot with MF, it's slow even when used outside the housing. I have the 12-40 in a dome port and I think it does a better job overall than the 12-50mm if you can't access the macro switch. My problem is fundamentally I'm rarely on a pure macro hunt, often diving sites with lots of nudis in the range of 20-50mm long and weedy sea dragons that are around 300mm long.

I have been thinking about the new 30mm Oly macro but not a lot of reports on it yet, the lens is relatively cheap, the question is can I use it my current port as it focuses closer and is shorter so maybe 1:1 is inside the port glass?? There's also the Panasonic 30mm macro as well.

Hi, I've only recently acquired the 60mm macro lens and am planning to use it of the first time in a couple weeks on Catalina Island (hopefully there will be nudis!), hence my interest in this topic. Can I ask what AF point/target arrangement you tend to use and if you've tried mixing that up, such as limiting the camera to a single center point versus using an AF grid?

Also, this might be too subjective, but what's a good aperture range to plan for to shoot nudibranchs and small fish with the 60mm?

I shoot macro with this lens 90% of the time, and always use the extra-small center point. IMO the grid is useless for macro as the frame may be filled with potential focus targets at similar distance but the depth of field is so shallow and you need to be able to lock focus on an eye or rhinopore or similar item of interest, then recompose.

I tend to set aperture at f16 and leave it there, unless I have a good composition opportunity and want blue rather than black negative space, then f8 to f11. Some argue that diffraction is noticeable above f8 but in the real UW world I don't see it. For super macro with a diopter I will go all the way to f22 as achieving and holding focus in that case is even more tricky (for me at least). I occasionally experiment with f2.8 to f4 for extremely shallow DOF but have never really been very happy with the results as the background is not pleasing with so much ambient light.

Sorry been away a while, I'm using the centre point only. Might try the extra small center point and see if that helps.

I tend to use f8 not a fan of black BGs though they seem very popular among UW photogs. seems to mostly work quite well.with enough DOF.