Friday, January 2, 2009

phase versus contrast detect focusing in low light (underwater)

i ve used my olympus E520 underwater only a few times so far (10 or so) and i've notice that in low light, low visibility, wide angle it has some trouble focusing. In similar situations my previous camera, the canon G7 of course wouldnt focus either, and would never be able to take a photo of any use. the olympus can take good photos but the focusing part becomes slightly noticable.


i also noticed (i think) that in such cases, switching to live-view/constrast detect focus works much faster and possibly better.

i was wondering if anyone had the same experience with similar cameras?
are there cases where contrast detect focus is better than the normal/phase detect focus especially underwater?


1 comment:

Unknown said...

We haven't seen any situation where the live view focus works better than the traditional focus. In fact, in low-light the traditional focus seems to work noticeably better. In all cases, it's considerably faster.

Something else we noticed is that the live view generates a lot of heat. This was a real problem in the 30C water of PNG. Enough that Tanya basically stopped using live view at all after the first day.

The one thing live view does work well for is taking pictures in places where you can't (or aren't willing to) stick your head into. It's also handy if you're using a tripod and you're much taller than it is.