Olympus E-M1 Mark II Firmware 3.0

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enricosavazzi
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Olympus E-M1 Mark II Firmware 3.0

Post by enricosavazzi »

Version 3.0 was released very recently. The main change for us is that focus stacking now allows a variable number of shots, up to 15. Previously it was only 8 I think. This is not documented in the v3.0 user guide (surprise, surprise) but it is there in the menu. There is also a timer setting to allow the flash to recharge between focus stacking shots, which I do not remember whether it was there before because I never used it (I updated the firmware directly from 1.3 to 3.0).

There are several other improvements and additions (especially to AF), but so far I have not found anything more specific to focus stacking.

The updater automatically saves and restores custom sets.
--ES

enricosavazzi
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Post by enricosavazzi »

Also worth mentioning, the new version of Olympus Workspace can take a set of up to 999 pictures generated by focus bracketing and generate a focus stack from them.
--ES

Yawns
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Post by Yawns »

enricosavazzi wrote:Also worth mentioning, the new version of Olympus Workspace can take a set of up to 999 pictures generated by focus bracketing and generate a focus stack from them.
I did not know that.. thank you. I will have a look.
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Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

The flash recharge time delay has always been there, or at least I have always had it on the PEN-F and E-M5. The delay can also be set to auto when using an Oly flash so that each picture is taken as soon as the flash is charged. But I never used these features either...

enricosavazzi
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Post by enricosavazzi »

Lou Jost wrote:The flash recharge time delay has always been there, or at least I have always had it on the PEN-F and E-M5. The delay can also be set to auto when using an Oly flash so that each picture is taken as soon as the flash is charged. But I never used these features either...
Correct also for E-M1 Mark II, I found it in my settings spreadsheet for firmware 1.2.
--ES

Yawns
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Post by Yawns »

My cheap low entry level M-10 II also has it ... in fact currently I am doing / experimenting bracketing with flashes (other flash brands, no Olympus) the recharge time is set manualy .. if I use the buil-in flash the camera auto configures the recharging time.
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mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Worth considering when relying on the flash recharge indicator is this is likely to be a simple voltage divider based comparator monitoring the energy storage capacitor voltage in the flash/strobe. The "trip" level is probably set to something like ~90% of full charge voltage.

Assuming a exponential charge profile, the time to reach 90% is t1 (indicator time) and the time to reach 99% is t2. A little math will show that t2 will be twice t1. Since the output optical power is proportional to the energy storage capacitor voltage squared, the optical output variation between t2 and t1 will be (Vt2)^2/(Vt1)^2 -1, or 21% more power at time t2 vs. time t1!

So it's usually a good idea to wait many times the indicator time if you want uniform optical outputs. Speedlights tend to slow down as they are used because the batteries get depleted and heat up increasing the internal battery resistance causing longer recycle times. Many strobes tend to recycle quicker and maintain a more uniform recycle time because they are AC powered, and don't yield to heat buildup as much because they are bulkier and some have cooling fans.

Best,
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chris_ma
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Post by chris_ma »

I don't know how new this is, or how many people know this already, but it seems you can use the camera to significantly speed up RAW processing, which could be useful if doing focus stacks on a slower computer.

here a demo video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RV8uXXifIQ

mawyatt
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Post by mawyatt »

Chris,

That's a cool idea!! Wonder how much faster the RAW processing is than on a typical PC or Mac, also wonder if the USB port becomes the bottleneck?

Anyway, hope others like Nikon will implement this feature if it makes sense.

Best,
Research is like a treasure hunt, you don't know where to look or what you'll find!
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enricosavazzi
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Post by enricosavazzi »

chris_ma wrote:I don't know how new this is, or how many people know this already, but it seems you can use the camera to significantly speed up RAW processing, which could be useful if doing focus stacks on a slower computer.

here a demo video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RV8uXXifIQ
This new (for the E-M1 Mark II) feature of Olympus Workspace appears to be useful only if the required task is to change the white balance, luminosity, contrast etc. of a raw file. When this adjustment is done, the raw pixel data is not changed, only these settings in the raw file header are changed. Apparently, the Raw Data Edit feature of Olympus Workspace uses the in-camera raw engine instead of the PC CPU. I don't know whether it is possible to use this feature in batch mode, which should be the typical scenario for processing raw files in preparation for focus stacking.

These settings must be read from the file header and applied to the pixel data each time one needs to display the raw image. This must also be done whenever the raw file must be converted to another ("cooked") format. I don't think the Raw Data Edit feature helps in these cases by offloading the processing to the camera.
--ES

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