If only they’d put some of those features in a micro four thirds sized body…
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AFAIK only a few of the latest cameras have this feature. In theory all bodies with IBIS could have it, but the concept is new, and they didn’t bother to put it in a firmware upgrade.
But in due course, I expect it will appear in new models.
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So here’s the deal. Fv lets you tell the camera exactly what you want it to control automatically. That’s what makes it so powerful.
You move between elements using the back dial (thumb finger), then adjust them using the top dial (index finger). The lock button blocks the back dial so you don’t accidentally move the selector and adjust the wrong thing. The orange indicator shows what you’re currently adjusting.
What I do is set ISO, shutterspeed to auto, map aperture to the lens control ring and keep the selector locked on exposure compensation.
You can tell it how to adjust ISO and what limits to impose, so it doesn’t end up doing 64000 (although it’s perfectly usable if you don’t mind the grain…)
In the extremely odd chance I need manual control, I just swap into M (it onyl happened a couple times when I was shooting the milky way).
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Sorry, my last post was in reply to this. I can’t figure out how to edit my messages so it’ll have to stay like this… 
Thanks!
I can definitely see how it could be very useful, although I’d want to try it out to be sure if it would suit my way of shooting.
On a bright day, I’m fine with Aperture priority almost all the time for my kind of photography. The camera does a good job of choosing a good shutter speed and ISO, so all I need to worry about is depth of field and exposure compensation, which I adjust using the front and rear dial.
The situation where I currently have a gripe is when the light gets low, and my ISO starts to climb. With the fantastic IBIS in the OM-5, I can get away with much slower shutter speeds than what the camera chooses when it’s in auto. In this situation, I want a way to quickly adjust the shutter speed while keeping ISO in auto. There are several ways to do this:
- Switch to M mode, and then adjust shutter speed. The problem with this is that the shutter speed defaults to the last value used in M mode, so there can be a fair amount of scrolling to get to where you want. I wish it would default to where you were in A mode or in last mode used.
- Adjust ISO instead by reducing it and thereby forcing the auto shutter speed to slow down. The problem with this is that you might need to get from 6400 to 200, which is quite a bit of scrolling. And because you’re not adjusting shutter speed directly, there can be a little trial and error to get the right ISO setting. Finally, with my camera body, it means a button press then a scroll, so it’s a combination of adjustments.
- Set a maximum ISO and minimum shutter speed for Auto ISO. This way you won’t go over an ISO you don’t want, and it will go down to the minimum shutter speed before raising ISO. This can be quite a good option, but the problem is that the minimum shutter speed might not be exactly what you want for the situation. Depending on how fast the movement is, you might need a completely different shutter speed, and there’s no quick way to adjust it using dials and buttons.
So, even though there are multiple ways to do what I want, I’m trying to shave off valuable seconds by reducing the amount of scrolling and taking my eye away from the EVF. From what I can see, Flexible Priority mode might be a little easier, but there could still be a fair amount of scrolling to quickly dial in the exact settings you want.
I think what I really want is a setting that lets you carry over shutter speed from one mode to the next rather than defaulting to the last value used. So, for example, if I’m in A mode at F4, and my camera has chosen a shutter speed of 1/150 at ISO 6400, I would want to switch to manual mode and have F4, 1/150, ISO 6400 as my initial settings and then I can adjust from there.
If anyone has the solution to this or any other ideas, it would be interesting to hear them!
I know we’ve gone a bit off topic, so if this bothers anyone, we could always split the thread. I don’t mind though.
I think @Terry suggested to me that (for him at least)
shooting in manual with auto ISO is a good way to go. This way you can control both aperture and shutter as you wish, and ISO tunes the exposure.The camera stays in manual always, so there is no confusion due to mode changes.
Of course, there are trade-offs, but that’s how it goes in photography.
I’m giving this mode a try myself. I’m finding it helpful to verify shutter speed and aperture every time I turn on my camera (Lumix G9). But that’s a good idea anyway.
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You’re right, there are always trade-offs. I do shoot in Manual with auto ISO, but I tend to prefer Aperture priority most of the time because I don’t have to make many adjustments. I’m only adjusting aperture a little bit, maybe exposure comp a little bit too, and then letting the camera do the rest.
When I switch over to Manual, I get more control, but there are usually more adjustments to be made with every shot, even with auto ISO.
It’s not a big deal, and nothing is really holding me back. But I’ve always wondered what improvements could be made, because of the occasional times when you need to make a very quick adjustment to get the ideal shot.
Other than the idea I mentioned earlier of having an option for settings to carry over between modes, I’d also like a shortcut to adjust the auto ISO minimum shutter speed so you change it at the push of a button or scroll of a dial. I believe you can assign it to a button on Sony cameras, but there is no such option on either my X-T5 or OM-5. I have to go through the menu, even though you can add it to the “My menu” as a shortcut.
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I am happy with A and S priority modes.
During daytime, I shoot almost exclusively in A(perture) priority, and let the camera figure out the shutter speed, because there is usually plenty of light, even on overcast days. I set ISO to auto in case the camera needs to crank it up a bit.
The exception is when I want blur, and have ND filters with me. Then I choose shutter priority.
During dusk (and, theoretically, dawn, but I am usually not awake then 
) and then at nighttime I switch to S(hutter) priority, and the question becomes “what’s the maximum I can handhold” or “what amount of subject blur I want to introduce deliberately”.
I only shoot manual with intent to compose shots (eg panoramas).
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Yes, this is a very good use case and one I need to consider more. Previously I have always stayed away from shutter priority because I want to control depth of field, but I have since realized that this is only a potential issue in bright conditions when the camera could choose a really narrow aperture when you don’t necessarily want it. But in darker conditions, it will almost always open the aperture as wide as possible, which is what you probably want anyway to minimize noise.
If I’m not mistaken, when using shutter priority with auto ISO, I think it adjusts ISO before aperture, which means aperture will only change when the ISO range you have set can’t affect exposure anymore. So, if you have ISO range of 200-6400, it will always adjust within this range before messing with aperture. But I’m not fully sure of this, and I wonder does it always default to opening the aperture to its widest? Or does it prioritize 1 stop down from wide open to maximize sharpness? I’m not sure…
On a recent trip I set manual mode auto ISO to meet standard needs (whatever I determined that to be 
). I set Av to the sharpest apertures or the best DoF. I set Tv to fast shutter speeds when I needed to freeze the action. So I switched quickly between these three modes to match the subject but had auto iso for all of these.
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I was under the impression that it adjusts aperture before ISO, and only raises ISO when it cannot open the lens wider. At least whenever I use it in the dark, my lenses stick to being as wide as possible no matter what.
But, I have to admit, I haven’t read the manual, and this is on Panasonic cameras.
It is only lately that I learned to embrace higher ISOs. So, if I need f/4, I am happy to go up to ISO 3200 and 6400 on micro 4/3. Getting the shot is most important, a bit of noise does not matter; I can eliminate chroma noise these days without too much loss of detail, and luma noise I don’t care that much about.
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I do the same. The strange thing (with my E-M5 III) is that more often then not, the camera will choose not the fastest aperture, but instead the next-slower one, although the exposure time is already longer than what the camera would “like” to have.
Example: I own a single f/1.4 prime. When using S mode in low light, quite often the camera will choose f/1.6! Sure, it’s only 1/3 of a stop, but on the other hand that’s already half-way to f/1.8. And with f/1.8 primes, it likes to choose f/2.0…
This strange behavior is not really a problem, but it makes me curious. I guess it’s just a bug, because surely the camera could open that aperture by 1/3 stop, and compensate with the shutter speed.
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You may well be right. I need to do some tests to see what mine does. I have only done a quick test indoors, and I noticed that it was adjusting ISO before narrowing the aperture, but I need to test it more in different conditions.
And the manual is useless. This is the only bit I could find vaguely related in the Shutter speed priority section: “When [ISO] is not set to [Auto], optimal exposure may be achieved by changing the setting.”
So this is exactly what I was wondering in my earlier comment. Could it be because it is prioritizing the sharpest aperture, which is often 1 stop slower than maximum?
I think this is why I haven’t used shutter priority much - I don’t fully understand how it works, so it’s less predictable. But this discussion has convinced me to try and understand how it works and make better use of it.
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When in shutter priority with a f/4 lens, my E-M5 III will happily fluctuate between e.g. f/4.5 1/640 s and f/4 1/500 s for slightly different framings.
I checked: in aperture priority mode, it doesn’t do the same to shutter speed if the latter is close to the limit. So it’s unlikely to be just a rounding error in the algorithm that determines correct exposure.
Moreover, at least some cameras by other manufacturers show similar behavior. But I could not find any technical motivation.
The difference between wide open and closed by 1/3 of as stop is minimal. I don’t think that the purpose of this behavior is avoiding lens imperfections. Moreover, if this was the case, why would my camera fluctuate constantly between f/4 and f/4.5 for the same total exposure?
I just did some tests, and my impression is that this is a bug:
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I chose a fixed indoor scene with static lighting such that in S mode with 1/250 s my camera chooses f/1.6, ISO 250 (Auto ISO).
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Switching to A mode with f/1.4, it chooses… 1/250 s and ISO 200.
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Switching back to S mode, the situation of point 1 appears again. But now I set ISO to 200. The camera chooses f/1.4 but that aperture blinks, to indicate that the camera would like to open the aperture even more, but can’t.
This is strange, because just before in A mode 1/250 s, f/1.4 and ISO 200 was just fine. The photos taken at the three different points look the same, as it should be, since these three exposures are equivalent.
So maybe the camera’s logic is something like this in point 2 above: With the chosen shutter speed, I won’t be able to open wide enough at base ISO. So I have to increase ISO. But now, with that increased ISO, the optimal aperture is stopped down by 1/3 stop from wide open. So OK, I’ll keep that.
I think that this weird behavior is somehow related to the fact that the widest possible aperture does not always fall onto a discrete value, spaced by 1/3 stop increments. With a variable aperture lens that starts at f/4, I see exactly the same behavior as above: in S mode, 50% of the time the f/4 is used, and 50% of the time f/4.5. Now when I zoom in such that the widest aperture is now f/4.1, the camera fluctuates between f/4.1 and f/4.5, but f/4.5 occurs more often. When I zoom in further, aperture fluctuates between f/4.2 and f/4.5, but now it’s 95% of the time at f/4.5. Zooming down a bit more (limit at f/4.3), in S mode the aperture fluctuates between f/4.5 and f/5.0!
Somehow, the camera determines that fluctuating between f/4.3 and f/4.5 is not worth it, so it chooses to fluctuate between f/4.5 and f/5.0… But I would expect it to open up to f/4.3 and regulate exposure through ISO.
I think I’m the first to have ever written an essay on this ridiculous topic… It’s a shame that camera firmware are closed source!
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Interesting that others had the same theory that sharpness or lens imperfections were being avoided, or alternatively that a narrow aperture for greater depth of field was being favoured by the algorithm.
But none of these theories are proven.
What was the shutter speed chosen in point 2? This might be telling, because in Auto ISO, you can also have “auto” for shutter speed (in the Auto ISO settings), and the value chosen will depend on your lens. I think it’s 1.5x the focal length with the OM-5.
I think this could be a very valid point. Perhaps the algorithm is working in regular values and needs to constantly round up and down to translate the math to f stops. This rounding will naturally lead to something that looks like unpredictable behaviour.
Even if they don’t want to share the algorithm, it would be nice if we were given a little explanation as to how exposure is calculated. When you want the aperture to go as wide as possible, for example, it’s simply frustrating when it doesn’t, even though it looks like it should. And then people like me stop using that mode. At least Aperture priority pretty much works exactly how you would expect, especially with the extra settings for auto ISO.
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It chose 1/250 s, i.e. it was happy with the same parameters it didn’t like in S mode. (I added this to the post above.)
That’s why in practice I rarely use shutter priority mode. I mostly use aperture priority with auto ISO, but with the tweak that I have set minimum shutter speed to 1/60 s regardless of the focal length (“ISO-Auto Set” in the menu E1), and max ISO to 2500.
I find that 1/60 s works well in many situations: It freezes movement sufficiently in most non-action situations, and IBIS can handle that speed even at the longest focal lengths that I use. (In contrast, the default of making the shutter speed depend on focal length is pointless, given the excellent stabilization.)
Why a maximum ISO of 2500 ? In the age of “ISO invariant” cameras, ISO has lost most of its importance as a photographic parameter. Other than base ISO, the only other ISO value that is interesting (for my camera) is ISO 2500. It allows to improve shadows by 0.5 EV compared to base ISO. There’s not much point in going beyond it, and when ISO 2500 is too much, one might just as well shoot at ISO 200 and protect the highlights (see the linked diagram).
The above is my base setup. Here is how I adapt it (quickly!) to challenging situations:
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When shooting sports/action, I choose a higher minimum shutter speed in the menu. It would be great if that setting was available by a button combo, or at least in a quick menu… For outdoor sports this could be 1/500 s or 1/1000 s. In contrast to S mode, if there is a lot of light, the camera will happily choose faster shutter speeds instead of stopping down into diffraction territory or overexposing.
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When shooting static scenes in low light, I set ISO to 200. Since I can reliably hand-hold landscapes up to 1 s or so, this is usually enough even with a f/4 lens. Increasing ISO is rarely necessary, and it’s pointless beyond 2500.
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When there is (the possibility of) movement, I use auto ISO. This keeps the shutter speed at 1/60 s or above unless there is very little light and ISO bumps against the 2500 limit. If I want to quickly increase shutter speed for some reason, I dial in up to -3 EV of exposure compensation, but usually -1 or -2 EV is enough. Compared to raising ISO, this has the advantage of protecting highlights.
Let’s consider an example where there is so little light that the camera bumps against ISO 2500 and wants to use a shutter speed of 1/8 s. If I think that this is too slow for the movement in the scene, I quickly dial in perhaps -2 EV of exposure compensation. This results in a shutter speed of 1/30 s which is hopefully fast enough. In any way, increasing ISO beyond 2500 does not really help to improve the image, so if I can’t use a faster lens or flash, I’m out of luck. Photography requires light.
Edit: Important caveat
In order to preserve the ISO-invariance of OMDS/Olympus cameras (at least this is how it works for mine), it is necessary to turn off in-camera vignetting compensation. It is better to perform it in post-production anyway.
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Thanks, this was very instructive. The sensor in my GX9 seems to be similar, and I have been using ISO 3600. I protect highlights manually by dialing in compensation.
I added the bolded text because it’s a bit different in my use case.
I have only had the OM-5 for a couple of months, and I only have one lens at the moment - the 14-150mm superzoom. Despite being new to the system, I very quickly encountered the frustration with Auto ISO minimum shutter speed because of this particular lens. With the min shutter speed set to “Auto”, the shutter speeds are often way too fast, as you also pointed out. But setting a fixed minimum shutter speed is not flexible enough for this particular lens. I need quite different settings for 14mm vs 150mm.
The obvious answer is having the ability to adjust this minimum shutter speed quickly, ideally with a dial. This would instantly solve the issue, but annoyingly it’s not an option. Of course, this functionality is getting close to just being in Manual mode, but I still think it would be a worthwhile addition because it’s slightly less to think about each time.
This is very interesting to me, and I now want to do some more testing of my own. I am familiar with the graphs you linked to, but I have never changed my shooting habits based on them (so far). There’s a YouTuber called Thomas Eisl who has explicitly said in one of his videos that the OM-1 (and therefore other bodies using the same or older sensors) is not ISO invariant, but this graph does show that OM cameras are close to being ISO invariant. I guess they aren’t technically, but half a stop of difference with higher ISO is not a huge amount.
My thinking has always been to allow the camera to use as high an ISO as it wants so that I can get the shot at a decent shutter speed, because I’d rather get a noisy shot than a blurry one. So my Auto ISO settings on both my Fuji and OM cameras have always been set to the maximum ISO allowed.
So, although the philosophy of “noise is better than blur” is still true, your technique is to underexpose with lower ISOs rather than get a proper exposure at higher ISOs. In other words, shutter speed isn’t compromised, only exposure, which you can then bring up in post.
But if noise essentially amounts to the same, is it any better than allowing ISO to climb higher than 2500?
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The longest focal length that I use is 200 mm, also for indoor events without too much light. I can’t recall ever having problems with camera shake at 1/60 s with IBIS.
Here is a test shot at 200 mm and 1/25 s, handheld. It was part of a sequence, and it may be that not all frames were as sharp as this one. I always shoot a sequence of three images or so if there’s a risk of camera shake or something else happening like people closing their eyes.
Your OM-5 should have no problem stabilizing shots at 150 mm with 1/60 s exposure time.
Are you sure to be using proper technique (holding camera with both hands, camera against the head, elbow(s) against the body, stable stance, controlled breathing)?
Exactly, check out these dpreview test shots for example.
Here is a demo: a penguin under dramatic theater lighting! The first shot is ISO 1600, the second one ISO 200 and pushed by 3 EV later. I did very basic editing in Darktable. I had to slightly tweak the raw black point for the ISO 200 shot. (Heavily pushed images are highly sensitive to the raw black point value. In fact, fractional black levels would be useful here.)
Notice how the red highlight and its reflection are much better preserved in the ISO 200 image. Even if it had slightly more noise (I don’t see it), I would prefer it because of that.
Because increasing ISO by one stop decreases dynamic range by one stop. In low light situations there are often some lights that come out better if not utterly overexposed.
ISO is nothing else than analog amplification of the photodiode signals. Doing this is useful for limiting the impact of read noise which inevitably gets added later on in the circuitry, but if that read noise is well-controlled (as in many modern cameras), it is preferable to exercise restraint with pushing ISO, for the sake of preserving highlights.
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Sorry, I wasn’t clear. The problem is more at the wide end with 1/60 - it’s too fast. I could happily go right down to about 1 second at 14mm, And at 150mm, I have successfully gone down to 1/15, so I think my technique is good enough.
My point was just that 1/60 is still not really flexible enough for such a wide focal range of 14-150mm. It’s a good compromise, but will still end up with higher ISOs than necessary for many focal lengths.
Good point, and it’s convinced me to experiment more. I have read conflicting opinions on the practical uses of ISO invariance, so there’s no substitute for my own testing. I think the problems start when you are heavily underexposing.
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