By Ray Ruthven
Can anyone help me with my Olympus TG-5 and 6 focus problem? I have used Olympus TG-5 and 6 for snorkeling pictures for some time and have been pleased with the results. However there is a consistent issue that I have not found a way around and wonder if the community has any suggestions.
The issue I have is at times with plankton or sand in the water the camera will focus on those in preference to the subject if it passes across the camera at the instant of taking the shot, obviously messing up the shot. I understand it is possible to manually set the focus but with a quick shot this is not possible in time to catch the subject. This was frustrating on a recent trip where I saw a new fish at this location and managed to get three shots off before it hid. On review later all three shots had lovely focused sand and unfocused fish.
I look forward to any tips on settings or method.
Hi Ray, sorry for your focus problem, so frustrating! Our suggestion would be to make sure your flash is turned off. If it is on, it will light up anything close to the camera and that will be what it focuses on. Hopefully others in the community will have some more suggestions.
Thanks for the comment and posting my question. I can confirm flash is off, I almost never use it.
Also, don’t use zoom. The lens doesn’t focus well anywhere other than wide.
Under Menu: Camera 1, AF, there are three types of auto-focus – wide, spot, and tracking. If you choose wide (all the dots) the camera decides where to focus and the green square jumps around based on the camera’s choice. I prefer ‘spot’ as I get more consistent results, but make sure the spot is selected to be in the center because that is where we tend to aim when focusing.
Also half press the shutter, and you should see the green square on your subject. If it’s not selecting what I want, then sometimes I’ll focus quickly on something else, and then back to the fish I actually want. It seems to work but you have to be quick and might not have worked in your case but worth a try next time.
Thanks for the replies Bill and Carol.
Bill, my default setting for point and shoot quick shots is between a 1.5 and 2.0 zoom depending on water depth and I haven’t really noticed an issue generally. However I have not really tried no zoom as I normally find it too wide but I will give it a try in Fiji in a few months, I can hardly wait. It will be interesting to see if it still picks up small items in the water with no zoom.
Carol, to my surprise I am on wide but thought I was on spot! I think I might have changed it some time ago because the fish doesn’t always oblige and stay in the center of the screen and you end up with a potentially very out of focus image, but as you say there are ways around that. On wide if the subject is clear enough it seems to usually pick it. On the other hand I am suspecting if debris etc. comes anywhere on the screen wide setting would tend to pick it up – my problem. On the spot, debris would have to cross the center focus area which is more unlikely. I will definitely give it a try next trip.
Thanks again.