Olympus E-M5 Has Focus Peaking! (Sort of)

We know the the E-M5 has a whole bunch of goodies locked up in its firmware. Why they did this is anyone's guess, especially considering how the E-M5 could have been an amazing photography and videography tool if they had not completely borked the video implementation.

While there were many issues, the biggest one for me was the lack of focus peaking. After Sony introduced it in their NEX line of cameras, it immediately became a must-have feature for photography and videography nuts. For photographers because it allows the easy use of non-AF lenses, and for videographers because AF during video blows chunks.

Importantly for m4/3 was that it allowed for easier implementation of Olympus' and Panasonic's 4/3 legacy lenses, some of which are some of the best lenses ever made. AF on this lenses is sometimes so slow that manual work with focus peaking is actually faster.

Everyone was hoping for it in the E-M5... and were disappointed. Everyone was hoping for it in the GH3, and were even told it was true... only to be disappointed.

Today, though, we are not disappointed. Today, we find that focus-peaking is secretly in the E-M5 in the form of one of its stupid "filters."


This works well for photographic work, although shooting in JPEG+RAW reduces the continuous shooting abilities significantly. Sadly, though, this is useless for video work. Again, we are left to wonder what the hell Olympus was thinking with all this. It's no surprise that Vitaliy Kiselev didn't even bother touching the E-M5.