Background

This information goes back to December 21, 2000. I had it all ready to go but decided at the time NOT to post it because I was pretty sure I was experiencing an individual problem (something that was not necessarily representative of many E-10s). I certainly didn't want to set off a round of rumors about all E-10s having focus problems or cause E-10 owners to spend hours second guessing their ability to manually focus their camera.

Fast forward to March 9, 2001. There have been several posts on Phil Askey's Olympus SLR Talk Forum that describe the same problem I experienced with my E-10. Auto Focus works great, but it seems to be impossible to manually focus and get a sharp image. Of course the first advice from helpful readers on the Forum is to adjust the diopter. So the original poster will try that, fail, and get very frustrated in the process. Why? because the E-10 can be in perfect alignment for auto focus and totally out of alignment for manual focus.

My Experience

I had been using my E-10 in auto focus mode most of the time, but had a series of studio shots that I really needed to focus manually. I tried several times and kept getting an out of focus result. I didn't have time to investigate the problem at that point, so I switched back to auto focus, made up a little focus target tool and finished my project. I told myself that I must have been doing something wrong.

As days passed, I started paying more attention to the sharp edges of the subjects as I was using the camera in auto focus mode and noticed that they seemed soft through the view finder. Yet the captured images were always sharp. I checked the diopter adjustment again and again - that just wasn't it. When I got around to doing a few more casual manual test shots, I got the same results as before. Now it was time to really see what was going on.

The Test Set-up

My casual tests already indicated that the focus point of the CCD was closer than the focus point of the view finder. All I needed was a calibrated way to demonstrate the problem - hence the setup you will see below. The focus point of the tests was the Ace. The E-10 AF Target Mark was directly over the Ace. The King is at the same distance as the Ace. The other playing cards are arranged to approach the camera at one inch increments, starting 2 inches away from the focus point. The number on the card indicates the number of inches away from the focus point.

The test target (the Ace) was placed exactly 4 feet from the front optic. The cards were illuminated with two low power speed lights, into umbrellas.

The camera was on a tripod and all exposures were taken using the Olympus electronic cable release.

In the first test set shown, the camera was set to: lens=36mm, manual shutter and aperture - 1/160 @ f2.4, WB=5500, ISO= 80. The second test shown used an identical set up, except the aperture was set to f4.0 and the light power was changed. I'm only showing two tests, but I repeated the test several times.

The Process

To convince myself I had the best diopter adjustment I could get, I let the camera auto focus on the Ace. Then I adjusted the diopter to get the best image - which never really looked sharp. To complete the tests I set the diopter adjustment to the neutral position (+/- 0).

I took the first shot (shown on the left below) with the camera in auto focus mode. Then I switched to manual focus and focused on the Ace. During this process, the Ace did come into sharp focus in the view finder. This is significant because (as you may remember) I never got a sharp image by adjusting the diopter after the camera auto focused. I than took the second shot.

I repeated the tests at f4.0 to see how depth of field effected the results. As you can see, the greater DOF helped compensate for the focus problem. I suspect that if a camera with this type of problem was used in a high light situation with a small aperture, the photographer might not even notice the problem right away.

The Results

When focusing the camera manually, at 4 feet, the focus point on the CCD was actually about 10 inches closer than the focus point in the view finder.

Conclusion

Click for enlarged image. Copyright Olympus America The diagram above and other interesting information about the internal workings of the E-10 can be found in the execlent white paper "An Executive Overview of the Olympus Cameda E-10 4X Zoom SLR", available in PDF format, 950K. Get white paper now.

The auto focus worked great. Evidently the IR and contrast focus mechanisms were in alignment. Unfortunately, they did not agree with the optical view finder. It's easy to see from the diagram that the optical path to the view finder is more involved that the path to the CCD. I'm sure there is a precise alignment procedure to match the focus point of both paths. My camera was so far off, I suspect it missed this step completely. While I didn't try it, you can see that (at least in theory) manual focus would have been possible by using the LCD since it would have presented the same image that was focused on the CCD.

PC210585.JPG 733.84 Kb, 2240 x 1680 Auto focus on the Ace from 4 feet, f2.4.	PC210586.JPG 759.76 Kb, 2240 x 1680 Manual focus on the Ace from 4 feet, f2.4
PC210588.JPG 788.32 Kb, 2240 x 1680 Auto focus on The Ace from 4 feet, f4.0	PC210589.JPG 784.95 Kb, 2240 x 1680 Manual focus on the Ace from 4 feet, f4.0

Corrective Action

There was nothing I could do to correct the focus alignment. I exchanged the camera for a new one. When I packaged up the defective camera, I enclosed a note to the Olympus Repair Department that included a printed version of what you are reading now. I also give them a blind URL on my site to see the sample files above. I sent off the camera and never heard a word. The new camera worked just great, focus was (and still is) perfect. I was sure I had a one in a million problem. So I basically forgot about it. With the recent Forum postings, I decided I would share my experience after all.

If you're one of those people who can't get your E-10 to focus manually, please don't send me Email asking why I didn't post this back in December. As I said, I thought I had an isolated case and I was trying to act responsibly. I hope the information will help a few of you now.

Last note: My current E-10 is wonderful and I love it a lot. I still don't think there are a lot of cameras with this problem, but I certainly understand that I didn't have the only one.