X10 owners switch to X20 or not? Tell us...

In this specific comparison shot the E-M5 wins in the highlights, while the X10 wins in the shadows. In the shadows the 6 MP X10 even outresolves the 16 mp E-M5, because of noise. Since this was shot with the old blooming/orbing X10 sensor the highlights (some missing tree twigs) might have even be equal with the new sensor.

Now the "handheld" part is that the X10 was shot in EXR DR 400, which means half of its sensor was exposed at 1/400s to protect the highlights and half of its sensor was shot at 1/100s to expose the shadows. The E-M5 had to be shot at 1/400s in order to protect the highlights, which in turn made the shadows suffer.



E-M5

X10

The E-M5 offers to combine images of different exposure into one (even RAW). But no matter how hard I tried and no matter how good the IBIS (stabilization) I was not able to align two images ​handheld​. This is because the E-M5 has to expose the images one after another, while the X10 exposed both sensor halves ​at the same time​ (albeit one starts later than the other).

So the X10's "two" exposures are better aligned, except for the small pixel offset between the sensor halves, which EXR processing calculates into a single 6 MP Bayer pattern anyway. As a result using 6 MP EXR DR offers at least the ​handheld​ DR of the E-M5, which easily beats the RX100. And EXR SN plus faster tele lens likely beats the RX100 for low light, too.

Currently I borrowed the X10 to my sister whose Nikon D40 shows its age and "bulk". I am still pondering if I should have returned the X10 for a refund when Fujifilm asked me to do that. But I didn't want my money back, I wanted a working camera with a customer support who cares about reproducible firmware bugs. Well, 2 years warranty isn't over yet and I am still bugged by the AUTO DR and AUTO ISO issues.