Studio scene comparison (RAW)

For a (more) level playing field for comparison we also shot our studio scene in RAW mode with each camera and converted it using Adobe Camera RAW. Because Adobe Camera RAW applies different levels of sharpening to different cameras (this confirmed) we had to use the following workflow for these conversions:

• Load RAW file into Adobe Camera RAW (Auto mode disabled)
• Set Sharpness to 0 (all other settings default)
• Open file to Photoshop
• Apply an Unsharp mask: 80%, Radius 1.0, Threshold 0
• Save as a TIFF (for cropping) and as a JPEG quality 11 for download

This is our standard studio scene comparison shot. Lighting: daylight simulation, >98% CRI. Crops are 100%. Ambient temperature was approximately 22°C (~72°F).

And, so that you can try subjecting the images to your own noise reduction and image processing workflow, you can download the following RAW files:

• ISO 100 (Zipped file - 13.8MB)
• ISO 1600 (Zipped file - 13.9MB)

Panasonic Lumix G1 vs. Olympus E-520

Camera settings:

• Panasonic DMC-G1: Olympus Zuiko 50 mm F2.0 lens, Aperture Priority, ISO 100
  JPEG Large/Fine, Manual WB, Default Parameters (Standard)
   
  
• Olympus E-520:Olympus Zuiko 50 mm F2.0 lens, Aperture Priority, ISO 100
  JPEG Large/Super Fine, Manual WB, Default Parameters (Standard)

Panasonic DMC-G1	Olympus E-520
3.8 MB (4000 x 3000)	2.8 MB JPEG (3872 x 2736)

With in-camera sharpening removed from the equation, the gulf between the cameras in terms of detail and resolution gets even wider. The G1's results are simply excellent - the artifacts around the paperclips have gone but the level of detail being rendered is still incredibly high.

It's known that ACR applies some processing correction to RAW files from the G1 but that is most likely to be geometric distortion and chromatic aberration removal, neither of which would account for the excellent level of detail shown here (and the Olympus 50mm lens used here produces virtually no chromatic aberration at this aperture).