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E520 sharpness?

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CRavsten

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I am thinking of getting an E520. But, the reviews fault the camera for being soft. Do you folks who who the camera find this to be the case? I always thought that image sharpness comes from the lens and the post processing to the amount of sharpness you find pleasing. I've seen some great landscapes from Olympus cameras, especially those of "EB". So let me know if this is a problem, or just nit picking on the part of people who review cameras.
--
CRavsten

'The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.'
 
CR,

I suggest you do a search with "E520 sharpness" and you should get a lot of info.

Information you find and further reviews will explain and attribute this to the anti-aliasing filter in front of the sensor, which I believe serves to soften transitions between light and dark edges. Tech gurus can explain it better I.

So, yes, the 520 is a bit soft(indepedent of lens choice) and it is noticeable when zooming in for a look at close crops. It's much less noticeable when viewing at full frame. Furthermore, images take well to a bit of PP sharpening. Sometimes, my images look plenty sharp with no post processing.

Bottom line-If you find the features of the 520 compelling then don't let the sharpness issue stand in the way of a purchase.

Larry
 
I agree with Larry, if you like everything else about the 520, the sharpness issue should not stop you from buying one. I don´t even see it as a real issue, since the 520 jpegs sharpen up really well in post processing.

My first impression with the 520 jpegs half a year ago was that they DO look less sharp than what the 510 delivered at the default settings. But when you read Wrotniak´s suggestions about 510 settings, you´ll find that he recommends to turn sharpness down to -1 or -2, can´t remember exactly now.

What I did with my 520 is set in camera sharpness to +1 and the results look very good. And I turned off noise reduction/filtering.

René
 
I agree with the above posts, but I do have a question to add. I previously owned a 420 which seems to me in looking back at photos to have inherently better sharpness than the 520. I had expected them to be identical. Am I the only one who has had this experience? Does it have anything to do with IS?

Kerry
 
KerryB said:
I agree with the above posts, but I do have a question to add. I
previously owned a 420 which seems to me in looking back at photos to
have inherently better sharpness than the 520. I had expected them
to be identical. Am I the only one who has had this experience?
Does it have anything to do with IS?
Click to expand...
E-4xx series has greater in camera sharpening level than E-5xx. In E-410 if you set sharpnest to -2 you got sharper images than with E-510 wit +2 settings (same with E-420 and E-520). For E-510 and E-520 difference in sharpness is also visible because of stronger AA filter. But I have e-520 and for me +2 sharpness seting is just too much for screen viewing. But for printing I always do additional USM.

--
clorox
 
I don't own a 520, but a 510, and I am sometimes dissatisfied by the lack of smooth gradients to highlight edges. The stronger AA filter of the 520 appears to help eliminate this. I also find that sharpening raises noise very easily on the 510 and you might think that sharpening is unnecessary, but sometimes even a little to enhance a flower causes noise to come forward in the shadows. I bought a Panleica 14-50 and for some reason the highlights are smoother, moreover the out of focus ones are nicer (that may be the rounded aperture shape).

--
Steve

http://www.flickr.com/photos/knoblock/
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Film will only become art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper. -- Jean Cocteau
 
cloroxpl said:
E-4xx series has greater in camera sharpening level than E-5xx. In
E-410 if you set sharpnest to -2 you got sharper images than with
E-510 wit +2 settings (same with E-420 and E-520).
Click to expand...
cloroxpl said:
clorox
Click to expand...
HUH? Other than the lack of IS, I think you will find that the 410 and 510 produce the same photos under the same circumstances with the same settings.

If you have ever owned an E510, you would not like the photos you got if you set sharpness to +2. Mine was always set to -2 and the pictures were still over-sharpened.
 
KerryB said:
I agree with the above posts, but I do have a question to add. I
previously owned a 420 which seems to me in looking back at photos to
have inherently better sharpness than the 520. I had expected them
to be identical. Am I the only one who has had this experience?
Does it have anything to do with IS?
Click to expand...
I own both the 420 and 520. I use sharpness +1 and 12-60 on both.
I can't see a difference in sharpness between the two.
 
CRavsten said:
I am thinking of getting an E520. But, the reviews fault the camera
for being soft. Do you folks who who the camera find this to be the
case? I always thought that image sharpness comes from the lens and
the post processing to the amount of sharpness you find pleasing.
I've seen some great landscapes from Olympus cameras, especially
those of "EB". So let me know if this is a problem, or just nit
picking on the part of people who review cameras.
Click to expand...
Having had the E520 now for a few days after having used the E510 for several months, to me the E520 is a very nice upgrade. Much more accurate multi-segment metering and the sharpness has been plenty good for me.

Here's a series of images I have posted to my website.

http://gmchappell.smugmug.com/gallery/7210805_ktWGX#P-1-15

These are all in-camera JPEG's where I have, in a few cases, made a Levels adjustment in Photoshop, or run images shot at 12mm with the 12-60 Zuiko through PTLens to correct for distortion, but no additional sharpening other than what the the camera applied using either +1 or +2.

I've posted a few other comments on the E520 here..

http://forums.steves-digicams.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=601587&forum_id=36

and here..

http://forums.steves-digicams.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=601690&forum_id=36
 
A few of those photographs were actually taken with the 50-200.
But the majority was shot with the 14-35 indeed.
 
I found that E-520 sharpness is not an issue. I just add a bit of USM sharpening to the raw developer batch conversion profile (Studio or Lightroom).
 
The E3, 420 and 520 were all docked a little in DPR's review for having slightly soft images at 100 ppercent, possibly due to a stronger AA filter. But in real life, with sharpening and such, that hasn't proved a problem. EB uses an E3, and as you mention his photos look very sharp. They respond well to good lenses and good processing.

--
John Krumm
Juneau, AK
 
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