Retracting the bad things I said about the E-5/Olympus

In light of some recent posts on the forum (see the Judy Hermann thread), I'm going to retract what I said about the E-5 (i.e., that Olympus was standing still), and wait to see what its actual DR is. Though I trust DxO, and have found it a good guide to real world DR, it was bad of me to rely on DxO's EPL1 rating as a guide to the E-5's DR. If the E-5 can reach D90 levels of DR, Olympus is still in the game. (Assuming they can do something about that price!)

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Ivan

iphillips said:

In light of some recent posts on the forum (see the Judy Hermann thread), I'm going to retract what I said about the E-5 (i.e., that Olympus was standing still), and wait to see what its actual DR is. Though I trust DxO, and have found it a good guide to real world DR, it was bad of me to rely on DxO's EPL1 rating as a guide to the E-5's DR. If the E-5 can reach D90 levels of DR, Olympus is still in the game. (Assuming they can do something about that price!)

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Here's what Simon Joinson said (info from Olympus) http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=36317850

I'm guessing Judy Hermann is shooing JPEG, and I can imagine that the JPG engine is improved, but I wouldn't count on any significant improvement in a raw workflow. That said, if the price goes down significantly it could still become a good value camera - just not for single shot HDR use...

Simon

I am sure that ooc Jpeg has improved and according to Simon, in sharpness and resolution.

As far as RAW, I am not surprised but I am not worried it either because you would have to process RAW anyway. In RAW, I don't see the difference between Truepic V+ doing the processing or using Noise Ninja at ISO 6400. It is still a multiple shot HDR to get the best HDR image.

On the sharpness and resolution front I hope they do a very good comparative test

You can put in 1/3 ev more if the higher specced circuits and camera size help somehow with interference but this is already wishful thinking. It's the same sensor. Jpegs will look fantastic but that's no real dr increase of the camera.
--
Raist3d (Photographer & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

--
Raist3d (Photographer & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

iphillips said:

In light of some recent posts on the forum (see the Judy Hermann thread),

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Which thread are you referring to exactly?
--
W.L. Clark Swimm
http://www.clarkswimm.com

iphillips said:

In light of some recent posts on the forum (see the Judy Hermann thread), I'm going to retract what I said about the E-5 (i.e., that Olympus was standing still), and wait to see what its actual DR is. Though I trust DxO, and have found it a good guide to real world DR, it was bad of me to rely on DxO's EPL1 rating as a guide to the E-5's DR. If the E-5 can reach D90 levels of DR, Olympus is still in the game. (Assuming they can do something about that price!)

--
Ivan

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Hoping that the new Olympus flagship camera can reach the DR of a couple year old mid -level Nikon camera is hardly reassuring.

Well actually I expect the DR to be quite competitive and or near the base ISO. The E5 will use the same sensor (or very close to it) that the Pen uses. It will have better circuitry and a better processing engine. Imaging Resource has the EP1 raw DR in the same ballpark as the 7D. The JPEGs aren't that close however. Although the JPEG performance got better in the EPL1 the use of cheaper amplifier circuitry made the raw performance go down.

So the DR at base ISO should be somewhere in the range of the 7D in raw. The JPEG should not be that far off. We can expect that the DR will fall off faster than the 7D as the ISO increases. As they say in motorsports there is no replacement for displacement and the same sentiment holds true for sensors - there is no replacement for more photon capture area.

There is no doubt in my mind that the performance of this camera will be better than what we have seen to date from Olympus.

PhotoHawk said:

Well actually I expect the DR to be quite competitive and or near the base ISO. The E5 will use the same sensor (or very close to it) that the Pen uses. It will have better circuitry and a better processing engine. Imaging Resource has the EP1 raw DR in the same ballpark as the 7D. The JPEGs aren't that close however. Although the JPEG performance got better in the EPL1 the use of cheaper amplifier circuitry made the raw performance go down.

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I'm not too impressed by their way of measuring raw dynamic range. Like dpreview, they appear to just 'play' with the settings (starting from 'auto') and see what kind of numbers they get [at least they use a consistent shadow cutoff]. They also use default noise reduction settings from ACR.

As much as many love to hate them, DxO is still the only site with a consistent and fairly transparent procedure for measuring dynamic range. I'll believe them when their data shows that the E-PL1 is way behind the APS-C competition on dynamic range (of course, the weak AA filter may make up for a little bit, as less sharpening is required). I don't expect the E-5 to do better by more than 1/3 of a stop.

Simon

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Ivan

I see what you mean. It will be interesting to see what the tests say.

simpy said:

As much as many love to hate them, DxO is still the only site with a consistent and fairly transparent procedure for measuring dynamic range.

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If comparison is the goal, it is probably more important to be consistent in the measurement that anything else.

I don't understand the people claiming magic about the PEN noise: when I look at the comparison shots I see no gain over the E-3, and then I go to DxO and confirm what MY eyes see. Actually, DxO shows that the E3 is better than the EPL-1 in noise.

simpy said:

I'll believe them when their data shows that the E-PL1 is way behind the APS-C competition on dynamic range (of course, the weak AA filter may make up for a little bit, as less sharpening is required). I don't expect the E-5 to do better by more than 1/3 of a stop.

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I just saw a video of that oly guy confirming that the E-5 sensor is exactly the same as the EPL-1 one. So I see no reason to expect any gain at all in DR. And, according to DxO, the DR of the EPL-1 is half a stop LESS than that of the E-3. So we should loose DR, not gain.

I strongly suspect that the only gain will be in resolution due to the AA filter, and in JPG engine that I personally don't care of.

L.

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My gallery: http://luis.impa.br/photos



Oly Ee3 + 12--60 + 50--200 + EeC-14 + Oly EfEl50R
Pany FZee50 + Oly EfEl50 + TeeCon17 + Raynx 150 & 250

I've shot weddings with both, and I don't care what DXO says, the pictures don't lie. I can use 1600 iso on the E-P2 and really only 800 or 1000 comfortably on my E3.

I do like the lower tone of the E3 compared to my E-P2 though.

My main problem with the pens is more performance related than image quality related. That's why I'm excited about the E5. Some of us need that performance.

stimmer said:

I've shot weddings with both, and I don't care what DXO says, the pictures don't lie. I can use 1600 iso on the E-P2 and really only 800 or 1000 comfortably on my E3.

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Well, I will assume you're talking about RAW, of course. I don't care about the JPG engines.

The test results depend on several factors, like subject and light. I didn't see any noise improvements in the comparisons I saw between the E-3 and the PENs, for the subjects that I care of, except for banding (unfortunately, for some reason DPR EP1 RAWs tests are missing). But I saw big improvements in resolution because of the AA filter... with the corresponding moire problem.

Cheers,
L.

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My gallery: http://luis.impa.br/photos



Oly Ee3 + 12--60 + 50--200 + EeC-14 + Oly EfEl50R
Pany FZee50 + Oly EfEl50 + TeeCon17 + Raynx 150 & 250