Fuji F31 vs Oly XZ-1 Photos (for Johny!)

I didn't want to leave JohnyR82 hanging so I did very quick / unprofessional side by side in lower, indoor lighting conditions between my F31 and newly acquired XZ-1.

Please forgive the crudeness of these examples but what I did to try to keep things consistent: Both cameras were handheld; jpegs only; auto white balance; color set to "standard" for the Fuji and "natural" for the Oly; all are straight out of the camera, only resized (noted where cropped).

Tripods and trying to keep focal lengths and apertures the same would have made this more meaningful I know (not to mention if I knew what I was doing and had a bunch more time with it).

I'll let you all be the judge. I can say that the Oly colors in the first macro shot are spot on while the F31 colors were way off (both using AWB). In the other shots I'd say Fuji's colors were slightly more true to life.

sue

I'll start with the macro. I'm not completely sure how to get a 100% crop of a photo but this was my attempt to do so. I had to use "Super Macro" on the XZ-1 as I was too close for Macro (however Macro on the Fuji worked just fine at the same distance). The camera distance was the same, unfortunately my angle was a bit lower with the Oly. No flash used - exact same lighting conditions.









Next ISO shots @ 1600









Cropped of ISO 1600 shots









Next ISO shots @ 800









Finally ISO shots @ 100

Once again, the Fuji F31 shines! I not saying it's better or worse but it certainly held its own with a great little camera. I bought one of the last ones out and I have never regretted it. I even took pictures hand held in a Cave on Gibraltar and almost all were keepers! That XZ-1 makes me want to reach into my wallet, though. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything in there so I guess I'll be happy with my Fuji. Rimshot.

Thank you for posting these! It is nice to see in a side-by-side comparison that the XZ-1 does indeed outperform the Fugi. It is sad that I had to spend $500 to find a compact camera that could outperform my dearly departed five-year-old F-30!!
--
June in Georgia

Birth Certificates show we were born. Death Certificates show we died. Photographs show we lived.

Glad to meet so many former F30/F31 users here. I used my F30 extensively and even spent money to have its sensor cleaned. Great little camera. When comparing the F30/F31 with the XZ-1. One must consider the F30/F31 is less than half the size of the XZ-1.

I recently returned from a vacation during which my daughter shot about 1400 frames with the XZ-1 (lots of squirrel photos!), my wife exposed about 400 frames with a Fuji F30, and I puttered with another camera.

I think that it's important to keep the end use in mind when comparing the performance of these cameras. We didn't expect either the F30 or the XZ-1 (or even the APS-C DSLR) to produce superb huge prints, so they all met our expectations. That said, the XZ-1 does offer a bit more flexibility than the F30 could muster; in particular, I think the ability to adjust flash exposure and overall exposure independently makes fill-in flash easier on the Oly. (I wish the XZ-1 had a battery like that of the F-30, though--carry a spare for the Oly!)

Yes the XZ-1 has a cleaner high iso capability than the Fuji but that's not really the main advantage of the XZ-1. It's the lens.. the XZ-1's lens is 1.8 at wide to 2.5 at telephoto.. at full zoom it's faster than the F31 even at it's wide angle! and at full zoom the F31's lens is handicapped at a dim f5.0, so in real world situations you will be using a lower iso on the Oly than on the Fuji simply because it has a high quality fast lens so you won't have to use as high an iso in the first place.

Thank you very much!

I have to agree with others here that F30 keeps up very well. The biggest difference is macro - XZ-1 is really much better (much more natural and nice DOF); but others are at least comparable. F30 is usually more noisy, but somehow I like it more than too strong noise reduction (that is why I was asking Olympus to allow NR control of jpg outputs - to keep a bit more noise but more details as well). But considering the details, both are very similar (e.g. you can read even the small words "sheng en" on that cube).

It seems that XZ-1 is really great camera - but at the same time, F30 is really good as well. Especially when we consider that F30 is from 2006 (!!) and XZ-1 is at least two times bigger. I find it difficult to understand, why we cannot see much bigger difference between five years old camera and recent top compact flag-ships like LX5, S95, XZ-1 and so on. Don't we have any progress in terms of picture quality? Or battery life? Or was F30/F31 really so unique?

Anyway, thank you for your examples! It is nice to see different cameras compare in real use.

Glad I was able to help some!

As far as form goes. The battery life of the F30/F31s is simply amazing and I don't think has ever been replicated. The size of the XZ-1 really isn't that much larger. The main size difference is the very thing that sets this camera apart from the others - the lens.

I think if you shoot in RAW the XZ-1 will ultimately provide better results than the F30/F31s. But as you can see, even jpeg output is very similar.

As far as progress goes, I think shortly after the F30/F31's came out the megapixel war was escalating and then we keep progressing into this 'make all electronic devices smaller and smaller, and now they must all slide into a tight jeans pocket' mentality. I mean the p&s market has generally been competing with the cell phone camera market which is just kind of crazy. I'm glad the camera manufacturers are coming back around to quality now and not so much size. It is a bit of a compromise. I guess it just depends on which is the most important feature for you.

sue

SayJaiBow said:

Yes the XZ-1 has a cleaner high iso capability than the Fuji but that's not really the main advantage of the XZ-1. It's the lens.. the XZ-1's lens is 1.8 at wide to 2.5 at telephoto.. at full zoom it's faster than the F31 even at it's wide angle! and at full zoom the F31's lens is handicapped at a dim f5.0, so in real world situations you will be using a lower iso on the Oly than on the Fuji simply because it has a high quality fast lens so you won't have to use as high an iso in the first place.

Click to expand...

In good light was there a noticeable difference in IQ?

If you're asking me, I'm not the poster who did the test. I was just commenting based on what I know about the lens of the XZ-1. I would say in good light lots of point and shoot are pretty much similar but some other advantages the XZ-1 would be built in neutral density filter for bright conditions, and the megapixel count is greater for bigger prints or more cropability. The faster lens combined with bigger sensor will also give you better shallow depth of field shots for blurred background that you can't get with the fuji.

Gregers said:

In good light was there a noticeable difference in IQ?

Click to expand...

While I do like the F30, I think that for my purposes the XZ-1 is a better camera. Either camera will make pretty nice small prints. The question is how you get there.

FWIW (and as I mentioned earlier) my daughter used an XZ-1 on a recent trip, I used an SLR (and I also used the XZ-1 for a few hundred frames), and my wife used our F30. Only one of us complained about shutter lag, and that person, who shall remain nameless (although it wasn't me and it wasn't my daughter) complained loudly and frequently.

Although it is measurable, shutter lag is also subjective, and it depends on your expectations. I used a Mamiya 7, a medium-format rangefinder, for years. I think that its shutter lag was on the order of 7 milliseconds--really, really fast, and faster than my reflexes by an order of magnitude. The SLR that I use has a shutter lag that, as I recall, is something on the order of 45 milliseconds-still pretty fast. I don't know about the XZ-1, but whatever the shutter lag is for that camera, it didn't bother me. OTOH, the shutter lag (perhaps including the time to acquire focus) for the F30 really did bother that unnamed person on our recent vacation--a lot.

My impression: the F30 was a very nice compact camera for its day, but I think its day has passed; the XZ-1 is now a very nice compact camera for its day. The lens on the XZ-1 does seem to be quite sharp. I can't comment on the XZ-1 jpegs (which do seem to me to be rather muddled) because I use Lightroom. My wife will continue to use the F30 for a while, but the XZ-1 (plus a spare battery) will be our go-to camera when we don't need to drag along four pounds of camera plus lens.

bpatient said:

FWIW (and as I mentioned earlier) my daughter used an XZ-1 on a recent trip, I used an SLR (and I also used the XZ-1 for a few hundred frames), and my wife used our F30. Only one of us complained about shutter lag, and that person, who shall remain nameless (although it wasn't me and it wasn't my daughter) complained loudly and frequently.

My impression: the F30 was a very nice compact camera for its day, but I think its day has passed; the XZ-1 is now a very nice compact camera for its day. The lens on the XZ-1 does seem to be quite sharp. I can't comment on the XZ-1 jpegs (which do seem to me to be rather muddled) because I use Lightroom. My wife will continue to use the F30 for a while, but the XZ-1 (plus a spare battery) will be our go-to camera when we don't need to drag along four pounds of camera plus lens.

Click to expand...

Oh, I completely forgot about the shutter lag! Now, that is something I do not miss!!

Yes, the XZ-1 is a far better camera. The shallow depth of field on portraits is something the F-30 simply could not do. However, in my opinion, the F-30 still outperforms all of the non-advanced compact cameras on the market today. I know this because it was my quest to find a camera that would match the IQ of my Fugi that led me to the XZ-1, s95, G12, LX5 etc.

This is my question. If increasing sensor size increases IQ, why aren't we seeing the development of new/bigger sensors for compact cameras? Not m4/3 big, but maybe 1/1.3 for example. Why all the 1/2.3 or smaller sensors?
--
June in Georgia

Birth Certificates show we were born. Death Certificates show we died. Photographs show we lived.