Olympus XZ-1 vs. Canon S95/S100

The XZ-1 has a terrible jpeg engine compared to the S100. It uses way to much NR and sharpening and there is no way to turn it down. High iso shots look like paintings.

Having said that, at lower ISO's it does pretty well and because of it's fast lens, it is always shooting a lower ISO's than the S100 in low light...by a full two F-stops on the long end. Also, if you process RAW, you can totally avoid the sharpening and NR issues at high ISO's.

Because of it's small aperture lens, the S100 isn't very usable to me for portrait work...especially in natural indoor lighting. The XZ-1's lens, in comparison is wonderful, sharp and fast. What the XZ-1 loses in sensor noise it more than makes up for in optics.

The X10 is the best of both worlds. Great sensor technology, great jpeg engine, fast lens.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/olympus_xz_1_review.shtml

This review might help you considerations, if you have not seen already it. Not an easy decision.

The XZ-1 has a problem with smearing when shooting in JPEG. To demonstrate how terribly bad the smearing is, go to the XZ-1 review here done by DPreview. Go to the studio scene comparison and set it under JPEG 400. Now, look for the cotton roll in the middle of the picture, right next to the Goofy toy. Click on it to zoom to it. Now compare this shot of the white cotton roll to the S95 and LX5 ones. The XZ-1 smeared the heck out of it that it made it look like a melted candle. This smearing is already apparent at ISO200.

The RAW shot looks much better. If you'll only shoot RAW and plan to process every shot with Lightroom or ACR then the XZ-1 is a better choice.

ChristianHass said:

I have both a S95 and a XZ-1.

The S95 is much more pocket friendly so if size is your main concern then that's probably the way to go.

On the other hand XZ-1 has a lot more options because of the lens, so it really comes down to what you're looking for.

They're both good cameras, but the S95 is more or less reduced to a wide angle camera in anything but bright daylight because the lens is so slow at the tele end.

I think S95 is the better companion for a larger camera, because if you want the extras that the XZ-1 brings (flash hot shoe, fast lens, many AF points etc etc) you'd probably want to bring your large camera anyway.

On the other hand if you want to have almost all the options you would get from a DSLR in a compact package the XZ-1 is a great option.
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Click to expand...

I have an s95 and x-z1 as well - this post sums it up well.

It looks more and more that those of us who chose the XZ-1 over the S100 made the right choice. Surprisingly poor results, IMO:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2011/11/18/canons100studiosamples/link/

Keep in mind that the sample is from the best of two camera copies that they have used and that they have a 3rd copy on the way. There could be QC issues.