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just for fun xz1 low light comparrision to 5dmk2

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Donald B

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throught everyone would like this. i use the xz1 for low light dance concert shoots. i was doing a pro shoot last week of a formal with my k7 when the other pro i was working with asked if i could take a shot of the stage while they organized the stage. so i quikly ran down stairs to get the xz1 as i always wanted to test it against the 5dmk2. enjoy i had a great laugh. the lens was the 24-105L.all i needed to do was set the shutter to aprox speed let the camera do the rest.

these are heavily cropped just for the comparrision.

cheers don




















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another year has gone, just cleared my 200 gallery images will start all over again, thanks to everyone that took the time to look.
 
to my eyes, XZ-1 looks better, , , interesting..
 
Interesting to see how poorly both cameras did.

Dynamic range too big, both cameras did a poor job with white balance.

The canon image is really bad, but that is mostly due to long shutter speed, you handheld? The xz1 still does very poorly at low light, especially at "high" iso.
 
I did better than that i had a brick wall that i sat the 5d on. you couldnt get any more stable than that and i hand held the xz1, the shutter was higher but that was the purpose as i maxed out its settings iso 3200 and f4 was the widest apature. must admit the conditions where real bad i mean their was a single light in the middle of the stage. if it was my shoot i would have blasted a big flash but the other photographer didnt want to. the 5d wasnt sharp all night even in the studio ?



cheers don
 
yes its why i use the xz1 for the great dof. and the faster shutter speeds compared to slrs.

cheers don
 
1/30s will still be too long for living objects. And you need to turn off is on the 24-105 if not hand held. Seriously, it should look pretty much the same between the cameras, but with slightly less depth of field and a lot less noise on the canon :)
 
The Canon does better with the faces on the bottom where the XZ does better with the faces on the top .. sharper and better tones. I think the faces on the bottom are perhaps over-sharpened on the XZ. I just got a new XZ-1. I have the C7000 which is a 4mp but did beautiful work for me.

My favorite being

Not perfect, but pretty impressive for I think it was about 2003 that i took it.

Not perfect, but pretty impressive for I think it was about 2003 that i took it.
 
I've been using Olympus and Canon DSLR camera for over five years. From the look of it, the Canon photo doesn't appear to have been focused properly (or is blurry due to camera shake). It's very poorly done. The Olympus XZ-1 photo looks better, but I think the photographer had a larger influence on this, than the equipment (unless the equipment is faulty). Recently, I took a photo at about 1/3rd of second with my Canon DSLR camera hand-held at ISO800 and 18mm FL and it was pin sharp.

Another edit: Do you think the exposure could have been better for both of them too?
 
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i have mixed views now after that shoot. i processed the 500 photos from the night from the 5dmk2 and my pentax k7 both with zooms and my k7 shots were cleaner, skin tones much better i was quite supprised how poor the canon was, we shot side by side studios at the event, i also have a friend that shot a few grads this week and when i approched him as to how poor the canon did he said that my remarks were true, and is selling his mk2 and getting another mk3 he also uses the 7d.to put it simply people dont realy no how the qualitiy is because they havnt compared their cameras to others IMO. heres the twist ? i was using a sigma 18 200 $200 lens that out performed a L grade lens. the lens on the xz1 is exceptional. it might be a little heavy on the nr but i can capture great detail.



cheers don
 
I'd like to add, that with the equipment you had, you might have been right (if the equipment was faulty). But if the Olympus XZ-1 camera does that much better than that Canon DSLR camera and lens in those test samples, don't you think you should post that on the appropriate Canon DSLR forum too? How does that make sense, compared to professional reviews we get from Dpreview and other places? Or does it? What do you think?
 
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Don, I had more thoughts that I replied on a second post. Something doesn't seem right there, but I have known people who have had faulty Canon equipment (a good friend of mine for example). My friend used to remark how sharp my Olympus DSLR photos were compared to his pictures taken with an expensive type L Canon lens. It turned out that he eventually got his lens repaired.
 
The XZ-1 is a treasure. That bright lens let you go to 1/60, which, with the XZ-1 default image stabilization, really helped with the faces.

That was a tough shooting situation. Not enough light to go to smaller apertures on the Canon lens, which probably gets nice and sharp around f/8. Here again though, the much larger DOF you get from the small-glass XZ-1 lens really helps when wide open... and it seems to be equally sharp at all apertures as well. Just physically impossible to do this with larger glass. But IF you could get the Canon enough light, you'd probably get much better prints.

Next year, I'd try to get the school to put in some large floodlights, to get the light level up without having to use flash...
 
Something is definitely wrong with the Canon SLR . Have you tried seeing where the AF points have locked on in DPP.Have you tried the lens on another body or vice versa? I love my XZ-1 but I know It cannot compete with larger sensors especially full frame.

Try using balanced fill flash in relatively hard lighting conditions, where the shutter speed needs to be higher to freeze motion

examples below with Nikon D800e 14-24 2.8 and SB 600 flash camera set to 1:2 mode to allow faster 5 FPS rate.





 
cjzurcher said:
cjzurcher wrote:

The Canon does better with the faces on the bottom where the XZ does better with the faces on the top .. sharper and better tones. I think the faces on the bottom are perhaps over-sharpened on the XZ. I just got a new XZ-1. I have the C7000 which is a 4mp but did beautiful work for me.

My favorite being

Not perfect, but pretty impressive for I think it was about 2003 that i took it.

Not perfect, but pretty impressive for I think it was about 2003 that i took it.
Click to expand...
...That's a beautiful photo. Older Olympus models can still hold their own!

Clancyboy


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"Sooner or later, one of us must know..."
 
that is a great shot, i started with an oly uz500 7 years ago , and have gone back to bridge fz150 and the xz1. thanks for sharing that excelent pic.



cheers don
 
it sure was tough. i ran like hell to get the xz1 for that little experiment my car was parked across the road. well worth it. it was more about the exposure selection and iso setting as the xz1 chooses iso 800 and my k7 selects 2500 for identical shutter and f stop . wanted to see if the canon choose the higher iso too.



cheers don
 
Was the shot with the XZ-1 jpeg or raw? I've owned an XZ-1 for about 3 weeks and haven't been impressed with jpeg low light, in fact I'd been thinking of returning it until I started shooting raw which appear to eliminate most of the really bad noise. Daylight and adequate light jpegs are fine for a compact, but low light jpegs are not very good. Do most of you XZ-1 owners shoot raw in low light?
 
I've read about this common problem with Canon cameras.

I know how good the XZ-1 can be, but a 5D should not be this bad.

Regards,
Michael
 
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