Subjective camera preferences.....

A little clarification....

Until this most recent round of M43 cameras, there were rather significant differences in IQ between the different models and brands. (The EM5 was the first M43 with a really "modern" sensor, and it took Panasonic until its current lineup to successfully address that sensor performance level in its cameras.) Much of my skipping around was due to trying to get the best performance possible at the time....

Since working with the output from this last round of products (GX7, GM1, EM1), I have come to the conclusion that all three of these cameras produce RAW images that are more similar than different in terms of absolute image quality. There are, however, some basic internal processing decisions that each camera maker has made that do affect the final output, and for those, I just SUBJECTIVELY prefer what Panasonic does.

For instance: Oly has beautiful color output, but it's a little too beautiful to my eyes. I prefer the Panasonic blues and greens by a pretty substantial margain, and I find the Panasonic basic rendering to look a little more natural. For me, starting with a more understated image and bringing it out in PP allows me to make the color decisions and get the final output just right, as opposed to having to tone everything down and then redo it in PP to my liking, which I was finding I had to do with the Olympus files. In a way, Oly colors are very seductive....you look at the file and go WOW! Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I photograph is not represented optimally when it is given "wow" treatment.......

Many reviewers also discuss the other aspect of these different image processing algorithms....and what seems to be the philosophical differences of the companies in terms of their essential file handling. (Not JPGs, those, of course, are different, but RAWs). They mention that Panasonic tends to leave a little more noise and a little less deep contrast at the extremes of the scale, but retains just a little bit more of the finest detail with a bit fewer artifacts. To be honest with you, this one thing is what I see as the biggest difference between the cameras (and in this current generation, it's actually almost (but not quite) vanishingly small).

These differences translate, to me, into feeling comfortable with knowing I can work with the RAWs and end up extracting an image that really captures the "guts" of my subjects, without whatever "grittiness" they have being prettified away before the files even hit the computer. I feel like I have more control over the final product, in other words, from image capture to print, than I do with the Oly renderings.

As I said, this is VERY subjective

So, between the UI and the output, the GX7 just seems to click with my photographic brain a bit better than the EM1. It still boggles me, though, that I prefer it. I keep trying to logic myself into preferring the EM1, and yet I keep reaching for the GX7 when I go out to shoot, instead.....! I suppose I will give myself another few weeks, and if I still feel this way, the EM1 will get an appointment with Ebay...(!).

-J