100-300 vs. 50-200+1.4TC: surprised!

luisflorit wrote:

micksh6 wrote:

Torlang wrote:

How can the image quality out of the EM1 be too grainy at ISO200?

It's only possible if OP underexposes.

This is incorrect.

I think this is correct.

It can be grainy if you shoot high contrast scene and boost shadows a lot, but it's not what many people do, so it's probably not the case here.

No. I've shoot at base ISO (200) sunny landscapes with "proper" exposure giving an on-camera even histogram.

However, you have to push the curves when processing RAW since a flat curve gives you underexposed shots (unless the RAW processor applies a preset curve for you). This is a "philosophy" Oly adopted since the old E620: ISO200 and ISO100 has identical sensor sensitivity/gain (supposedly to protect highlights), with different exposure curves applied. Because of this, I've set my E3 and E5 with an Expose Shift of +1EV, to expose to the right. The problem with that is that the VF tricks you... But you get used to that. I will quite probably do the same with the EM1 (Gears > Utility > Exposure Shift), it's the only different setting I have from my E5 (as possible).

I mostly go by your statement "E-M1 is noisier at base ISO than my E5". I think you discovered something new here, a revelation that nobody was able to find before. I suggest to create a separate thread for this finding, and see what happens.

E-M1 (and actually all Olympus m4/3 cameras since 2008) has blinkies to help you in choosing proper exposure. E-5 couldn't have them with optical viewfinder. The blinkies have been the way to set proper exposure for a while now. So, you probably have a room for improvement in mastering exposure with micro 4/3.

Especially when OP says that E-M1 is noisier at base ISO than E-5, a camera with 6 year old sensor. This tells that mastering exposure and camera settings properly should be the first item in to-do list.

Indeed.

However, while the EM1 and E5 are different, I've swept the whole menu of the EM1 to match as close as possible my E5. The differences now are all in favor to get an EM1 proper exposure thanks to the beautiful EVF (Live histogram, etc).

As for comparison test - close-up pair shows that 100-300 is sharper. But, at least some telezooms can show good quality at closeups and then degrade at longer focusing distances. So, 1st pair should be more relevant comparison. I also wonder if 0s anti-shock was enabled during the test.

People here forbid me to shoot without it, so I enabled it while the camera was locked in the box. I didn't enable the "short" lag setting, to save battery.

And regarding the first image pair - I have a weird feeling that 50-200 shot was focused farther than what crop shows, above cropped area. I could be wrong, of course. OP, would you be able to show full image?

Unfortunately, the tests are deleted. But, as I said, I shoot 10 pictures with each setting, and kept the sharpest (it was difficult to choose, since all pictures were very similar). It's only a weird feeling.

Too bad that you couldn't keep the files for a few days. Now we won't know the truth.

I was skeptical because people showed surprisingly good results with 50-200mm and 1.4x TC. For example, there was one thread about a week ago with full resolution pictures of small birds taken with 50-200mm + 1.4x TC at 200mm wide open. These were very sharp. According to your comparison it should be impossible.

But, now I see at least two posters also came up with controlled tests of the same lens combo and the results confict with yours. I think you need to come to agreement with them first.

Also, was there any reason to choose non-flat, inclined surface for lens resolution comparison?

As you wrote, it's much better to decide if there is a front/back focusing when the surface is inclined. Same for the statue, with lots of details at different distance just to detect focusing problems. That's the reason.