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

Anders W wrote:

I observed it mostly in landscapes shots, in large even areas (not necessarily deep shadows, but also not so dark areas). Skies are noisier, too.

This is with the E-M5 rather than the E-M1. But do you see much in the way of sky noise here? And I couldn't go all that far with exposure in this case since the scene is counterlit (sun lurking behind a tree) and I didn't want to clip any highlights.

No, definitely the grain I see in your shot is better than the one I see in mine. However, as you know, this is a processed shot, so it is in fact very hard to tell just from this. I can of course process mine to look even better than yours, and so you can (read below).

To be fair, I would rather say that the noise is "different". There is more absolute grain in the EM1, but it is finer, and doesn't bother me. But sharpening brings it up.

You should sharpen less as the pixel count goes up. Sharpening brings out noise badly with LR if you go beyond default. I am now using Focus Magic to deal with that. It does a better job than LR with sharpening. Normally, LR default is enough for me. But sometimes I want more.

Yes, sure. What I do, ALWAYS, is selective sharpening. Yes, I know is a pain in the a**, but the results are much better. This is hard for birds in rainforests, but much easier in a shot like yours, because you can select the whole sky with the click of a button. You won't find any noise in any sky in my home page shots.

You are a much better bird photographer than I am (I am just dabbling in this department) and these are nothing to write home about. But I think they demonstrate pretty well what the E-M5 (and I am sure the E-M1) with the 100-300 can do, technically speaking.

Good example!!  I'm so pleasantly surprised...

Cheers!

L.