Is the E-PL6 the best camera deal at the moment?

Nomadical wrote:

peppermonkey wrote:

or even the Nikon D7200...I fail to see how the E-PL6 "easily beats" the GF/GX7, D3300 and the Rebel T6s's of the world, that is unless you were talking about something other than IQ...

Otherwise, yeah, it's a great price. Though, the new prices for the GM1 and E-M5 are pretty enticing, albeit more expensive.

Yes, I was talking about IQ. More specifically, high iso quality since mostly all of these cams look the same at lower iso settings. I referred to comparing pics from Imaging Resource, feel free to do so yourself. From what I can tell, the E-PL5/6 sensor produces less noise, more pleasant grain and better sharpness than all those mentioned cameras.

Here they are at 6400 iso. I'd recommend opening each one in a new tab to compare.

E-PL5 -- http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/olympus-epl5/EPL5hSLI06400NR2D.HTM

D3300 - http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/nikon-d3300/D3300hSLI06400NR1D.HTM

GX7 - http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-gx7/GX7hSLI06400NR6D.HTM

Rebel SL1 - http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/canon-sl1/SL1hSLI06400NR2D.HTM

From my unprofessional eye - the D3300 has more shadow and excessive noise. GX7 has more detail smudging and blurring, something I too noticed from time to time when I had the camera. SL1 has Canon's trademark color blotches and overall more noise than all others compared. SL5 appears to handle everything the best, which seems perplexing given the cheap price. But as mentioned, I'm not sure if I trust some static studio pics versus daily usage.

My opinion hasn't really changed but...

First, these are jpegs...and although you may be a jpeg user, I'm certainly not. Course, being mostly a user of Panasonic cameras (I do have Oly cameras), Panny's jpeg engine is certainly not as pleasing as Oly's though they have mostly caught up in my view. In any case, as the samples are jpeg, can't really tell which ones are better than the other as the jpeg engine could easily be not doing justice to the raw files.

Second, minus the SL1 (which if I'm not mistaken is an older sensor for Canon...and it looks like mush), the current crop of DSLR's (Rebel T6s, Nikon D5500) retains more detail. Any unsharpness is probably just due to Oly's more aggressive sharpening or contrasting. Take a look at the fabrics at the top left. Specially the dark green with flowers on it. More detail has been obliterated from the Oly side than the DSLR side. And in general, the DSLR side looks more natural, less artifacts while the Oly side looks sharper, more contrast but less detail and more splotchiness or something. I personally think part of the problem is Oly's jpeg engine is more aggressive. Then again, considering the larger lack of detail, I would think it's just that there is less to work with for Oly. In any case, the DSLR side looks better in my eyes.

As for the GX7, yeah, generally fairly similar but Oly has a better jpeg engine so Oly side looks better. Tone, graduation, detail etc. etc. looks to be very similar.

Took a look at ISO 3200 as well and I see the same. APS-C sensors are just better still. On the other hand, I'm really surprised at how much M43 has come along. They have mostly caught up with APS-C which is incredible.

In any case, I'm still in the mind that current m43 are pretty much all comparable IQ wise. Jpeg engine probably makes Oly a tiny bit better than Panny but since I don't use Jpeg, that's not a big deal for me. DSLR's still are better in my mind with it comes to absolute IQ though (but it's getting muuuuch closer!).