Sorry, I do not know why the text I pasted in the 1st post did not come through
Basic Comparison pictures Olympus OM-D E-M5II vs Pen Lite E-PL6 vs E-PL7 3 9 2017
Head to head the M5ii is better than the 7; 7 and 6 can be similar, but 7 sometimes better. This was true even with some crud on the M5ii sensor.
Moderate variability in real life images, even just a few seconds apart. And yes, an M5 ii image with some motion can look worse than a good Pen 6 or 7 picture, but to be honest the M5ii was just sharper in my testing. I did not notice much difference between RAW ORF files and highest quality and file size jpeg images, although there are some differences. Dial settings were not always equal, but usually were equal.
I always set my camera to A, not M nor S mode. I usually try to be within a few f stops of lens wide open (eg, I might shoot at f6.3 or 7.1 when f5 is widest open the lens will go…)
I will usually vary the E setting. +.7 to about +1.7 is common for me, especially in low light. All images here were shot at zero, no correction.
I usually set a single focus spot to the center, or nearby.
Never mess with color: vivid, warm, etc
Usually use auto WB, as was used here. When some greens and blues are off color sometimes, I have never been able to successfully correct this while shooting, even playing with the red and green dials on the M5ii. I think I need to try gray cards but do not know how to adjust color even when using them while shooting (vs photoshop a week later)
I concluded that I am not sure the Pen7 offers me much more than the Pen6. Please note that the Pen6 makes lots of noises, so perhaps there is a “quiet” setting that I missed. I think the Pen 5, 6, and 7 all use the same sensor that might be from Sony. Is the M5ii also the same or just very similar? I was about to buy the Pen7 (offered at a great price), but decided not to. I was impressed with both the 6 and 7, but not enough to displace the M5ii as my main camera. I also much prefer the "eye" view finder on the M5ii than the electronic LCD screens on the camera backs. That said, I would be happy to put a second lens on the Pen6, to help avoid lens changes while travelling.
Not sure why the M5ii pics at f 7.1 and 3200-4000 iso were always sharper. I did not try to manually focus any of the pics taken here. I sometimes do this in a real world setting.
When doing the sensor tests, the Pen7 had concentric circles, hard to see without magnification on several of the images. I adjusted my tilting and camera movements and they went away.
NB: Sensor crud might be a huge issue with any Olympus camera. Likely true for all manufacturers.
I compared these 3 cameras head to head using the same common all purpose lens:
14-150, f4-5.6 ED MSC, version 1 (older version). I often only use this lens given the 28-300mm full frame equivalent and the pics look ok under most real world traveling circumstances. It is also just the size of an average fist and light weight,
f7.1 (or 6.3, by mistake – but images not included here) on all test chart photos
(with ISO of 3200 or 4000 in most cases and
1/125 second exposure, with all cameras set to
“A” mode – to adjust f stop with flywheel in all cases) and
f22 on all sensor examination pics (also used slowest possible ISO for most of these pics. Usually 1.6-6 second exposures. I found spots on the M5 sensor).
56mm (or 58mm) lens zoom, as that fit the approx 2 x 3 foot test chart that I made and pics were made at a distance of 10-11 feet from the chart.
I thought all of the numbers were reasonable as they might represent real world use. The f7.1 was chosen to allow some reasonable lens sharpness and 56 mm as being around 112mm in full frame equiv and is in the mid range of the zoom lens used. To be honest, I do not know if the ISO of 3200-4000 is ok for testing. I only used regular ceiling lighting in my kitchen while I stood and took the pics hand held and no tripod. The 1/125 second seemed ok to me given the 112-116mm full frame equiv.
The jpg and ORF or RAW files always size a bit differently.
56 or 58mm focal length is the same for all 3 cameras, but actual image size on electronic screen varies a bit.
There are so many potential adjustments that are possible in various menus.
I set all cameras to 10000 to 200 ISO range
0.25 second shutter delay. Surprisingly to me this lead the P6 images to improve significantly from zero delay.
Crops pasted below are from FastStone Imager Viewer 6.1. I would use the lower LT portion of my laptop screen to view a picture, click the magnifying glass, then carefully hit alt+prnt screen with 2 fingers from my other hand to take a screen capture just of the magnification. I have an old version of FastStone Capture to copy this image into MS Word. I directly compared the original MS Word file to a copy that I made to see differences between pics.
Some of chart images were from Bob Atkins Photography, and I thank him for posting these on the web.
I had the most trouble with the Pen6, but it was all my fault. I forgot to change ISO settings between sensor pic and chart pic, etc. I pasted the sharp low ASA chart pic as well. I also messed up the file sizes, so no RAW images were obtained with the PEN6, just highest quality jpgs (vs Jpg + RAW).
I might try testing a Nikon 3300, Canon T5, and Sony 6000 as well, but this consumes lots of time. I do not have access to any fancy Sony nor Nikkor lenses, but I have access to some good to great Canon lenses.
