Pen-F : the best Olympus ever for image quality ?

Jorginho wrote:

Raist3d wrote:

Jorginho wrote:

Raist3d wrote:

alexzz wrote:

I'm really surprise but face to face, in DPReview 'Image quality', the Pen-F has better sharpness and better contrast than the EM1 MKII.

At 100 or 3200 iso, in raw or jpeg, ...

So I decide to compare to other Olympus (EM10, EM5, EP5, ...), and everytime the Pen-F gives the best image quality.

Any explanation ?

According to DXo, the Pen-F agains about 1 stop better color sensitivity vs other m43rds sensors (but they haven't measured yet the EM1 MKII). From a review I saw a shot side by side of both, looks like the PenF does retain this color advantage at high ISO over the EM1 MKII.

Yes the colour distinction advantage is there but 1/3 of a stop at most while being lower at the lowest ISO settings (so EM1.2) is better.

On all other parameters the Em1.2 is a bit better. DR at lower ISO is much better but the rest mostly 1/3 of a stop or so. Endresult according to DxO: Em1.2 "a new standard". I think that says enough...

The EM1 MKII may very well have some better DR or something. I'll wait for DXo to test. One thing- the EM1 MKII has been built for speed. Also has phase detection which may introduce some lower level IQ smaller artifacts (someone in another thread discussed this, and Fuji commented on how adding phase detection photosensors can affect image quality so they have to deal with it to make it not so).

I think that you mean Panasonic which is why they cling on to DFD. And DFD works great so I see little reason for them to switch to PDAF but for video AF it would be nice it seems

Dxo on EM12. (20 january already reviewed btw):

Dxo Em1.2...setting a new standard

Thanks, I missed it.

So no...Em1.2 is not about speed at the expense of IQ. It is speed with the best possible IQ ever attained by a mFT sensor.

If you look at the Nikon D5, even being FF looks like it has less DR than the D500. Possibly a sacrifice for making the sensor being that big go really fast.

So it's possible that the PenF, does indeed have better image quality than the EM1 mKII in an area or two, but it's probably a mix where one is better in one scenario while another will be better in another.

PenF and GX8 had very good IQ already close to APS-c. EM1.2 just pulls ahead and is IN modern APS-c territory. Like I said already...dpreview notes it is very close to XT2. And other reviews also put them on par or virtually on par.

Hmm no, The new Sony/Fuji sensor pulls ahead of EM1.2. The ISO difference is about one stop where it normally has been between m43rds and APS-C. And the DR of best APS-C (or even old APS-C like the sensor in Pentax K-5) is much better still.

According to who? Not according to dpreview, not according to DxO (1/3 of a stop at best), not according to mirrorless comparison (extensive review that only gives Fuji a lead beyond ISO6400) and where DR of the Em1.2 is visibly better according to them (and noise is worse). not according to Gordon Laing (although that is JPG and not so extensive, but still), not according Petapixel (albeit only measured DR, where the EM1.2 wins from Fuji..again...bnut slightly).

You can't pick and chose DXo when it suits you. DXo clearly shows about 1 stop more DR on the Fuji. As for mirroless- they clearly mentioned in their comparison that the shadows could lift more on the Fuji- DR range is total DR. For DXo, ok, 1/3rd of a stop better ISO, though other places have mentioned more, but let's go by Dxo.

So you get 1/3rd better stop ISO on Fuji, ~1 stop better color sensitivity, ~1 stop better DR. That's Dxo.

The mirrorless comparison website as good as it was missed the point that if you have more shadow range, well, that's more total DR range.

Also: DR of K5 at base ISO is much better. And that is the only thing. It is worse elsewhere..

Actually the K5 still does better DR across the range for the most part, but the print value gives better DR. Only problem there is if you clip highlights the print won't save you. So will have to expose a bit more consciously on the Olympus and rely on more noise at high resolution to sample down to compare. But still, ok, fair point.

https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Olympus-OM-D-E-M1-Mark-II-versus-Sony-A6500-versus-Olympus-PEN-F___1136_1127_1070

Better DR, better color sensitivity by about that.

BTW, this is the Sony A6500 sensor which is the base the Fuji sensor derives from.

All of this said, I can say that the PenF is the closest I have ever seen m43rds get on Fuji. I would still rank Fuji higher but I am very satisfied with the PenF raws & jpegs.

Yep it never was a big gap at all. PenF is not lacking in IQ at all.

It's still bizarre the color of PenF at higher ISO's is better than the EM1.2 in some ways. I would imagine some high ISO shots may show this a bit. But yeah, the Em1.2 sensor overall is at least better in some situations than the Pen-F's/GX8.

Not in some ways. In one way but probably in no way. COlour sensititivty...look at the chart..something went wrong here. The base ISO of PenF is ISO91. We can see a value here fro DR, noise and tonal range. But we see no value here for colour sensitivity.

Actually they explained that in their review.

"The PEN-F records the same 23.1-bit color depth at measured ISO 180 (manufacturer 400) as it does at its LOW ISO setting."

If we take this literally the PenF has no colour range at ISO 91.

That would be a very faulty interpretation

When we look at the GX8 sensor as a proxy we see its CS is well below EM1.2. Since the CS of PenF mysteriously is also better than all APS-c and CS is strongly related to DR (when you compare cams and look at DR you can predict the outcome in CS 9 out of 10 times).

But we are looking at the Pen-F, not the GX8.

SO The measurement at ISO180 should be at ISO 91, the etc. You can do this in your head looking at the graphs and take GX8 in there too. You can easily see that now the PenF CS graph compares almost identical to the graphs fro DR...A little worse than GX8 at the lower ISO's, a little better at the higher ISO and overall worse than Em1.2 and almost all APS-c sensors.

The graphs are indeed similar to the GX8, *except* in color sensitivity.  And this is a highlight that DXo mentions. From my own experience with the PenF, I can indeed say that I noticed something rather strange (for the better) at high ISO.  The color sensitivity advantage is at high ISO of 1600 and up.

I also saw a comparison through different ISO's of EM1.2 and Pen-F and, yes indeed, somehow the PenF was retained better color in the 3200+ (or was it maybe 5000+) up region.  I was pretty surprised.

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