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Does the Olympus E-P5 and the E-M1 Mark I have the same sensor?

Started May 23, 2017 | Discussions thread
pdk42
pdk42 Senior Member • Posts: 1,299
Re: Does the Olympus E-P5 and the E-M1 Mark I have the same sensor?

EarthQuake wrote:

In practical use there isn't a visible difference in image quality between the two. The only exception is very long (multiple seconds or longer) exposures, where the EM1 has worse noticeably worse noise performance.

It only really becomes an issue beyond 30-40 seconds.   However, when it does rear its head, it gets pretty ugly.  It can be mostly avoided by using Long Exposure Noise Reduction (dark frame subtraction) but that doubles the time to take a shot.

As a landscape shooter this is really the one big downside of the E-M1.  None of the other 16Mp Olympus cameras have this issue which I think fairly conclusively proves that it doesn't have the same sensor.  There are also subtle colour differences between it and the other cameras and as others have said it does seem to handle highlights better so gives better DR (ever so slightly).

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