ZS3 vs. e-630 300 mm shootout

Not the most scientific test, but I was interested to see the differences in IQ, zoom length, etc. for grabshots of wildlife. Basically - what am I missing by packing the ZS3 rather than the DSLR. Photos were taken with the camera handheld, I stabilized the camera on the window of the truck.

Photos in next post...

JPGs were resized and slightly resharpened.

e-620 jpg - lens at 300mm, 5.6/f, ISO 200, 1/1000

e-620 100% crop of deer

ZS3 jpg - lens at 300mm, 4.9/f, ISO 80, 1/400

100% crop of deer using ZS3

And a last ZS3 shot using the digital zoom - I prefer the 100% crop, actually...

sorry if it's obvious but why does the zs3 appear so much darker?

Also of note - the e-620 photos are the Middle Superfine JPGs.

I'd presume it is the difference in the imaging sensor & the jpg processing engines...

Those ZS3 photos are surprisingly good!

trbader wrote:

Those ZS3 photos are surprisingly good!

I was suprised, too. Really shows me that if I am not carrying the tripod with my DSLR + long lens, I might as well just carry the ZS3.

Geeze, just noticed I misspelled my camera's moniker in the title... Should have been e-620! Subliminal desire to upgrade, perhaps.

Oxheart wrote:

trbader wrote:

Those ZS3 photos are surprisingly good!

I was suprised, too. Really shows me that if I am not carrying the tripod with my DSLR + long lens, I might as well just carry the ZS3.

Absolutely . I used to carry a good-quality Minolta 100- 300 mm f/3.5- 5.6 with my SLR as the default working lens, have taken literally thousands and thousands of pics with it, yet it doesn't compare at all with the quality and convenience of the 25-300 mm Leica zoom the ZS3 has buit-in as far as chromatic aberrations (color fringing, virtually none), stability, and quality in general are concerned, let alone the sheer range of new opportunities afforded by an extreme range of high-quality zoom, from super wideangle to long telephoto, in such a very small, pocketable camera.

To further exemplify the incredible quality it gives, just have a look at these two pics I recently took with my ZS3 at a local dolphin show. The first one clearly demonstrates just how really far from the action was I located. Notice in the red-highlighted rectangle that you can't see any detail in the caretaker girl or the props on stage.

Then, the second pic, which was taken a few seconds after the first, just shows what ZS3's Leica 300 mm f/4.9 can accomplish: the small red zone in the first pic has been expanded to full 10 Mpixel size (shown here very reduced, of course), and you can now see the caretaker, the props, even the dolphins, in full detail , despite the tremendous distance. The great stabilization takes care of producing a sharp, still pic, and the Leica quality of the zoom provides a perfectly focused pic with great sharpness, details, and colors, freem from color fringing, aberrations, and other defects. Both are absolutely unprocessed, straight out of the camera :

.

At 300 mm:

.

and don't forget that you can also shot extremely high-quality video, HD at 1280 x 720 @ 30 frames per second, with Dolby stereo sound , while using the full zoom range, 300 mm included, and also that if you don't need 10 Mpixel pictures, you can extend the optical range to 600 mm and beyond with no loss of quality.

Furthermore, if you absolutely need it, the digital zoom feature can be used at some loss in quality but extending the zoom range to well over 2,100 mm .

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Isola Verde wrote:

Are you sure your title is correct - surely this is a 49.2mm vs. 300mm shootout?

And after crop factors, aren't these pictures actually a comparison of the ZS3 at its full 10MP resolution and 300mm zoom, with the DSLR's performance at 600mm but recorded at only 5MP (instead of its full 12MP) ?

If both cameras had been using the same FL equivalents, the first and third pictures would have covered identical fields of view!

Peter

Yes - that's why I took these - I get lost in the numbers and find a visual basis for comparison helps. And I wanted to compare my two longest lens options, DSLR and P&S...

I developed the RAW file last night, and didn't find it significantly more detailed for a crop of the deer, considering it should have 7MP more data than M-SF OOC JPG.

There was no need for you to go up to ISO 200 when your shutter speed was 1/1000 . 1/500 would have been perfectly fine to stop motion of the deer and the IS wold have prevented any camera shakes. I assume that FOV was 600mm equivalent consider the 2x crop factor on your 300mm. Also, I assume that you were using the 70-300 Zuiko (re-branded Sigma)

For this type of image capture, either would suffice.

dennis tennis wrote:

There was no need for you to go up to ISO 200 when your shutter speed was 1/1000 . 1/500 would have been perfectly fine to stop motion of the deer and the IS wold have prevented any camera shakes. I assume that FOV was 600mm equivalent consider the 2x crop factor on your 300mm. Also, I assume that you were using the 70-300 Zuiko (re-branded Sigma)

For this type of image capture, either would suffice.

200 ISO is often recommended for the 620, as you are supposed to ge the best DR at that ISO. I tend to use 100 ISO for photos on a tripod, 200 ISO for handheld. I'll try adjusting ISO and f-stop as well next time and see what happens... Guess I need to try the 40-150mm lens as well at 150mm.

Yep, the 70-300 Zuiko. I am just not steady enough to get tack sharp photos at the 300mm end using it handheld. Works great on a tripod, tho.