Did I make a mistake?

[Michan]

Good afternoon all. I am debating if I should give up my new camera, take the monetary hit, and go back to a camera I know and love. OR by chance am I just not doing something correctly as far as the set up of my new system?

My style: I tend towards architecture, street, and travel. I prefer candid shots to posed. I am an intermediate (on the scale of skill I am at the entry point of intermediate). I shot in both raw and jpeg format, and am not a huge fan of post edits, in fact most post edits are crops and or changing a shot to black and white. I dont shoot video or vlog.

My old system (which I loved) was an Olympus OM-D E-M5 (1) - I was feeling benevolent and gave my system and the kit lens (I kept my good lenses) to my daughter in law as she was needing something to help her through some stuff ( I digress). I almost bought the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II but opted instead for the Lumix G85 (when I bought my camera I got it used and the sales guy at the camera store was really encouraging me to consider the G85). I thought since they used the same lens and the same sensor they would shoot very similar. I was wrong. I took the camera to Scotland recently and was disappointed with about half the images. The ones on cloudy days came out very gray and meh and the ones on sunny days came out over exposed and little pixelated. The images inside were great. I used the same lenses and filter that I had used on my Olmpus camera Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II and my Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/2.8 Lens and received very different results.

Before I trade in my new camera are there any tips or tricks I should try?

Thanks

 

[Mark9473]

It sounds as if you're struggling to get the correct exposure. I use aperture priority and center-weighted metering and set exposure compensation by checking the zebra stripes that warn for over-exposure (set at 100%). Works pretty much flawlessly for me.

How about a few pics to let us see what's going on?

 

[Michan]

Thanks for the response. Here are three different shots. The over saturated sunny day shot, the gray meh over cast day shot, and an interior shot. these are unedited sans converting them from raw to jpeg.

 

[YWG]

Thanks for the response. Here are three different shots. The over saturated sunny day shot, the gray meh over cast day shot, and an interior shot. these are unedited sans converting them from raw to jpeg.

Former E-M5 mki owner myself and continue to be an Olympus m43 shooter. I have owned the Panasonic GF-1 and G3.

Not sure if you ever messed with it, but the default for Olympus is to use warm tone. It will make everything more yellow, orange like shifting the colour balance up 1000-2000K. Panasonic on the otherhand tends to be more cool (blueish).

Your 1st and 3rd shot look a little too blue for my expectation however. Do you have the white balance set to a certain mode or is it on auto?

As for blown out, how are you metering? I find every camera I need to be giving some sort of exposure compensation. As I recall, the E-M5 tended to need 1/3 to 1 stop to the right to get the correct scene exposure. Otherwise, I found it too dark. That would certainly preserve the highlights however.

I suspect the camera you have is fine. It is just set up different by default to the manufacturer or by button mashing.

 

[muljao]

I had an EM5, loved it's images. I had a g80, didn't like it's images. Take the hit and go back to what you know and like, it shouldn't be a big hit if you got used anyway

 

[Chris R-UK]

I have shot with both Olympus and Panasonic bodies, including both at the same time, and, IMHO, there should be no significant image quality difference between them if the cameras are set up in the same way.

If you bought the camera used, the previous owner might have had had unusual settings. Try resetting everything to the factory defaults and go from there.

Try taking some shots with the Panasonic of the same targets that you shot with the Olympus. That should show up any major differences.

--
Chris R

 

[Michan]

Thank you. I had my Olympus set to "vivid" when I had it. When I got the Lumix it was new so I didnt mess with the settings too much but I did though set it from standard to vivid. I wonder if that is what amplified the blue tones?

I will go through and mess with the settings (currently in quarantine so plenty of time on my hands) do you by chance use the bracketing feature?

 

[Michan]

Thank you. Do you find that you have a preference between the two? Is there one you find yourself reaching for more than the other? If so which one and why?

 

[doner_man]

Thanks for the response. Here are three different shots. The over saturated sunny day shot, the gray meh over cast day shot, and an interior shot. these are unedited sans converting them from raw to jpeg.

I am not a 4/3 shooter but the white balance seems off in the samples. All cameras doesn’t have a great auto white balance setting so i suggest you take your time and experiment shooting in different white balance presets and customize them to your liking.



Also in another post of yours under this forum you asked for bracketing. As you are using a new camera that is not your usual you can use bracketing in order to get familiar with the camera. Meters can’t know what kind of an exposure you are aiming for. Use bracketing, check the results and compare the images in terms of exposure and try to learn how much you should add/extract from the meter readout to get the exposure right to your likings

 

[Mark9473]

Thanks for the response. Here are three different shots. The over saturated sunny day shot, the gray meh over cast day shot, and an interior shot. these are unedited sans converting them from raw to jpeg.

The outdoor sunny shot just has too challenging light. The range from deep shadows to bright reflections is too high to capture. Work in raw and bring up the shadows. In general though, in a scene like this, you have to choose between capturing more of the sky and metering for it, or capturing more of the ground and metering for that. Aiming in the middle both in exposure and composition gets you nothing.

The outdoor cloudy shot is mainly suffering from a very wrong white balance, and also slight underexposure. How did you set the white balance?

 

[BBbuilder467]

Thanks for the response. Here are three different shots. The over saturated sunny day shot, the gray meh over cast day shot, and an interior shot. these are unedited sans converting them from raw to jpeg.

If I set the white balance to Incandescent outdoors, that's the effect I can get. It's easy to bump the white balance adjustment on the 4-way control. I do that all the time.

 

[Chris R-UK]

Thank you. Do you find that you have a preference between the two? Is there one you find yourself reaching for more than the other? If so which one and why?

I started out with Panasonic in 2010 and switched to Olympus in 2014 because the Olympus E-M1 had much better C-AF. I kept my Panasonic body, a GH2, for two years as a second backup body until I upgraded to the E-M1.2. The E-M1 then became my backup body and the GH2 went to a relative. I use a mixture of Olympus and Panasonic lenses.

For anybody starting out, I wouldn’t recommend one above the other unless video was important (Panasonic) or sports/action (Olympus).

It gets more complex if you already have a collection of lenses. It is fairly easy to use Panasonic lenses on Olympus bodies, but you lose some important functionality if you use Olympus lenses on Panasonic bodies. So moving from Panasonic to Olympus is less of a problem than moving the other way.

 

[davidedric]

Cant add to what's already been said, but I've got a G80/5 (and a G7) and I've never seen images like those.

 

[Michan]

I wonder if that might be part of the problem. I kept all my Olympus lenses and those are what I use instead of the kit lens that came with my camera.

 

[Mark9473]

I wonder if that might be part of the problem. I kept all my Olympus lenses and those are what I use instead of the kit lens that came with my camera.

You have metering and white balance problems. Don't blame the lenses.

 

[Chris R-UK]

Yours are 4/3 lenses, not M4/3 lenses. On a Panasonic body and older Olympus bodies, C-AF performance will not be as good as on DSLR, although E series DSLRs didn’t have great C-AF anyway. To get the best C-AF you need to use them on an Olympus E-M1 series (EM1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1X) or E-M5iii body which will give you PDAF focusing better than an E series DSLR.

This is only going to be a significant issue if you shoot sports, action or fast moving wildlife.

--
Chris R