Olympus image output

[papillon_65]

That's not the case in my experience. Despite what DXOmark would have us believe the EP-3 has quite a bit more dynamic range than the EPL-1 (I have both) and a much smoother roll-off in tones. The EPL-1 has very contrasty output and quite a sharp transition between dark and light tones. It's capable of very nice images but the EP-3 can do better IMHO. It's easier to add contrast if you need it but you can't compensate for harsh roll-off if the dynamic range is not so good in the first place.

But when DxO talks about DR it talks about something else than you do here. So no surprise that you reach different conclusions. What you are talking about, I presume, is the OOC jpeg tone curve. What DxO is measuring, by contrast, is the number of stops between the noise floor (SNR 0 according to their definition) and the clipping point of the sensor in the RAW output. Two rather different things.

The raw files in the EP-3 have more latitude for highlight recovery IMHO. Overall the output from the EP-3 is definitely better balanced and I'd say the AA filter is touch more evident but not overdone.
--
It's a known fact that where there's tea there's hope.
Tony
http://the-random-photographer.blogspot.com/

 

[Schira]

Very true. I hate to sit with RAW files but occasionally I have to. And as far as I know, the jpg output is not consistent across the Panasonic cameras. What bothers me is , the jpg color with the new FZ150 is close to what the RAW from G3 will produce.

Concerning the Panasonic, not even SilkyPix which is bundled with the Lumix cameras are able to reproduce what the jpeg engine does in camera.

--
rrr_hhh

--

And you thought I was staring? No, the truth is you've been framed(probably in four thirds) - Forgive the spelling - the post comes from a tiny cell phone...most of the times.

 

[Anders W]

That's not the case in my experience. Despite what DXOmark would have us believe the EP-3 has quite a bit more dynamic range than the EPL-1 (I have both) and a much smoother roll-off in tones. The EPL-1 has very contrasty output and quite a sharp transition between dark and light tones. It's capable of very nice images but the EP-3 can do better IMHO. It's easier to add contrast if you need it but you can't compensate for harsh roll-off if the dynamic range is not so good in the first place.

But when DxO talks about DR it talks about something else than you do here. So no surprise that you reach different conclusions. What you are talking about, I presume, is the OOC jpeg tone curve. What DxO is measuring, by contrast, is the number of stops between the noise floor (SNR 0 according to their definition) and the clipping point of the sensor in the RAW output. Two rather different things.

The raw files in the EP-3 have more latitude for highlight recovery IMHO.

That may well be the case. But if so, that's simply because they have calibrated the camera ISO scale, the metering and/or the highlight clipping indication slightly differently. The physical response of a digital sensor is roughly linear up to the clipping point. So if you find you have more latitude for highlight recovery now than you did before, it simply means that you are exposing further to the left than you did before (giving you better highlight but worse shadow rendering).

Overall the output from the EP-3 is definitely better balanced

In what sense better balanced? And are you talking about jpegs here?

and I'd say the AA filter is touch more evident but not overdone.

Not sure what you mean here. I thought they might have made the AA filter weaker, or at any rate not stronger, than it was.

 

[Lights]

Totally agree. Even different versions of ACR have produced different colors. I remember the early versions, the reds were lets say "not really red". I did a test once with basic Raw converters (not Adobe although ACR was included)...on both Canon and Oly files, and wow what a difference between the converters at basic settings. A person could tweak some of them closely to others, but it took a while. Olympus Viewer is very close it seems to jpg output, but not much choice in modification (as you state), although you can transfer to the registered editor if you'd like to wait an eternity...
--
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Like the Joker said: Why so serious?

 

[DC Alford]

GF1 seemed faster to me, but this is me trying to remember so you know how that can be!
I mainly used the 20 f1.7 with the GF1 & it was a very quick & snappy combo.

My EP2 with the 14-45 is very quick as well but from memory I'll say the GF1 & 20 f1.7 was just a bit quicker.

AF speed isn't a big deal for me so take that into consideration as well!

My only concern for you is that the 20 f1.7 is slower on Pen bodies than on Panny bodies(at least that's what I've read)so....might be worth trying an EP2 out with one of your lenses first if possible.

Good luck.

Dan.

 

[DC Alford]

rrr_hhh:

The second version of the Olympus kitzoom has good results in the tests, better than the first version which came with the E-P1 and as good if not better than the 14-45mm of Panasonic.

Now that is very interesting, especially since it also focuses quite a bit closer than the 14-45.

Thanks for the info!

Dan.

 

[DC Alford]

Well according to the MTF charts the mkII ver. of this lens it wipes the floor with the mkI version, & also the 14-45 at the 14mm & 25mm focal lengths.
The 14-42 mkII wins at the long end vs the 14-45 as well but it's pretty close.

Thanks again for this info.

Dan.

 

[Saint Yves]

thanks for your reply and advice , I can borrow an EPL2 , it will give me an idea how the 20mm 1.7 and 14mm 2.5 behave on Pen cameras!

GF1 seemed faster to me, but this is me trying to remember so you know how that can be!
I mainly used the 20 f1.7 with the GF1 & it was a very quick & snappy combo.

My EP2 with the 14-45 is very quick as well but from memory I'll say the GF1 & 20 f1.7 was just a bit quicker.

AF speed isn't a big deal for me so take that into consideration as well!

My only concern for you is that the 20 f1.7 is slower on Pen bodies than on Panny bodies(at least that's what I've read)so....might be worth trying an EP2 out with one of your lenses first if possible.

Good luck.

Dan.

--
Yves

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37414915@N04/

 

[rrr_hhh]

I was quite surprised myself at those results. I had the E-P1 plus first version of the 14-42 and it is much softer than the 14-45 on a Panasonic body. I've ordered the E-P3 with the new lens (version II R), but I haven't received it yet, so I have no first hand experience with this new version.

One possible explanation for the so-so results of the Panasonic 14-45 with respect to the new Olympus zoom, may be that the tests concerns both the body and the lens. The 14-45 was tested with the G1. May be it would get better results with a G3 ?

I've ordered the E-P3 with the kit zooms, mainly because they are said to focuse faster with the last lenses version. But after looking at these results, I didn't regret my order. Now if only they would speed up the delivery.

Well according to the MTF charts the mkII ver. of this lens it wipes the floor with the mkI version, & also the 14-45 at the 14mm & 25mm focal lengths.
The 14-42 mkII wins at the long end vs the 14-45 as well but it's pretty close.

Thanks again for this info.

Dan.

--
rrr_hhh

 

[burnymeister]

Nobody beats Oly JPEG OOC. (For me anyways ) I got back into m43 because I missed the IQ from my E-P2 JPEG's (and I'm a RAW shooter typically).

I do have to say that now that I'm trying a NEX5N the OOC HDR JPEG's are really impressing me so far...

--
Vern Dewit
Calgary, Alberta Canada
http://www.explor8ion.com
http://verndewit.com/

 

[Gary Stallones]

It's not the WB that creates the warmer tones on the E-P3. There is actually a setting that is ON by default for "Warmer tones". Most set this to OFF.

--

'Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment. '

• Ansel Adams

 

[Anders W]

It's not the WB that creates the warmer tones on the E-P3. There is actually a setting that is ON by default for "Warmer tones". Most set this to OFF.

This is still WB by another name. It allows you to calibrate WB so as to generally choose a warmer rendering (or not). How well Oly's AWB works in practice since I haven't used it. I do know that my G1 (and other Panasonics) tend to err on the coolish side (at least in ordinary daylight).

 

[Bryan Biggers]

The warmer tones setting does not affect the WB under normal conditions or make your typical daylight shots "warmer". What it does is say how far you want the auto WB to be able to go under low temperature lighting, such as a sunset or incandescent lighting. For example, some people want an incandescent light shot to have a friendly warmer tone (WB not allowed to remove as much Red), while some think that a white tablecloth should be white even under incandescent or candle light (WB allowed to remove more Red). It is a matter of taste and depends on the subject. The warmer tones setting does not come into play until the WB reaches it's pre-programmed limit on Red adjustment, and so does not affect your typical daylight shot.

 

[Anders W]

The warmer tones setting does not affect the WB under normal conditions or make your typical daylight shots "warmer". What it does is say how far you want the auto WB to be able to go under low temperature lighting, such as a sunset or incandescent lighting. For example, some people want an incandescent light shot to have a friendly warmer tone (WB not allowed to remove as much Red), while some think that a white tablecloth should be white even under incandescent or candle light (WB allowed to remove more Red). It is a matter of taste and depends on the subject. The warmer tones setting does not come into play until the WB reaches it's pre-programmed limit on Red adjustment, and so does not affect your typical daylight shot.

Thanks for the info. OK, so it's more like an AWB limit than an AWB calibration. At any rate, based on what you say, it shouldn't have any effect at all on the daylight shots we are discussing here.

 

[micksh6]

Thank you for detailed analysis. I guess I will download trial version and see. To me Olympus Viewer 2 output looks the same as OOC JPEGs but RawTherapee files look worse.

 

[micksh6]

How well Oly's AWB works in practice since I haven't used it. I do know that my G1 (and other Panasonics) tend to err on the coolish side (at least in ordinary daylight).

Auto WB has been working perfectly since I got E-P3 in July. It never failed under any condition - sunlight, shadow, indoor and even with flash. I never adjusted WB in PP.

I uploaded few recent photos to illustrate Olympus colors. I didn't touch WB but I probably increased color saturation one step.

I like my E-P3 for these colors out of camera (I'm not experienced in post-processing and I rarely have time for it).

Here bird is standing on artificial grass which has poisonous color. But real grass is natural.





Here ducks had heads of exactly this saturated green colors in reality. But other colors look normal.

 

[assaft]

Hi!

As regards the comparison between the Oly ooc jpeg and the Oly Viewer 2 output, so far I worked under the same assumption - that the differences are negligible - but on Saturday I examined a shot taken with my E-PL2 in jpeg+raw and noticed that the output from Oly Viewer 2 is slightly better, mainly in the shadows. Not a huge difference, but still something noticeable even without pixel peeping.

2


I used the default settings in the Oly Viewer 2, and all RAW parameters were set to "As Shot" (this is the default) so their value should be the same as used by the camera for producing the jpeg. In particular, it is contrast=0, sharpness=0, noise filter=standard, garadation=auto,picture mode=natural.

The jpeg compression quality was Large Fine on the camera and I examined it against the High Quality and Standard Quality options in the Oly Viewer 2 Save As dialog box. I didn't recognize any difference between High Q and Standard Q. The files are in the gallery. Note that the file size of the version saved with Standard Q is much smaller than the jpeg ooc (5.8MB vs. 3.8MB).

Off topic, I guess that the shadows at the bottom-left corner are noisy due to the auto-garadation=auto setting, but given that it was taken at ISO 200, this only means that the sensor performance leaves much to be desired. I added versions created with noise-filter=low and noise-filter=off.

Best,
Assaf

 

[assaft]

I had some issues with my e-pl2 AWB, mainly in cloudy weather, as it is commonly the case in the Netherlands. It tends to produce somewhat too warm and yellowish color in my opinion. So I'm using an Expodisc from time to time. This is a post from some months ago, before I had the Expodisc:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1041&message=38960023

I saw this tendency of the E-PL1/2 to make the greens too yellowish also here (no idea about the third generation of the PENs):

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1037&message=35715850&changemode=1

But in general I think that the Oly colors are very nice:

 

[PoohBill]

An Expodisk arrives here tomorrow. I'm heading to Churchill, Manitoba, in a few weeks to view polar bears and thought it would be a good bench to measure Auto WB against in overcast snow. My manual for the E-P3 doesn't seem to have instructions for this sort of manual calibration. Hope the Expodisk tells me how.

-Bill

 

[assaft]

yes, there are instructions in the Expodisc manual; things are pretty straightforward with the pen, just follow the manual http://www.expoimaging.com/MediaFiles/instructions/EN_18.pdf