New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

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bakubo
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by bakubo »

bfitzgerald wrote:Simple if you post linking to DxO I "assume" you have some kind of faith in those measurements.
Allowing for the usual "margin of error" that any test has, DxO clearly show fudged ISO numbers..
Ever since I was a child I have been able to hold multiple ideas in my head at the same time. Therefore, I can accept that with the way DxO does things they can come up with the numbers they do and at the same time I can think and try things and see that in some cases I can find no practical affect for my photography of what they show. And I can accept that both can be right. I can also read about digital ISO such as the article I linked to on dpreview to try and understand a bit more. I assume other people can do these things also.

You wrote a lot, but still didn't answer what practical difference it makes? I am open to being shown that it makes some practical difference to me. I haven't found it yet, but maybe you can convince me.
bfitzgerald wrote: So in summary here is my problem
Do I trust Henry's "unseen" test with a G3 v a OMD-EM5?
I don't care or expect you to trust what I found when I experimented. I make certain assumptions about most of the people I deal with and one of them is that they are reasonably capable of checking lots of things for themselves. Since this whole issue is of such interest to you (based on your multiple posts over a period of more than a year) I am sort of surprised you haven't done any simple experimenting or reading on your own.

As DxO says:

As tests show, the ISO settings reported by camera manufacturers can differ significantly from measured ISO in RAW. This difference stems from design choices, in particular the choice to keep some “headroom” to avoid saturation in the higher exposures to make it possible to recover from blown highlights.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

I don't doubt some makers do it for various reasons, point being I still think it's mostly done to over state low light ability (which is a factor for some buyers)
From a practical perspective I find that a bit misleading, surely an acceptable variation can't be almost one stop..I could accept some departure from the stated values but not that big.

I'm not doubting your own tests, just pointing out something has to give somewhere..and somebody is right and wrong.
If DPR only tested ISO 100 begs the question why? Supposed to be the most in depth review site out there and they miss something as obvious as this.
As for DxO I think they could help their case/numbers more if they explained how they test.
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Greg Beetham
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

I don’t think the minus ISO gain measured by DXO from the A99 (-2/3rd stop), the E-M5 (-1 stop) and the E-M1 (-2/3rd stop, except for ISO100 where it’s over by +1/3rd stop) would matter a lot, it would be a slight disadvantage as far as low light shooting goes one would think but it should be an aid in preventing blown highlights and/or better cloud detail (except for the aforementioned E-M1 ISO100 divergence).
I suppose with a very carefully controlled test between two cameras, one with nominal ISO’s and one with minus 2/3rd ISO’s you should be able to see one with darker shadows than the other in the result, but the darker one would most likely have better cloud detail.
Agorabasta or DK could probably throw some light (so to speak) on the subject, if they would care to join in that is.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by classiccameras »

I have seen on some review sites where the reviewer [mostly Canikon and M/4/3 biased sites] made a big deal out of the light loss to the sensor on SLT cameras and marked the SLT down because of that, I have seen from 1/3 of a stop to over 1 stop quoted, None of this is accurate and is really of no consequence in real world pictures, Sony say that the cameras have built in compensation for the light loss which is around 1/3 stop and they still have one of the best dynamic ranges out there and low light performance has only suffered in a small way, I agree with that.
As Barry has said before, very few review sites are that honest and often skip good points to downgrade the camera depending on what they are reviewing. Go by other users judgement and feed back and your own of course is my best advice.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

I suppose the bias in favour of the Canon and Nikon establishment at some review sites is always going to be there classiccameras no matter what, it’s almost ancestral now being passed down from father to son.
I don’t see much to recommend in any of the major brands as producing pure still cameras really, they have all succumbed to the hideous video disease and it’s killing them. From what I can see un-recouped development costs have gone through the roof and still camera progress is dormant because it has to play second fiddle to video compromises, they have gone in search of the ultimate customer attractor and at the same time putting their own survival at risk, none of them has maintained a separate still only camera development line which would produce cameras with superior performance to those that have to do a dual role. :roll:
But anyway whatever, the SLT mirror light loss is a separate issue from sensor gain and nominal ISO.
The light loss is already allowed for (so they say) to bring the T-values back to nominal tolerance, they bump the sensor gain to compensate (again so they say).
In the production of a cabfile JPEG from RAW data I’m guessing that regardless of sensor +/- gain or SLT light loss the JPEG would be displayed at brightness level that agreed with the metered ambient EV at the focus point at the time and the SLT mirror light loss would be a known factor in the computation and the photo rendered at 18% grey give or take pre-set exposure bias.
Maybe they didn’t do it with the A99? If that’s what they did it hasn’t hurt the A99 DR in normal photography with its 14bit range. It might not be up with the others at ridiculous ISO’s where you get muddy colours but who cares? (personally I don’t care either way, I don’t need an expensive complex FF camera, I just need a normal still camera and accessories that work properly doing all the things a still camera should be able to do)
The E-M1 is similar to the A99 with a minus 2/3rd sensor gain so it should produce similar results in normal photography, in the ridiculous high ISO category the A99 would probably fare better, for what’s that’s worth.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

Looking at the A99 I'm not sure it that much better for high ISO v decent APS-C sensors. Better yes, but not oh let's dump £1850 on it better :mrgreen:
Light loss with SLT is closer to half a stop that's what I estimate.

A57 v D7k not a huge difference fairly small but the D7k has finer less course noise, I can probably make up the difference with IBIS anyway.
But the A57 was cheap ish, I'd be a bit more picky with higher priced bodies. I would put a bit of cash down the mirror in the path and light loss does do some damage to sales with SLT models, how much no idea but it's not a positive aspect of the design.

I'd love to say Sony did a major job for video users, but the stuck at f3.5 AF for SLT models is both "odd" and well a bit ill informed I think. That's why the 70d will give Sony a real hard time you can AF off sensor with that wide open and stopped down.

As for ISO values, I see they have CIPA white papers up for sensitivity
http://www.cipa.jp/english/hyoujunka/ki ... _list.html

But so far nothing has been done about it.
They've CIPA for battery life and now stabilisation, I'd like to see sensitivity added to level the playing field and stop makers from manipulating numbers for marketing reasons.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by classiccameras »

The times I went into my local Jessops [when it was open] to hear one or other of the shop staff talk down the Sony SLT cameras when the customer showed an interest and they were usually steered away from Sony towards Canikon. It was great when one customer who was browsing at the back of the shop piped up and said in a loud voice, the Sony SLT cameras are as good or better than the equivalent Canon or Nikon, It all went a bit quiet after that.
Canon in particular had some sort of deal going with Jessops.

It was Steve Huff's review among others of the A57 that more or less decided my decision to buy one. At my level of photography, it does all I ever want.
Interesting about the first curtain on/off effecting the shutter noise, I wonder if this applies to the A Mount SLT as well, will have to try it out.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by bakubo »

I just read this new and pretty interesting article about the E-M1 (with mentions of other cameras too):

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/20 ... es-to.html
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by bakubo »

Here is a new article about the E-M1 from today:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/revie ... 2013.shtml

The E-M1 certainly looks good, but I still prefer the size of my E-M5 for travel so I don't plan to get an E-M1. The rumors are that the replacement for the E-M5 will be coming early in 2014 so I will wait and see how that looks. I am still pretty happy with my E-M5, but it would be nice if the ergonomics were improved a bit and the new EVF was put in it.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

The article by Kirk (previous link) got mentioned in dispatches on the nex forum (I think it was) at dpr, it seemed to ruffle a few feathers here and there, not unexpectedly.
And the EM-1 seemed to get a mixed reaction on the 4/3rds forum, I didn’t get in too deep it just looked like a fair few were having a bit of a moan. Michael Reichmann likes it so much he gave it his choice for the year, that’s pretty impressive, I wonder if the system flash works well; the video is not up to snuff according to him but that’s a plus in my book.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by bakubo »

Greg Beetham wrote:The article by Kirk (previous link) got mentioned in dispatches on the nex forum (I think it was) at dpr, it seemed to ruffle a few feathers here and there, not unexpectedly.
And the EM-1 seemed to get a mixed reaction on the 4/3rds forum, I didn’t get in too deep it just looked like a fair few were having a bit of a moan. Michael Reichmann likes it so much he gave it his choice for the year, that’s pretty impressive, I wonder if the system flash works well; the video is not up to snuff according to him but that’s a plus in my book.
Greg, which 4/3 forum are you referring to? The m4/3 forum on dpreview is very pro E-M1. Lots of people have one now and almost all reports are glowing.

Yes, I don't care about video either. For people who care a lot about video then the recommendation is to get a Panasonic m4/3 body.

In the article MR says he plans to take the E-M1 as his main camera on his Antarctica trip that is coming up. He has been there several times already so he knows what kind of gear will work well for him there.

By the way, did you hear the news about the the ship load of global warming scientists who are in the Antarctic right now to study the scarcity of sea ice and are now stuck in 3-4 meters of sea ice? Helicopters may be used to rescue them from the stuck ship. :lol: Boy, the irony is so extreme on this one who could think to make it up? :lol:
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

bakubo wrote:
Greg, which 4/3 forum are you referring to? The m4/3 forum on dpreview is very pro E-M1. Lots of people have one now and almost all reports are glowing.

Yes, I don't care about video either. For people who care a lot about video then the recommendation is to get a Panasonic m4/3 body.

In the article MR says he plans to take the E-M1 as his main camera on his Antarctica trip that is coming up. He has been there several times already so he knows what kind of gear will work well for him there.

By the way, did you hear the news about the the ship load of global warming scientists who are in the Antarctic right now to study the scarcity of sea ice and are now stuck in 3-4 meters of sea ice? Helicopters may be used to rescue them from the stuck ship. :lol: Boy, the irony is so extreme on this one who could think to make it up? :lol:
I’m fairly sure it was the 4/3rd forum there just after the camera came out, some were complaining about the price and some others were moaning about the adaptor for some reason I couldn’t figure out, maybe they didn’t want a M43 + adaptor and wanted a straight 4/3rd camera, I’ve half-forgotten now what they were on about but if that’s what it was I doubt very much Olympus would revert back and make a straight 4/3rd camera these days, it would not be financially viable. I think someone complained about the menu system also.
You know what it’s like there are just moaners no matter what, like here where some moan about Sony even though they make such faultless cameras.
But anyway the E-M1 seems to take pretty good photos and as long as all the main things work properly and the camera proves to be reliable it should sell well one would think and Olympus won’t go out of business (another rumour).
Greg
ps Yeah the ice research ship full of boffins stuck in the ice, who would of thunk (yep ships CAN get stuck in ice...no question, we've proved it :lol: ). I've been watching it on the telly, if the ice is that thick I doubt the Australian icebreaker will be able to get through and free it, it can break ice up to four or five feet thick according to the specifications I saw but I have my doubts about fourteen feet...maybe the ice will break up by itself in the Antarctic summer period.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by peterottaway »

Greg , you are forgetting that this is summer. It was only - 1 C yesterday. Which for this area is heatwave conditions. It is just that Commonwealth Bay and environs has some of the most erratic weather in the region.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

peterottaway wrote:Greg , you are forgetting that this is summer. It was only - 1 C yesterday. Which for this area is heatwave conditions. It is just that Commonwealth Bay and environs has some of the most erratic weather in the region.
Peter you have to see the funny side of it, an ice research ship full of ice experts getting stuck in the ice, they went to a place apparently well known for unpredictable weather and sailed 20Km into the ice field…hmmm, anyway it doesn’t look too serious so far, I saw the Aurora got stuck itself some years ago and the Japanese icebreaker broke through and freed it so it must be a reasonably common thing.
Btw what do you mean by its -1C in this area? Where is that? Photo please.
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Re: New Olympus E-M1 body for 4/3 and m4/3 lenses

Unread post by bakubo »

Here is the stuck ship. I don't know if the photo was shot with an E-M1. :lol:
antarctic_ship.jpg
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