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Ze French commentez on ze noise

R

Ranger 9

Guest
The 1001 Noisy Cameras blog directed me to this page from Focus Numerique, comparing noise levels of all the currently-available µ4/3 cameras.

Obviously the test subject is very limited, not all cameras were tested with all possible combinations of settings, and in short Your Mileage May Vary. But just looking at what's there and comparing it at face value (restricted further by my inability to read French) the following observations popped out at me:

-- Just looking at overall image usability, there isn't a huge difference among the cameras until about ISO 800.

-- From there on up, the original G1 is noticeably noisier than the GH1, GF1, and EP1; the latter three are all pretty comparable overall although with slightly different "looks."

-- This one really surprised me: in all four cameras, high-ISO images made with "correction de lumière" enabled (I assume this is the "intelligent auto exposure" feature that's supposed to help deal with high contrast) looked significantly worse than with it off. I had been leaving this on by default; now I know better!

Any other observations/comments?
 
V

vlatko

Guest
Ranger, that would be Compensation: Auto on EP-1. Yeah, that introduces more noise in the picture. That's been the case for all the Olys that have the feature.

But the French are really beating a dead horse.

I've just printed some stuff that I developed in ACR, played with curves to get a better contrast and, some of them, converted to B&W. The latter two increased noise so the photos looked "whoa, get thee behind me, Satan" on screen. In A4 (8.5x11.67) print, the noise is either unnoticeable or actually makes for a more pleasing photo. I'll print some of them bigger in a week or two, but I think the final result will be about the same.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Ranger, They are all pretty much in the same ball park. The sensor(s) used have their limits. Reviews on the subtle variations are just splitting hair.

I am actually eagerly looking forward to mirrorless cameras from other companies.

The resounding success of the m4/3rds concept is a great boon for the potential buyers/users.

I do expect Sony, Nikon, etc coming up with their own and very soon.
 
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