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Fun with Olympus EM5 Mark ii 40mp only

mmbma

Active member
Time to start this thread in anticipation of the EM5 mark ii! I'm already on the pre-order list. Interested to see what this baby can do with landscape and product shots.
 

mmbma

Active member
Here are three test shots from Robin Wong's review site, who is doing a great job by answering a lot of questions on the actual use of this technology.

Left is the 40mp shot, the right is 16mp single shot upscaled to match the 40mp shots.



 

scott kirkpatrick

Well-known member
Here's the link to Robin Wong's blog for more details.

bloglink

I think we should give him the hits in return for borrowing his pictures. Note that he is showing in-camera JPEGs (cited as 40 MPx but I don't know the exact dimensions of the JPEG that is output -- should check the manual).

scott

(edit) the manual only says that the 40 MPx jpegs are 7296 x 5472, and the raw files are MUCH bigger.
 
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scho

Well-known member
The HR ORF file that I processed with RPP gave a 9280x6938 16 bit tiff file.
 

scott kirkpatrick

Well-known member
The HR ORF file that I processed with RPP gave a 9280x6938 16 bit tiff file.
(What's RPP?) That's 64MPx, all right. A 16bit TIFF would fill 128 MB before compression. But there is some magic going on in the transformations. Each set of four shots produces something like 3x12 bits of good color information at each of the original pixel sites, since the Bayer filter interpolation is not needed any more. The second four shots do the same, but now we have 32 MPx of this lovely color data on a lattice which is tilted at 45 degrees to the original orientation and has to be rotated back for display. (Take a bit of square-ruled paper, put a dot into the middle of each square and you'll see that you have made a new square array, tilted at 45 degrees.)

So they map it back onto a set of "virtual" pixels with half the original spacing but not rotated. There are 64M of these virtual pixels. But how do you suppose the color information is encoded? It would be a shame to turn the 36 bits back into just 16 bits altogether for the three colors. We don't really have the spatial resolution that the 64MPx array of pixels implies, but we have more color information. It's magic.

Maybe the E-M1 Mk ii will take 16 shots and capture all this resolution? Or Sony, or Pentax, which have to respond to this challenge.

scott
 

scho

Well-known member
(What's RPP?) That's 64MPx, all right. A 16bit TIFF would fill 128 MB before compression. But there is some magic going on in the transformations. Each set of four shots produces something like 3x12 bits of good color information at each of the original pixel sites, since the Bayer filter interpolation is not needed any more. The second four shots do the same, but now we have 32 MPx of this lovely color data on a lattice which is tilted at 45 degrees to the original orientation and has to be rotated back for display. (Take a bit of square-ruled paper, put a dot into the middle of each square and you'll see that you have made a new square array, tilted at 45 degrees.)

So they map it back onto a set of "virtual" pixels with half the original spacing but not rotated. There are 64M of these virtual pixels. But how do you suppose the color information is encoded? It would be a shame to turn the 36 bits back into just 16 bits altogether for the three colors. We don't really have the spatial resolution that the 64MPx array of pixels implies, but we have more color information. It's magic.

Maybe the E-M1 Mk ii will take 16 shots and capture all this resolution? Or Sony, or Pentax, which have to respond to this challenge.

scott
RPP = Raw Photo Processor
Latest version will process the HR ORF files. So far I've only found one HR raw file to work with at the ImagingResource review site. Here is the 64 MP tiff file exported from RPP to LR and then to my dropbox.
 
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mmbma

Active member
scott. totally cool with giving Robin hits to his website. I download these files only in case the flickr file addresses on his website changes. that's all.

looking forward to all the posts once we get our em5 2
 

mmbma

Active member
got the camera. 40mp shots work as advertised. it's surprisingly quick!

but lightroom doesn't support it yet. the Olympic view 3 allows you to see the picture, but not edit it
 

mmbma

Active member
the latitude of the file is fantastic. This image was right out of the camera but from what I could play with the TIFF file converted from RAW, the highlight and shadow recovery was very easy and the file stood up to strong manupilation
 

mmbma

Active member
Here's another one. with my 100-300 lens. At 100mm the lens is sharp enough for 40mp resolution.

 

mmbma

Active member
This is a shot of the building across from me at 300mm. Mind, it's through a window (clean). As you can see, overall the image is sharp. however at 100%, while still acceptable, the resolution is pushing at the 100-300mm's limit.

 

mmbma

Active member
so. my conclusion so far is that:

1) this camera will test the resolution limit of your non-pro lens.
2) With a little sharpening, however, the image even at the longest end is still very acceptable. This opens up the opportunity of 600mm landscape shots for all of us without having to spend 10k+ equipment. (on the 100-300mm lens)
3) image quality at 40mp is very good, file is rich and easy to manipulate
4) the little camera rocks!
 
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