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G1 vs E-P1 at low ISO

barjohn

New member
I took some test shots of a resolution test image. I was somewhat surprised by what I found. Below is the G1 images using the Nikon 50/1.8 lens.
 
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barjohn

New member
The next 2 images is the E-P1 with the same lens. One shot slightly closer.
 
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barjohn

New member
These were crops of the center image and it is clear that the E-P1 has this grain texture like a cloud over the image, even at ISO 200 that is not there on the G1. I'm not sure why this is but it surprised me as I thought the E-P1 showed more detail in the test images I saw elsewhere, not less. In particular look at the edges of black lines where the difference is most dramatic.
 
R

Ranger 9

Guest
Normally I'm hesitant to evaluate test shots online: Am I "testing" the camera, the lens, the file conversion, my monitor, or my eyes?

But in this case I can kinda see what you mean (I think.)

A few follow-up questions: Were these shot as JPEG, or raw and then converted? If JPEG, are the file sizes (and compression) similar? If raw, did you use each manufacturer's supplied conversion software, or a third party?

I use a G1, so it's no surprise to me that its low-ISO performance is very good, but my gut instinct is that what you're seeing are compression or conversion differences rather than fundamental differences in what the camera records. The big question would be whether the Eepy's settings can be tweaked to produce smoother results like the G1's, assuming that's what you prefer. (Some people might like the more "film-like" texture of the Eepy image.)
 

barjohn

New member
These were all raw files. The G1 was converted directly in LR. The E-P1 files were converted to DNG files in C1 and then processed in LR for comparison. When viewed in LR at 100% these is significant difference between these files resolution. I found the best images with the Nikon lenses but the same difference could be seen irrespective of the lens. The shots were done on a tripod with a 2 sec delay to keep camera shake to a minimum. I also looked at the jpgs and the same difference could be seen but the jpg resolution was considerably worse.

I expected the grain at high ISO but did not expect it at ISO 200.

See the comparison images from Imaging Resources with the G1 on the left and the E-P1 on the right. It doesn't show in this test photo.
 
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nostatic

New member
(Some people might like the more "film-like" texture of the Eepy image.)
I'm in that camp. For some shots I really prefer the EP1 file even though it is "worse" than my K20d. For others, I prefer the cleaner one.

I haven't shot the EP1 back to back with the g/f's G1 but I remember not being as struck by those images as the ones from the EP1.
 

Rawfa

Active member
Since the first day I've bought the E-P1 I always found the images to be noisy even at base iso and I could not understand how come I was the only one. To this day I still don't get how come there aren't more people finding this a problem.
 

barjohn

New member
Here is where it gets interesting. Again using the files from Imaging Resources, first is G1 to E-P1, then another G1 vs E-Pq, and then GH1 to E-P1. I can't figure out why I don't get those kind of results.
 
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nostatic

New member
Since the first day I've bought the E-P1 I always found the images to be noisy even at base iso and I could not understand how come I was the only one. To this day I still don't get how come there aren't more people finding this a problem.
Because some of us like noise if it is rendered well. I hate cameras that apply NR - I want to control that after the fact.
 

barjohn

New member
I also took results from dpreview and they get different results than I do. Am I doing something wrong or is my camera different? First is G1 then E-P1.

They don't seem to get the graininess I am getting and the E-P1 files look better than the G1 files. I can't explain the difference.
 
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nostatic

New member
this is why I try to avoid "testing" and instead just prefer shooting and seeing what I like/don't like. It'll drive you nuts trying to correlate a bunch of disparate online "tests."
 

barjohn

New member
I have been playing around and I think I am starting to understand what causes it. First, it is very sensitive to the amount of light. Since I didn't take the two images with the same lighting but rather aimed at exposure (should be the same but doesn't seem to work that way) I found it makes a difference in the raw files. Then I found that the trick to cleaning up the jpg files so they looked clean was to turn off noise reduction completely. In the G menu noise reduction off noise filter off.
 
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