E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

[Ian]

(First posted on the Four Thirds User forum)

In the light of observations by Paul (Woofmix) concerning comparisons with his old E-3 and his new E-5, I thought I'd do a comparison with an E-30 (my E-5 is on loan at the moment) and my E-5.

The test shots were taken at when I went home for lunch. I should have brought a colour match test card with me - sorry! I forgot. Anyway, I used a view of a book case, with the cameras on a tripod, using a 12-60 SWD lens, with IS off, and anti-shock on to minimise camera movememt during the test exposures.

I left white balance and exposure on Auto. I recorded RAW and Large Superfine JPEGs simultaneously. For RAW, I set the noise filter to low.

Below are 100% crops and re-sized views of the complete frames from the RAW and camera JPEG files. You can also download the test images your self (links at the bottom of this post).

I do urge you to view these images using a browser that has colour management switched on, like FireFox or Safari, and you should have a calibrated monitor as well.

The lighting was deliberately tricky, with a mixture of cloudy daylight from patio doors about 22 feet to the left, and a single globe fluorescent lamp about 5 feet to the left. The walls of the room are also yellow, so this explains the dominance of yellow in some of these sample images due to reflected ambient light.

First the complete frames:


Olympus E-5 camera JPEG


Olympus E-30 camera JPEG


Olympus E-5 processed from RAW in Lightroom 3.3


Olympus E-30 processed from RAW in Lightroom 3.3

Now the 100% crops (1 image pixel to 1 display pixel):


Olympus E-5 camera JPEG


Olympus E-30 camera JPEG


Olympus E-5 processed from RAW in Lightroom 3.3


Olympus E-30 processed from RAW in Lightroom 3.3

With the RAW processing I used the dropper tool to normalise white balance (using the same spot on the space bar of the old typewriter to the right of the frame), and the same sharpening and luminance noise reduction values 40 and 50, respectively. The E-5 shot was slightly darker than the E-30's and I raised overall luminance in Lightroom for the E-5 shot by 0.32. No other adjustments were made from the defaults.

So - I hope this will be food for some thought and discussion!

The big files - you can download them if you wish (bear in mind some are 15MB each):

• E-5 in camera JPEG
• E-5 RAW file
• E-5 Lightroom-adjusted JPEG from RAW file
• E-30 in camera JPEG
• E-30 RAW file
• E-30 Lightroom-adjusted JPEG from RAW file

Ian

[shenstone]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

[quote=Ian;95329
I hope this will be food for some thought and discussion!

Ian[/quote]

You know what Ian ... it does help I prefer the IMO slightly sharper E-30 images I can deal with the noise myself later

was there anything that you know that would have accounted for that apparent extra sharpness

Regards
Andy

[Ian]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

When viewing the E-30 and E-5 RAW files in LR 3.3 there is a big difference in the reds on my monitor; the E-5 red is cooler, while the E-30 red is tending towards orange.

But in Viewer 2 there is much much less difference; in fact they are almost the same.

Lightroom works in the very wide ProPhoto RGB space so that could be an explanation. The JPEGs produced by Lightroom from both cameras are much closer, probably because they are sRGB, which is much narrower than ProPhoto RGB. This could suggest that the E-5 has a marked difference in its colour response, especially in the red space.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

You know what Ian ... it does help I prefer the IMO slightly sharper E-30 images I can deal with the noise myself later

was there anything that you know that would have accounted for that apparent extra sharpness

Regards
Andy

Are we talking RAW or camera JPEGs here?

Ian

[photo_owl]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

When viewing the E-30 and E-5 RAW files in LR 3.3 there is a big difference in the reds on my monitor; the E-5 red is cooler, while the E-5 red is tending towards orange.

.....

Ian

I think you mean E-30 is cooler and E5 tends towards orange - but would you confirm?

The LR files you have produced both illustrate the same overall difference that Paul's do, once adjusted for exposure - but you have both used the camera's WB as a starting point (correcting with the dropper isn't going to account fully for that) and I am unsure about what's creating what - and that's before you bring into play what they are being viewed on (I have used 3 browsers on 2 screens and they all exhibit the same), or the colour space factors when viewed in other applications.

Are you suggesting that the cameras will produce different colours using the same lens settings and white balance under normal lighting conditions?

[Ian]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

I think you mean E-30 is cooler and E5 tends towards orange - but would you confirm?

The LR files you have produced both illustrate the same overall difference that Paul's do, once adjusted for exposure - but you have both used the camera's WB as a starting point (correcting with the dropper isn't going to account fully for that) and I am unsure about what's creating what - and that's before you bring into play what they are being viewed on (I have used 3 browsers on 2 screens and they all exhibit the same), or the colour space factors when viewed in other applications.

Are you suggesting that the cameras will produce different colours using the same lens settings and white balance under normal lighting conditions?

Oh bother! I have corrected the original post - I mean that the E-30 result reds are tending towards orange in LR while the E-5 red is more blue in LR.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

The E-5 shooting info records a shutter speed of 1/10th second, while the E-30 was 1/6th second. The E-5 shot is definitely a bit too dark, so it looks to me like the meter is under-reading, but if you correct that the sensitivities of the E-30 and E-5 are about the same, contrary to the DxOMark data.

Ian

[Daveart]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

Hi all,I have had aplay with the raw of both in ps cs5 and applying the same adjustments to both, I think the E30 is slightly better in colour, detail they are about the same and e30 slightly better in over all sharpness and the noise appears slightly better on the E30 less distracting I would say but the same level of noise both had 58 noise luminance and colour noise to 100 at 16x12 300dpi I know you are going to say that is an increase in pixel count, the reason is that is what I would push an image to to get a print done at a printers. but both would print better than my old e510 at iso 400 at this size.

Dave

[Ross the fiddler]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

Thanks for doing that Ian,
I am feeling better about my E30 & less like I have to rush out & get the E5 for an upgrade, but it would still be nice to have with the E30. It's interesting seeing these differences appear, but I would assume it will become less of an issue as each user gets to know the capabilties of their E5.

[Ian]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

Hi all,I have had aplay with the raw of both in ps cs5 and applying the same adjustments to both, I think the E30 is slightly better in colour, detail they are about the same and e30 slightly better in over all sharpness and the noise appears slightly better on the E30 less distracting I would say but the same level of noise both had 58 noise luminance and colour noise to 100 at 16x12 300dpi I know you are going to say that is an increase in pixel count, the reason is that is what I would push an image to to get a print done at a printers. but both would print better than my old e510 at iso 400 at this size.

Dave

Interesting

Actually I feel the E-5 noise grain is more refined and regular.

Of course this only looks at ISO 3200. I'll do a similar exercise with other ISO settings in due course.

Ian

[stevednp3]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

To me the e30 is definitely sharper than the e5, the e5 has handled the noise better, but as a result lost the sharpness. It seams then if you have a e30 there is no justification to upgrade to the e5, which is some what disappointing

[Greytop]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

To me the e30 is definitely sharper than the e5, the e5 has handled the noise better, but as a result lost the sharpness. It seams then if you have a e30 there is no justification to upgrade to the e5, which is some what disappointing

Strange I noticed that too but the opposite has been my experience, actually to the extent that the difference is quite stark, the E-30 being noticeably softer at 100%.
In addition because the E-5 does need as much help sharpening an image the noise is not as accentuated as it is with the E-30. The other thing the constantly impresses is the noise control from the Jpegs of the E-5.

I wonder if Ian could comment on the apparent lack of sharpness in the E-5 shot?

[David M]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

To me the e30 is definitely sharper than the e5, the e5 has handled the noise better, but as a result lost the sharpness. It seams then if you have a e30 there is no justification to upgrade to the e5, which is some what disappointing

Well, other than the viewfinder, metal chassis and weather sealing.

[OlyPaul]

Re: E-5 and E-30 direct comparison @ ISO 3200

I'm not going to get into which is best as in my opinion its very slight and the E-30 exposure being brighter makes it difficult to compare.

But I will say thank you to Ian for supplying the E-5 ORF file and can tell you from testing that LR3 makes by far the better job of converting it compared to Silkypix Pro (which has never been good at High ISO) and Capture ONE 6.



Off course this is High ISO, now I just need the opportunity to try some others.

[stevednp3]