Shootout GAS attack: Oly EM1mkii vs Sony A7iii

[comment23]

Thanks for the new side by side pics. Shows us a two stop difference in high ISO noise quality - 8000isoOLY vs 32000isoSony which is about right for FF

The Sony image looks more ‘processed’ in general to my eye. I don’t know if it’s caused by a subtle change in the angle of lighting but the colours appear a bit more vibrant? To be clear, I’m not meaning to imply that the photographer has done anything different between the two files.

The Sony image appears like it’s had more aggressive sharpening, and not all positive. For example: the detail in the hair around the eye is better but there is apparent noise/sharpening artefacts in the small section of sofa visible in the enlarged view.

Either way, the differences are fairly minor and wouldn’t bother me unless I was printing huge.

 

[Crazy150]

Okay, one more just for fun. I was playing around with my Canon FD 135 3.5 which I used on the Oly as a telephoto until I got the tele zoom. It was a true bargain if a bit slow, but the 270mm on MFT was pretty nice for the size/weight. On the Sony, it lines up against the Oly 75 which is a fave of mine for both the quality and the FL so I wanted to give it a spin. Here you go.

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Granted, without coatings I doubt it will fare well in harsh shooting but it sometimes amazes me how well these vintage lenses are able to resolve the modern sensors.

 

[Tool Crazy]

Either way, the differences are fairly minor and wouldn’t bother me unless I was printing huge.

End result is similar but 8000 vs 32000 iso is a very big deal. That's a 2 stop difference! If m43 looked that good at 32000 iso, that would be a huge advancement.

 

[comment23]

End result is similar but 8000 vs 32000 iso is a very big deal. That's a 2 stop difference! If m43 looked that good at 32000 iso, that would be a huge advancement.

That really would be something.

 

[Crazy150]

End result is similar but 8000 vs 32000 iso is a very big deal. That's a 2 stop difference! If m43 looked that good at 32000 iso, that would be a huge advancement.

It does beg the question if Oly or Panny should release their own version of the A7s with "bigger" and fewer pixels. I think quite a few prosumers would value the ability to get the shots in lower light more than the extra megapixels that is superfluous for social media anyway. Would also encourage pros to get a second body for low-light work.

An Oly em1-s with the f1.2 pro lenses would be a nice low light kit for wedding pros.

 

[ooheadsoo]

It does beg the question if Oly or Panny should release their own version of the A7s with "bigger" and fewer pixels. I think quite a few prosumers would value the ability to get the shots in lower light more than the extra megapixels that is superfluous for social media anyway. Would also encourage pros to get a second body for low-light work.

An Oly em1-s with the f1.2 pro lenses would be a nice low light kit for wedding pros.

Isn't that the gh-5s? I think it just needs ibis and g9 level pricing.

In fact, how about a gh5s style g9 but give it ibis and high res mode? Hhhr? I'd be looking at that.

 

[Sleepy Capybara]

Okay, one more just for fun. I was playing around with my Canon FD 135 3.5 which I used on the Oly as a telephoto until I got the tele zoom. It was a true bargain if a bit slow, but the 270mm on MFT was pretty nice for the size/weight. On the Sony, it lines up against the Oly 75 which is a fave of mine for both the quality and the FL so I wanted to give it a spin. Here you go.

View attachment 791745

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Granted, without coatings I doubt it will fare well in harsh shooting but it sometimes amazes me how well these vintage lenses are able to resolve the modern sensors.

Can't believe the 70's lens has more or less same acuity as one of the sharper m43 lenses of current times. In fact the details in pink blob look better on 135. Personal preferance may be but colors and Bokeh look better on Oly to me.

 

[Tool Crazy]

It does beg the question if Oly or Panny should release their own version of the A7s with "bigger" and fewer pixels. I think quite a few prosumers would value the ability to get the shots in lower light more than the extra megapixels that is superfluous for social media anyway. Would also encourage pros to get a second body for low-light work.

An Oly em1-s with the f1.2 pro lenses would be a nice low light kit for wedding pros.

Panasonic has one with the GH5s. Gets better noise performance than regular m43 sensors when looking at 100% however once you scale to normal size and compare with a similar sensor with higher mp - 16 or 20 for example, noise is basically the same. If you don't believe me, go over to the dpreview studio scene and compare any m43 camera against the gh5s in low light at high iso and hit the comp button at top and noise is basically the same when scaled.

DPReview GH5s review:
"In general terms, there's no significant advantage to large pixels over small ones: individually they have access to more light (which usually means less noise when viewed 1:1) but once you scale things to a common size, the noise and dynamic range levels tend to be similar. Instead, using more but smaller pixels can have a resolution benefit, even if you then downsize. This is because pixelated systems can only capture a certain percentage of their nominal resolution, but sampling at a higher resolution then downsizing (oversampling) can preserve some of the higher frequency detail it initially captures."

The main advantage of a lower mp sensor is for cleaner 4k video in low light which is where the GH5s excels at.

Personally I'd prefer a higher MP m43 sensor on the next flagship m43 cameras or if they could get a stop better high iso performance than what were currently getting.

 

[Crazy150]

Can't believe the 70's lens has more or less same acuity as one of the sharper m43 lenses of current times. In fact the details in pink blob look better on 135. Personal preferance may be but colors and Bokeh look better on Oly to me.

I think the 135 has less contrast, but can be compensated in post. The focus might have been slightly different and I don’t think the pink blob is in focus critically on the Oly. But it is crazy that this lens which can be had for 20-50$ plus a $10 adapter can produce similar images as a $600 lens. And that’s wide open as well. It performs equally well on the Oly body with the stabilization and I highly recommend it. Here is a nice review of it.

https://phillipreeve.net/blog/canon-nfd-3-5-135-a-review/

 

[Crazy150]

Panasonic has one with the GH5s. Gets better noise performance than regular m43 sensors when looking at 100% however once you scale to normal size and compare with a similar sensor with higher mp - 16 or 20 for example, noise is basically the same. If you don't believe me, go over to the dpreview studio scene and compare any m43 camera against the gh5s in low light at high iso and hit the comp button at top and noise is basically the same when scaled.

DPReview GH5s review:
"In general terms, there's no significant advantage to large pixels over small ones: individually they have access to more light (which usually means less noise when viewed 1:1) but once you scale things to a common size, the noise and dynamic range levels tend to be similar. Instead, using more but smaller pixels can have a resolution benefit, even if you then downsize. This is because pixelated systems can only capture a certain percentage of their nominal resolution, but sampling at a higher resolution then downsizing (oversampling) can preserve some of the higher frequency detail it initially captures."

The main advantage of a lower mp sensor is for cleaner 4k video in low light which is where the GH5s excels at.

Personally I'd prefer a higher MP m43 sensor on the next flagship m43 cameras or if they could get a stop better high iso performance than what were currently getting.

Oh ya, lol...I guess I forgot about the gh5s bc it’s so expensive and video oriented.

Comparing the original A7S to the later A7ii, there is a distinct reduction in high iso noise even when oversampled on DPReview. They don’t have the gh5s to look at that I saw, but you think it will have the same noise profile as the gh5 at 12800?

I think in theory, yes the sum of 4 small pixels offers an advantage in resolution that outweighs the slight increase in noise when combined and compared to one pixel 4x their size.

That does assume the same engineering though. Larger/fewer pixels can have different engineering optimized for low noise at high gain.

edit:

I found it:

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looks less noisy to me even if there is more info in the higher resolution image it is basically unusable bc all the noise.

 

[pake]

Nice pic. What’s your strobe setup look like? I just got the 60 macro recently.

Godox TT350o or TT685o + inflatable diffuser bought from ebay.

 

[Crazy150]

Godox TT350o or TT685o + inflatable diffuser bought from ebay.

Off camera or on?

 

[pake]

Off camera or on?

On.

 

[Tool Crazy]

Oh ya, lol...I guess I forgot about the gh5s bc it’s so expensive and video oriented.

View attachment 791791

looks less noisy to me even if there is more info in the higher resolution image it is basically unusable bc all the noise.

Had to double check myself under 12800 ISO. I normally check on the womans face, top left picture when checking high ISO noise. I also checked at 6400 ISO because over that is usually unusable for M43. At 6400 ISO gh5s against em1ii, GH5 and G9, they all look very similar. Same ISO but over the beetles badge, the g9 is very similar to the GH5s while the em1ii and gh5 are about a stop worse. At 12800 ISO over the beetles badge, same results however the g9 while still looking similar in noise to the gh5s, looks about maybe a a third to a half stop worse than the gh5s but still very close.
https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison?attr18=lowlight&attr13_0=panasonic_dcgh5&attr13_1=panasonic_dcgh5s&attr13_2=olympus_em1ii&attr13_3=panasonic_dcg9&attr15_0=raw&attr15_1=raw&attr15_2=raw&attr15_3=raw&attr16_0=12800&attr16_1=12800&attr16_2=12800&attr16_3=12800&attr126_1=1&attr126_2=1&attr126_3=1&normalization=print&widget=1&x=-0.3404438165872034&y=0.16546887347440514
At 3200 ISO all three are very similar. So it appears the GH5s has an advantage at 6400 ISO and higher although the G9 is not that far behind.

 

[Saledolce]

A friend let me hold his A7iii once. I found the ergonomics horrible. I also noticed that focusing seemed quite slow; maybe because the lenses are bigger?

I have also looked at several RAW images taken with the A7iii. I must say that I found the difference very noticeable. On micro four thirds, blue skies always contain noise (when not applying noise reduction); with the A7iii the sky was very clean. On micro four thirds, I take care to expose correctly, because there is not much room to correct things in post (maybe 1 or 2 stops); with the A7iii images I could raise the exposure by 3 stops and still have a clean image.

I had and A7ii for a year, with two primes and the awesome 24-105 f4. That was my experience too. I went back to full m43, because I can live with the limits and enjoy the strengths, but I find hard to deny the difference in IQ and the enormous flexibility of raw files.

 

[Saledolce]

Holy hell this is the worst designed camera ever--and this is MK3? WTF, how bad was the mk

I read mk3 was an improvement over mark ii, I'll give Sony a couple more marks and then try again. Ergonomics and overall how the camera feels in hands was one of the main reasons for coming back to m43.

AF-C was excellent, the 3.0 firmware reduced the gap ( that was embarrassing before) but thats still a Sony strenght.

 

[Jeroen81]

Am I the only one that often sees these side by side shots and without squinting at them or spending 10 minutes looking at every detail think "Meh, they look about the same to me, what's the big deal"?

No, I have the same.
And them I am questioning myself if it's just me that can barely see a difference. Good to know there are more.
Who shoots ISO 12800 or higher anyway. I must have look into it in Lightroom but I don't think I ever shoot above ISO 3200.

What matters for me is the joy of making photographs and good results. With my Olympus I get both at a reasonable price. And loaded with nice features. Also good lenses are reasonable priced compared to 35mm.

Did hold an A7 Mark II at the local photo club with the 28-70 kitlens I believe. The grip was good enough for me with this lens. But it didn't attract my somehow.

 

[pake]

A few months back I started to feel the draw of the Sony full frames... Went to a local camera store and tested how different cameras felt in my hands. I'm glad I did that. There's no way I want a camera (ie. body alone!) that feels so heavy compared to my E-M5.

And one nice unexpected thing that my E-M5 -> E-M5iii upgrade brought was the lighter setup. I had to use a custom grip on my old E-M5 but the E-M5iii has so much better ergonomics that there is no need for a additional grip and is therefore lighter than my old one.

 

[Catch22nm]

I had a the same GAS attack last year and switched from the Em5-MKII to the A7III in search of greener pastures before switching back again to M43.

If you want the short story I was taking less photos, enjoying photography less and the few times the Sony wowed me compared to my trusty MKII were not enough to keep me on the dark side. Long story below.

I was happy with the shots I was getting from the Sony but I hated way the camera felt in hand, the IBIS is not even close to as good and the size and weight difference when coupled with a few lenses bothered me. When I took the Sony on a few trips out of the country. I found myself leaving the A7IIi at our hotels because of the heavy lenses (and subsequently worrying about my gear being stolen)

I also never felt like the camera held up to normal wear (the body scuffed up at the slightest touch of anything remotely hard which my Olys never did) I was also in wet climates and there are not too many weather sealed small lenses available for Sony and to be honest I just didn't trust the camera to survive heavy rain.

In the long run (tried it for about 9 months) I found I wasn't bringing my camera with me every day like I did pre Sony experiment.

So I sold all my Sony gear and I'm back to Olympus (EM5-III and I'm loving it so far) and minus a few dollars.

So just a thought, if you are a traveler or adventurous type, make sure the improvements in low light and depth of field are worth the trade offs in camera feel, weather sealing, Ibis performance, size and weight.

 

[Crazy150]

Update. So, I've been using the A7iii quite a bit. No traveling, but family candids over the holidays and a local museum. I have to say that I have gotten quite a few shots with it that just wouldn't have been possible with the EM1.2. Example, we were in this science museum and they had a mirror maze with dim lighting. I had the sony setup for shutter priority to freeze the kids moving around. Was pretty astounded to see that the photos inside this maze were ISO 20000 to 30000, they had a little noise but the detail was still there and the noise is not unpleasant (similar to Oly actually). Sorry, can't post sample bc don't want to put pictures of my friends kids on the internet. But there is no way I could have gotten those on MFT.

I got a grip extender and finished customizing it so the usability and ergonomics are much better now, but still miles from Oly. Perhaps there are more things for me to learn, but this is the big difference. So far, I haven't missed the flippy screen.

The two Tamron 2.8 zooms (17-28, 28-75) are very good. They are pretty similar in performance (with the FF sensor) and even size/weight to the Oly pro zooms. These have stayed on the camera and are, IMHO a game changer for the system bringing it close to the portability of MFT.

What has been hard is making sure there is enough depth of field. With the Oly 2.8's it was rarely a problem to have subjects OOF. So, I have to be careful now and use full manual or aperture priority with minimum shutter selected. If I let the camera choose ISO with shutter priority and it opens up to 2.8 it's hard to capture a scene sometimes. So, it's a good example of when FF and shallow DOF isn't always nice. The sony AF is great but always prefers the nearest object in the scene which can be pretty annoying. Luckily the face/eye detect is great.

I agree that the stabilization is not nearly as good. Nowhere more evident than in video mode. Half pressing the shutter on the Oly starts magic, but on the sony it's just barely good enough to help.

Still not sure what I'll do. Probably keep both bodies and a reduced set of lenses for each.