I don't feel that the 12-50 lens is big at all. In fact quite small and light. I also feel it is very versatile and a excellent performer. Some pan it because it's not a prime, but otherwise it offers a LOT more than just a prime can, especially for walk around and video purposes. It does a heck of a closeup if I do say so myself

DXO is currently testing the OM-D sensor and has discovered "some surprising measures" which could mean that it's either very good or very bad. I am willing to bet that the results are astonishingly good - perhaps beating most APS-C sensors. This would not come as a surprise as most people have reported that the images are better than NEX and are as good as the 7D sensor.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1041&message=42013479

Can't wait to see the final report.

In my tests, it's not quite as good as the C3 sensor which appears to be a 5N sensor with cheaper parts. Its not far apart though and I have no qualms about IQ at all.

It is very good.

I can see it being better than the obsolete canon APS-C sensors.

Well, if they report it as very very good, it frankly won't surprise me all that much. If they report it as very bad, then they are smoking something.

DxO is always a crap shoot...their numbers can give some bit of a reference point, but in other ways they are quite misleading. Their lens reviews are absolutely awful.

Previous testing with DxO software, but not BY DxO (Techradar) has shown the E-M5 to have exceptionally high dynamic range, so my guess is that's what they're looking at.

Tech Radar DR Testing

They measure RAW conversion TIFFs from the OM-D to have better DR than even the X-Pro 1, which would be rather surprising.

Thing is, if they revise it down with some rationalization, but haven't looked nearly as closely at other cameras that are ranked high, what does that say about the viability of comparisons using DxO?

My guess is that the OM-D DR will test on DXO being about 2/3rds of a stop lower than the 5N at print size, based on sensor size, which would be quite a jump up for m4/3.

I do not trust any of TR numbers, they're all over the board and my guess is they have no idea wtf they're doing.

It's possible that the E-M5 test numbers are taking long because they don't want a repeat of the GH1 RAW cheating fiasco (which they still haven't updated...).

Perhaps Olympus is doing something funky in camera with the RAW files. It does seem very weird to me how long the E-M5 takes to write files to my Eye-fi cards compared to the much larger files from the NEX-7 which is near instant. I think the files are being massaged in some way.

I guess my point is, if Oly is massaging the RAW files, that's how they should be tested. If the evaluate somehow on 'pre RAW massage' numbers, then it's a bogus test. Test the camera based on the output it produces, not on some theoretical construct. If the output results in high dynamic range without any visible detriment, I couldn't give a crap how they get there.

+1

Jman13 wrote:
I guess my point is, if Oly is massaging the RAW files, that's how they should be tested. If the evaluate somehow on 'pre RAW massage' numbers, then it's a bogus test. Test the camera based on the output it produces, not on some theoretical construct. If the output results in high dynamic range without any visible detriment, I couldn't give a crap how they get there.

It's an interesting question, I can artificially increase the DR in a TIFF of a NEX-7 by some simple edits in any raw editor. If this is what Oly is doing to the files, then that's somewhat questionable with no easy answer.

On one hand its a test of what can this sensor do if you work in post. On the other hand, its also a question of well how do the files look out of the camera.... not sure what the right answer is.

How can you increase the DR of an image in an editor? Are you talking about noise reduction or what?

Think about what DRO or Nikon's own DR booster do to their JPEGs and how the Oly E-620 technically had some of the highest DR in JPEGs in its era.

There's no law that says you can't artificially do some of the same boosting when you record in RAW.

What do DRO and Nikon do to boost DR? I mean, the sensor captures what it captures, everything after that is just tricks, right? You can increase apparent DR by cleaning up noise, and thus increasing the SNR, but you can't add more detail in the shadows.

Not sure what you mean, you can do both highlight recovery and boost shadows to increase apparent dr.

Let's say you take a picture of almost pitch black by under exposing, a dr analyzer would say its 1.1 stop of dr, if you boost the shadows the dr analyzer could now say its 2.5. Same with highlights and over exposing. If the analyzer sees you have more tones and range, it would have a higher dr rating.

The key word was "apparent". You are of course not adding anything to what is in the file... I would hope that the professional tests would take into account what is in the file, all that is in the file, and only what is in the file, to misappropriate a saying.

I don't believe any test currently takes a RAW file and measures all the possible DR available from it. Especially since it wouldn't be practical to do this since RAW conversion settings and camera profiles can also affect DR.

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/About/In-depth-measurements/DxOMark-testing-protocols/Noise-dynamic-range

Could it be ... that Olympus has implemented in-camera HDR ... on every shutter click? Conceptually so simple: dual data path from sensor to processor, then merge to RAW. (I look ahead to all of the "but it couldn't be done" responses...)

Seems to be a real shortage of images in this image thread.

I'll try to fix that when I get mine next week.

There's a reason for that. The thread was started by me to show what I got on my first outing with the 7-14 lens. I did not specifically invite everyone to submit their best OM-D images ... but I do welcome anyone who wants to post their images here!

deadwolfbones wrote:
Seems to be a real shortage of images in this image thread.

I'll try to fix that when I get mine next week.

Some from today, 7-14mm @ 7mm

If this thread was meant as a 7-14mm showcase, I wish it wasn't named as it is. How about either opening it up to all images, or renaming it?

Snapsy, that flower shot has a great perspective.