New Olympus OM-D E-M5 - at last a decent sensor for Olympus?

[Guillermo Luijk]

The recently appeared Olympus OM-D has several interesting new features:

• Integrated 1,44Mp 1,15x EVF with adjustable contrast response ("EVF Creative Control")
• EVF oriented philosophy, all operations can be done with your eye on the EVF
• Improved fast contrast AF (Olympus claims 40% faster than pro DSLR's)
• New 5 axis IS (3 rotational axis plus 2 shift axis) with stabilization seen through the EVF. This is not replicable with in-body IS nor optical VF's

But the weak point of Olympus digital cameras for ages has been lower than average sensor performance.

Some RAW files from the the new 16Mpx sensor have started to appear. This is a 100% crop of an ISO6400 shot from the OM-D with the 12-50, developed using DCRAW (100% free of noise reduction):

To me it performs like my PEN at ISO1600. An improvement of 2 stops would mean sensor performance is not any more an issue for Olympus IMO.

Regards

[deejjjaaaa]

how do you compare the raw w/ 16mp (use in GX1 for example) m43 sensor from Panasonic... do you find a sign that Olympus the same or better ?

[250swb]

As it is the same 16mp sensor as the Panasonic GH2 only the processing engine will be different. But as Panasonic will be allegedly introducing their on 'pro' camera soon it could just be they have been saving a 20mp (or whatever) sensor for themselves. In itself I don't think that is a problem for the OM-D, the image quality will be very good, but you know how people count pixels. I'm very tempted by the OM-D, very tempted.

Steve

[deejjjaaaa]

As it is the same 16mp sensor as the Panasonic GH2

GH2 has 18mp real multi-aspect sensor... it is physically bigger than regular 43/m43 sensor.

[jeremypayne]

As it is the same 16mp sensor as the Panasonic GH2

It is basically the same as the Panny G3, not the GH2 as pointed out above.

[Guillermo Luijk]

It is basically the same as the Panny G3, not the GH2 as pointed out above.

Olympus marketing director Toshiyuki Terada stated they were not going to inform about the sensor provider. Which source of information has confirmed the sensor on this camera is the same as in the GH2, the G3, the GX1, or whatever? or this is just a guess?.

[jalcocer]

This camera looks very good, I'm tempted too!

[BJL]

Olympus has been mysterious about this sensor: its size and pixel count specs roughly match the GX1 and G3, though not exactly, and Olympus says that it is different (but how different?) from any previous sensor, and has given it ISO speed settings up to 25,000, one stop more than previous sensors.

But none of that really matters; let us see how it performs. The high ISO speed JPEG samples clearly control noise with some smoothing, trading away some resolution, but that makes sense to me, and seems to give usable web-posting snap-shot grade images all the way to the top. (If you instead want sharper, noisier low light images, shoot raw!)

Anyway, rather than going blind comparing 100% crops on screen, I am looking forward to testing its promises about AF speed including improved handling of moving subjects (C-AF) through a new 240fps sensor read out for AF, and also seeing if I am comfortable with the performance of the tiltable LCD and non-tiltable EVF.

[deejjjaaaa]

Olympus marketing director Toshiyuki Terada stated they were not going to inform about the sensor provider.

so said Nikon about Sony originated sensors

[BernardLanguillier]

so said Nikon about Sony originated sensors

True, but the results were very different in the Sony and Nikon implementations so it was probably sensible not to call it a Sony sensor even if the substract was manufactured by Sony.

Cheers,
Bernard

[deejjjaaaa]

True, but the results were very different in the Sony and Nikon implementations so it was probably sensible not to call it a Sony sensor even if the substract was manufactured by Sony.

how Sony Imaging approach vs Nikon approach (or Pentax for that matter) makes Sony Semiconductor circuitry less Sony's ?

[BJL]

One guess is that there are both "Sony/Nikon" sensors (sometime exclusive to Nikon cameras) and "Panasonic/Olympus" sensors (with this new one seemingly exclusive to Olympus cameras), with some technologies contributed by each partner. I am fairly sure that I read about some Nikon patents being involved in the CCDs that Sony manufactured for Nikon, back before Sony was making its own DSLRs, and the D3X seems to have different ADC capabilities than the A900, and since ADC in on-chip, this could mean some changes to the sensor chip itself. Likewise, Olympus has a few sensor-related patents. Even if the mix is 90/10 for Panasonic/Olympus and for Sony/Nikon, it might not be as simple as being a rebranding of a Sony (or Panasonic) sensor. And of course, fabrication can be a third party job; there are numerous chip foundries capable of fabricating CMOS sensors once given the designs, just as there are fabless chip design companies  (like Apple with its A4 and A5).

[bg2b]

From looking at RAW histograms from some of the base ISO images, it appears they've done a much better job on the A/D converter than they have in the past.  It's hard to calculate precisely since people just shoot pictures instead of black frames, but the read noise may be pushing 1 ADU.  Here's hoping...

[deejjjaaaa]

Likewise, Olympus has a few sensor-related patents.

Olympus does not have any patents related to the circuitry of the sensors... naturally as an optics company they have patents related to what you put on top of the sensors (like CFA or microlenses) - but you will not find any single patent about chip design itself

[deejjjaaaa]

and the D3X seems to have different ADC capabilities than the A900

D3x has rather different sensor toppings, not different ADCs on chip.

[BJL]

Olympus does not have any patents related to the circuitry of the sensors... naturally as an optics company they have patents related to what you put on top of the sensors (like CFA or microlenses) - but you will not find any single patent about chip design itself

That might well be true (I have not done a patent search!) One then gets in to the debate about what "sensor" should refer to, ranging from only the silicon chip to the other extreme of including the whole bundle that produces a digital signal, from multiple layers of filters and micro lenses through to circuitry for charge-to-voltage conversion, analog amplification, and analog-to-digital conversion.Or maybe an even more inclusive reference to the whole package that produces the digital output, including in-camera JPEG production. There is even more ambiguity now that some of those steps are done on the main chip with some sensors, off-board with others.

I would vote for an "inclusive" usage, since that is what the typical customer sees as the bottom line for sensor performance and improvements thereof. Also, Olympus has in the past used the words "new sensor" in a very inclusive sense.

[BJL]

D3x has rather different sensor toppings, not different ADCs on chip.

Do we really know one way or the other whether the on-chip ADC system is the same or different? The D3X has different raw output options than the A900, and I have read only speculation, not solid evidence or arguments, about whether this is done purely by different usage of the same on-board ADC system, or by modifying that ADC system.

[jeremypayne]

Olympus marketing director Toshiyuki Terada stated they were not going to inform about the sensor provider. Which source of information has confirmed the sensor on this camera is the same as in the GH2, the G3, the GX1, or whatever? or this is just a guess?.

Nothing more than the similarity of the specifications.

[BJL]

From looking at RAW histograms from some of the base ISO images, it appears they've done a much better job on the A/D converter than they have in the past.  It's hard to calculate precisely since people just shoot pictures instead of black frames, but the read noise may be pushing 1 ADU.  Here's hoping...

Some E-M5 raw files are being sliced, diced and analyzed 16 million different ways over at DPReview:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1041&thread=40623667
So far, the consensus seems _very_ favorable.

And as to similarity of the specifications to those of the G3 and GX1 sensors: can this be achieved with just improved sensor toppings and better ADC?

[madmanchan]

There's definitely a lot of flexibility.  Original 5D and Nikon D3s have basically same size and # of pixels, but imaging characteristics are very different.