Best Compact/CSC For ~£400

Go for the epl5, youll love it, i had one and would still have it but had to sell to help towards FF which i always wanted.
The oly feels really good and is super fast with good images. The 45mm is great
lens and the 2 lenses you get with that offer will cover what you need. Make sure to turn on the super menu.
 
THC_SsSsSnake said:
Go for the epl5, youll love it, i had one and would still have it but had to sell to help towards FF which i always wanted.
The oly feels really good and is super fast with good images. The 45mm is great
lens and the 2 lenses you get with that offer will cover what you need. Make sure to turn on the super menu.
Click to expand...

I still need to turn on Sooper menu? How do I do this?
 
:p

http://blog.atmtxphoto.com/2013/05/07/turning-on-the-olympus-super-control-panel/

If you don't see any difference when you go into the OK menu after doign that, you've either 1). forgotten to press OK after enabling it as per the instructions above, or 2). need to press INFO to cycle between the normal OK menu and the SCP.

I still don't know why Olympus ship their cameras with such rubbish defaults.
 
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Just added the below to my bag and first impression are wow!

P1040005a.jpg


I've only took a shot sat at my desk at work and I'm already blown away. I'm loving this m4/3 system more everytime I use it.
OP get the Olympus (even though I use Panasonic!) you wont regret it!
 
Columbo said:
Just added the below to my bag and first impression are wow!

P1040005a.jpg


I've only took a shot sat at my desk at work and I'm already blown away. I'm loving this m4/3 system more everytime I use it.
OP get the Olympus (even though I use Panasonic!) you wont regret it!
Click to expand...

Looks lovely! What did you use to take that photo btw?

I'm leaning towards the Olympus now, that £400 deal ticks all the boxes for me. Plus in a few years if I want to upgrade I can just get a new body but keep my lenses, whereas the Fuji system would be a bit more restrictive.
 
King4aDay said:
I'm not sure that this is correct Demon, although I admit I'm also pretty fuzzy on it.

Have a read of this article - http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/09/why-iso-isnt-iso.html

It took me about 3 goes to begin to get my head around it and I'm still not quite there.

Then read this - http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/10/raw-is-not-raw.html
Click to expand...

Ive read many articles like those, and read 'discussions' on forums where the guys who design the sensors have chipped in about the whole subject, it is indeed quite eye-opening!!

But D.P. summed up exactly what I have learnt over the years..


D.P. said:
Olympus and other m43 cameras do overstate ther ISo by more than the other manufacturers (they all do do this to quite an extent).

HOWEVER, Dxomark scoring takes this into account. When they give an ISO score of say 1283 what they mean is using the true ISO sensitivity standard in a controlled environment where they have an exact 18% gray target and exact lighting they measure the noise. They then try to find the highest ISO setting on the camera that achieves a certain image quality minimum wrt noise/standard deviation, dynamic range and colour depth. I.e, there is no point having an image that has no noise at ISO 1 million if the dynamic range is 0.5 stops because the sensor has done some kind of noise reduction and made a gray smudge. That ISO 1283 might actually be listed as ISO 3200 in the camera but it doesn't really matter when shooting

They also reduce all images to 8MP so you can accurately compare cameras at equal print sizes. E.g., a high resolution camera might have more noise on the pixel level than a lower MP camera but you always display images at a certain size, e.g. 20x30".

This way on DXomark you can accurate compare cameras from different makes and different models with different sensors and different resolutions.


Which is why you should avoid review sites that just compare 2 images side by side shot at the same ISO - they don't take into account the true sensitivity differences. It is very eacy to have 0.5 stops exposure difference without it being too obvious but the noise difference is obviosuly big
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Totally agree on the side by side fixed ISO comparisons, totally meaningless
Just for others reference, take ISO3200 comparison images for the E-M1 vs Sony A77 on imaging resource (two I've seen differ, there are many others)..

E-M1: 1/400th f/8 ISO3200 : Here
A77: 1/640th f/8 ISO3200 : Here

Regarding DxO, I agree that they do try to take ISO sensitivity into account when determining their noise performance, and I like that they have the print method to get people over the more pixels = bad misnomer.

However, their SNR measurement has a flaw, it wholly depends on how much in-camera RAW processing is done.. They had to start marking some of the Pentax's (e.g. K5) with 'smoothed' which shows the flaw in principle.
 
Demon said:
Ive read many articles like those, and read 'discussions' on forums where the guys who design the sensors have chipped in about the whole subject, it is indeed quite eye-opening!!

But D.P. summed up exactly what I have learnt over the years..




Totally agree on the side by side fixed ISO comparisons, totally meaningless
Just for others reference, take ISO3200 comparison images for the E-M1 vs Sony A77 on imaging resource (two I've seen differ, there are many others)..

E-M1: 1/400th f/8 ISO3200 : Here
A77: 1/640th f/8 ISO3200 : Here

Regarding DxO, I agree that they do try to take ISO sensitivity into account when determining their noise performance, and I like that they have the print method to get people over the more pixels = bad misnomer.

However, their SNR measurement has a flaw, it wholly depends on how much in-camera RAW processing is done.. They had to start marking some of the Pentax's (e.g. K5) with 'smoothed' which shows the flaw in principle.
Click to expand...


The thing there is nothing they can do to prevent camera manufacturers from applying noise reduction to the RAW files. There is no other way to get the data out. At least DXO checks to see if there are any abnormalities so they can report it as smoothed. RAW is not actually that RAW, the cameras do a fair bit of processing on them, e.g. removing mapped hot/dead pixels and the like
(all sensors have some small % dead pixels, and these are just mapped out in the cameras firmware so you don't see them)

The biggest limitation i find is they don't report patterns in the noise or luminance vs colour noise. The original nikon CCD sensors had very low colour noise and higher luminance noise which tended to give a pleasant grain effect. The move to CMOS reduced he average noise but the color noise was much more prominent. The older canon sensors also used to ave very bad colour banding issues in the shadows so although the noise values weren't that high the noise was more distracting - but only if shadows were lifted.

No where does perfect sensor analysis, and a large part of this is also due to subjectivity (e.g., uniform gray noise is less objectionable to colour blobs). But DXO has by far the most accurate, objective and comparable sensor performance tests out there and is much better than comparing images side by side or searching for flickr examples from completely uncontrolled environments with who know what processing.
 
D.P. said:
The thing there is nothing they can do to prevent camera manufacturers from applying noise reduction to the RAW files. There is no other way to get the data out. At least DXO checks to see if there are any abnormalities so they can report it as smoothed. RAW is not actually that RAW, the cameras do a fair bit of processing on them, e.g. removing mapped hot/dead pixels and the like
(all sensors have some small % dead pixels, and these are just mapped out in the cameras firmware so you don't see them)

The biggest limitation i find is they don't report patterns in the noise or luminance vs colour noise. The original nikon CCD sensors had very low colour noise and higher luminance noise which tended to give a pleasant grain effect. The move to CMOS reduced he average noise but the color noise was much more prominent. The older canon sensors also used to ave very bad colour banding issues in the shadows so although the noise values weren't that high the noise was more distracting - but only if shadows were lifted.

No where does perfect sensor analysis, and a large part of this is also due to subjectivity (e.g., uniform gray noise is less objectionable to colour blobs). But DXO has by far the most accurate, objective and comparable sensor performance tests out there and is much better than comparing images side by side or searching for flickr examples from completely uncontrolled environments with who know what processing.
Click to expand...

Totally agree, you sound very knowledgeable about the subject, it's amazing how many 'arguments' you see on forums over image-comparison sites and high ISO..
 
So, OP, where did you go in the end? I was reading this thread with great interest over the weekend as I'm also in the market for an upgrade and was thinking that a smaller mirrorless camera with one or two lenses would tick all the boxes for my needs.

I've had an opportunity to play with quite a few cameras in a number of high street shops and I found the APS-C cameras to be more suitable for my hand size. In particular, I found the Fuji and Sony cameras to be my favourites from a tactile perspective. Trying to find one which ticked all my "wants" and still be within budget was difficult, though.

Currently torn between the Fuji X-E1 and the Sony a6000 (although someone did suggest I go back a level and look at the NEX6/7 for about the same price). This is subject to change at any time - as I'm really struggling to make a choice.
 
Well the NEX 6 and A6000 have a more traditional DSLR look and feel about them where as the Fuji has the retro thing going on but the looks of cameras have never bothered me.

In IQ terms the Fuji is very very good at high ISO's but up to 1600 there is nothing in it. I think the Fuji has a slightly better DR as well.
The Fuji's definitely have a better range of prime lenses and some nice zooms, but then again the NEX system has a few as well.

Either system is fairly pricey for the lenses though, as a guy who shoots quite a lot of UWA stuff the Fuji wouldnt be on my list because the Fuji 10-24mm is £849 in the UK, having said that the NEX 10-18mm is £679. It all depends on what you like to shoot. If wide aperture primes are your thing then the Fuji is the no brainer.

If it was me personally I'd be going with the NEX as I love vari angle screens and they have the LA-EA2 adaptor which opens up the A-Mount and Minolta lenses with no loss of AF.
 
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