Part 4 – Image Quality

Introduction

OK, enough about the handling, live view and everything else
– what about image quality?

Honestly, I think it’s getting easier and easier to assess
image quality these days. Under $2,000 the gap between the best and worst
DSLR’s in terms of image quality has narrowed significantly and now I honestly
believe it’s getting quite difficult to make a bad choice when buying a camera.
For me, it’s now much more about what system you want to invest into and the
specifics of the camera itself.

Of course, that’s not to say there are not differences or that image quality is
not absolutely fundamental. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m getting
surprised less and less these days.

And that, applies to the E-410 also – which by the way, is a
good thing. When I heard about the new Live MOS sensor, I was expecting /
hoping for slightly better control over the high ISO noise than in previous
revisions, while maintaining excellent resolution / colour and that’s pretty
much what’s been delivered.

What I’ll do is run through a few images which show the resolving quality of the sensor at various ISO’s, do a few ISO comparisons and then show what the camera is really capable of with a bit of well thought out execution.

Camera Settings

First of all – the settings I use:
- All images below are show in JPEG only. I didn’t have a good RAW converter this week which could handle E-410 files so I’ve been shooting JPEG. I describe the differences between RAW and JPEG in another article. Because I made the effort to expose / white balance correctly, you can assume the differences in the images you see below, and what I would have got in RAW, to be negligible.
- I set the camera to contrast +1 in most cases
- I set the camera to saturation +1 in all cases
- Standard sharpening
- Noise reduction is set to low in almost all cases
- I do not use the kit lens in any of the shots below. The kit lens is fine – in fact it’s rather good particularly considering it’s size / weight / etc. However, for image quality I’m more interested in testing what the camera is capable of and that requires higher quality glass. For all shots I use the 14-54 f/2.8-3.5, a superb mid range zoom that is exceptionally well priced (and sized) when compared to say the 17-55 f/2.8 from Nikon. I also make use of a 30 year old OM 50mm F/1.4. I make a specific point of that when it’s being used.

Standard Images

So, the first image. This is a standard outdoor shot – of a big golden Buddha.

Original Image (click to enlarge):

100% Crop (click to enlarge):

These are straight of the camera JPEG’s of an image at 54mm, F/5, 1/200s and ISO 100. I exposed this with a slight EV compensation of +0.3 due to the reflective nature of the gold surface.

I find the results of this image to be very pleasing. Resolution is excellent throughout the image. Near the top of the image, at the 100% crop you can see very fine detail in the Buddha’s face. There’s no noise to speak of, and safely applying a small unsharp mask will realise even better results. Colour, saturation, exposure are all accurate – this is pretty much exactly how the scene looked.

The second image is another shot at ISO 100, but of the sky which I know some people noted was underexposing. The image follows:

Original Image (click to enlarge):

You’ll notice that this image, shot at ISO 100, 1/2500 sec, F/8 and -0.3 EV is definitely showing some
underexposure. However, you’ll also want to note that I’m actually deliberately causing this underexposure. This was shot with a 30 year old OM 50mm F/1.4 stopped down to F/8 which introduces a large amount of underexposure. I’ve also manually enhanced this future by exposure compensating to -0.3EV and I even metered off the sky. Why go to all this effort? Well, for two reasons. One to show that even under these extreme conditions, the E-410 is still handling the situation reasonably well and two, to explain that underexposure is significantly preferable to overexposure as it protects your highlights. This is what I would call a "conservative" choice by the camera and it’s what the higher end Nikon’s do. As far as I’m concerned, it’s easily the right choice.

Lets take this image and increase levels on it.

Original image with increased levels / brightness (click to enlarge):

OK so that looks better. Now lets zoom in to 100%.

100% Crop (click to enlarge):

Note here that while resolution is very good we can just about start to see some noise creep into the image. So what I’ll do is run a quick pass of Noise Ninja, sharpen and see what we’re left with:

Final 100% Crop after Noise Ninja / sharpening (click to enlarge):

This image is no devoid of noise and shows excellent detail. Again, I remind what lens I’m shooting with.

I deliberately picked these conditions to show that even in worse case, undexposure due to shooting into the sky is both preferably and recoverable.

OK so lets look at slightly higher ISO noise images.

The following is of one of my dogs. This was shot indoors under natural light at ISO 400.

Original Image (click to enlarge):

100% crop (click to enlarge):

This image was shot at 38mm, handheld at just 1/5 secs, at F/3.5 and ISO-400. I set the camera to underexpose slightly at -0.3EV.

Here you can see that the setting of ISO-400 does start to introduce noise but I think it’s relatively well controlled. I’m showing this shot as it’s naturally dark – where noise will show up much more than on bright scenes – and I was able to print this image at a larger than 8×10 size before I could significantly notice any real presence of noise in the image. The thing I liked about the noise characteristics was that I couldn’t detect a significant drop off in either dynamic range of saturation / colour – which are the two aspects of high ISO which cause as much (if not more) of a problem than the visibility of noise itself.

Lets look at another scene – of my same dog but shot outdoors and at ISO 800.

Original Image (click to enlarge):

100% Crop (click to enlarge):

Now we’re outside and the shutter speed is higher again. This was shot at 54mm, f/3.5, 1/40sec and ISO-800. Due to the fact that I was shooting an entirely black surface, I had to underexpose by -0.7EV this time (this is normal / expected). Here in the 100% crop you can see excellent detail. The presence of noise has made little to no impression on the detail / resolution and again, I have to tip my hat to Olympus here for sticking with a conservative approach to noise reduction. We always have the choice to go clean up the image further in Noise Ninja / Neat Image later if we wish but that choice is given to the photographer (rather than removing the option by over aggressive noise reduction).

This is an excellent sensor and JPEG engine at work in my opinion.

ISO Images
Continuing on the ISO topic, here is a scene I took late one afternoon in the setting sun. It is of a padlocked door shot at ISO 100, 400, 800 and 1600.

Original Image (click to enlarge)

100% Crop at ISO 100 (click to enlarge):

100% Crop at ISO 400 (click to enlarge):

100% Crop at ISO 800 (click to enlarge):

100% Crop at ISO 1600 (click to enlarge):

If you browse through this sequence you’ll probably notice, like I did, that the ISO 100 image looks a little soft. This was due to camera shake (it was handheld) and not at all a reflection on the sensor. Once the shutter speed gets up faster, at ISO 400, you see the image looks very sharp once again. Looking beyond that, I once again noticed the same pattern with increasing ISO… That noise is noticeable but well controlled at ISO 400, that it’s slightly more noticeable at ISO 800 but that detail probably has suffered very slightly due to noise reduction and that both noise and detail loss are more apparent at ISO 1600.

Image Quality Conclusions

Given these results, and the hundreds of other images I took during the week, I can conclude the following about the image quality in the E-410:

- Excellent resolution. When using the camera with a lens that can resolve sufficiently, you see excellent detail and clarity from edge to edge.
- Excellent colour and saturation.
- Noise free images at ISO 100 and effectively the same at ISO 200. Some noticed noise creeping in in certain scenes (e.g. skies, etc), but I put this down more likely to a badly exposed images. At ISO 400, noise is visible but well controlled and saturation / dynamic range remains high. At ISO 800 it’s noticeable and you’ll start to see a slight drop off in detail. At ISO 1600, noise is noticeable as is the reduction in detail.

At low ISO (100-400), I’d put the camera on a par with anything else out there in the entry – mid range. I’ve really been impressed with the quality and as I say, when combined with the superb lens range, the camera is capable of producing spectacular images.

At high ISO (800 – 1600), I’d say that comparing it to samples, the camera shows a marked improvement over previous versions of high megapixel Olympus DSLR’s and is definitely acceptable when compared to other manufacturers. I rank it slightly behind Canon’s 400D, but then I’d rank pretty much any entry level DSLR behind that particular camera. Honestly, I didn’t actually expect to see high ISO this well controlled on a 2x crop (Four Thirds) camera this year except at the top end of their range.

To summarise, Olympus have done an excellent job integrating this latest sensor into the E-410. Processing choices are intelligent, resolution and output is excellent and ISO is surprisingly well controlled.  The depth of field that can be obtained from images is also excellent, due to the nature of the Four Thirds sensor / 2x crop.

The Real Samples

I’ve always believed a reviewer’s recommendation has more credibility if he / she can actually produce good images with the camera. As such, I’ll put my own credentials to the sword and have published a gallery of images that I’ve taken in less than a week with this camera. I’ve posted a few below in line, the rest you can view here in my online gallery.

Note – all the images below have been post processed. I typically have a 1 minute rule where 90% of my photographs will be processed in under 1 minute – and that applies below. Most consist of just basic levels adjustments, modifying of contrast and / or saturation and resize / sharpen. Some contain a bit more complex dodging and burning. Click on any image to enlarge.