Dpreview (Click here) added the GM1 test scene samples and it looks like there is one small surprise. The images of the Gm1 appear to be tiny bit sharper than those of the GX7. Can’t say if that difference is here because of some slighty different test conditions or if the GM1 has indeed an improved processing engine.
GM1 preorder list:
In US at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
In Europe at Amazon Germany, Wex Germany, Amazon UK, Fotohanskeuzekamp, Cyberphoto Sweden and Wex UK.
63 Responses
I think GM1 is just “sharpness +1” setting than GX7’s “sharpness 0”.
because, compared to E-M1, GX7 is not sharp on JPEG (but same in RAW).
What are you talking about? Do you have both the GX7and E- M1? Did you test them side by side? I didn’t think so. And, no, you can’t make that statement based on published reviews. I do not believe any of these sharpness arguments so far. Nonsense. And I’m not buying into the GM1 being sharper than the GX7. Nonsense.
I guess you own a GX7…….
Ouch, you are right, that’s one insecure dude.
I have both on order. Image comparisons will be interesting, but they both will be “best of class” performers. The imagery is a significant advance on the already good GH3 performance. The GM1 will shine as a travel camera, especially when the 35-100 companion lens to the kit 12-32 is available. The GX7, along with the 12-35 and 35-100 X lenses, will be my new workhorse, despite the lack of a microphone jack.
Could easily be focal plane difference… and so hard to say with JPEG images.
Dpreview has quite a history of bad focus, that’s probably why they now shoot a mostly 2D target. Even so and at F/5.6 from this distance, I wouldn’t put it aside.
Don’t need to compare JPEGs either (I never bother to), the difference in RAW however isn’t as big.
The lens is the same and the conditions (from EXIF) are similar, the only difference I’ve spotted was ACR 8.2 vs 8.3.
GM-1 has a larger file size too!
No surprise here –
The GX7 is the more professional one with a more conservative sharpness processing.
Its the same as with E-M5 vs E-M1. The latter has much more natural looking and less sharpenef jpegs while showing richer details.
Like the others say, I wouldn’t infer too much from these DPReview studio comparisons. Do they even use the same lens to test all their MFT cameras?
They do use the same lens. I’m fairly certain they used to use the Four Thirds 50mm f/2 macro but they may have updated to a native m43.
They do not use the same lens.
They used the 50mm f2 for e-m5 and the 45mm f1.8 for the e-m1. Thats also why e-m5 actually looks better, because the lens is better.
Kind of unproffessional to not retest them all under the same conditions.
How are you able to tell which lens they used for a studio test?
I was hoping the studio test would give an accurate representation of what the images would look like with the 12-32mm kit lens.
nvm I found it,
The GM1 is using the olympus 45mm @f5.6
The E-M5 is using the Olympus 50mm macro.
Two different lenses…
A pixel-peeing gear-obsessed website who can’t even do a product comparison test properly?
Laughable.
I’m 90% sure they always used the 50/2 but have now changed to the 45/1.8. This will remain as the reference from now on. Just because they changed the reference lens does not mean that they habitually change lenses.
A low battery causes dull images. Just kidding:)
I’m looking forward to using this as a travel and daily camera. Wish they had done this package from day one.
I remember my GF1 was advertised as the worlds smallest interchangeable lens camera. So they have offered this package, it was just limited by 2009 tech.
For useless idiots that bitch about a fraction of clarity vs overall function.
They are also showing better than the EM1. I wonder if there was a slight dpreview screw up or shutter shock, or a fault of trying to keep color moire away.
maybe indeed the case, i found the rendering of the txt column in the centre rather soft in the case of the E-M1
Might be something to do with the 0.2mb difference in file size. No surprise that newer cam got better jpeg.
A near imperceptible and insignificant difference.
Easy to tell who’s an Oly fan.
That’s a stupid remark, it’s a Pana vs another Pana.
The reason why they first tested the 43rds 50mm was because of it’s FOV, it’s a “normal” lens, it was the best 50mm for the job. Now there’s another standard “50mm”, the native m43 45mm lens”, it’s the cheapest “normal” lens.
It can be used on Pana and Oly.
Neither are “standard” lenses, for that you need a lens around 25mm like the Leica/Pana f/1.4. The 50mm & 45mm are very moderate telephoto. Both are excellent lenses.
Maybe it has to do with the the shutter mechanisms, The GM1 uses electronic shutter for the most part while the GX7 has a more robust mechanical one, maybe what we’re seeing is a bit of shutter shock and a mix of JPEG engine sharpening.
I wish they’d add a viewfinder to the GM1 or let us use the Panny ad-on 🙁
I’d own two
When is Panny going to pull the AA filter off the sensor, they are due to try that one.
Everybody else is
I think that this is somewhat like the difference between the Fuji X-M1 and X-A1, due to the difference in preference between the cameras’ target consumer, JPEG setting are slightly different. So unless you can’t achieve the same sharpness with the GX7, it may be just a matter of the fine tuning in the engine.
Shocking! A big headline for something, which you can hardly see at the provided example and even less so in photographic practice.
Focus error.. Don’t trust DP Review.
Talk about nitpicking…
I do find the DPReview comparisons useful, but only in “print” size where what is shown is remotely representative of actual photographs.
Uhh jepg and what about raw, this really looks like wrong focus.
Admin, The link is missed. You wrote:
Dpreview (Click here)
But there is no link.
Thank you.
Lol, just compress two raw files of similar scenes, one at 200 and one at 12800 with the same settings and (esp. 0 NR). You’ll find that the noisy image is much larger.
The more information a file contains, the easier it is to compress, meaning the file gets larger. Large compressed files are not indicative of more quality, its actually quite the opposite (up to a point ofc).
I think the example using 2 extremes in iso is misleading, from where you conclude that bigger filesize does not mean better quality. Ofcourse the high iso file without NR is bigger because of the random noise pattern, making it hard to compress, But at the same time you can conclude that a larger file can have more information, so in the case of comparing 2 files at same iso, its likely that the larger file holds more information. The tests by the german FotoMagazin always use filesize in Bytes as one of their criteria for comparing digital bodies with each other.
Missing link from the post: http://www.dpreview.com/previews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gm1/5
Seems to me like the GM1 doesn’t show more detail, it just looks like it was sharpened afterwards. Also it has more false color/moiré than the GX7, E-M1 and E-M5.
who cares about jpg? and by the way I think the GX7 file looks more pleasant, the gm1 has some sort of color moire or noise or jpg artifacts I can’t really tell what it is. but the gx7 file while a bit less sharp doesn’t seem to have less details at all.
We Pro’s care about jpeg.
It’s a misconception that all Pro’s only use RAW.
Although most shoot RAW+JPEG, it’s a considerable time bonus if one can rely on the jpeg being perfect!
There’s a whole workflow added if the jpegs don’t suffice.
Exactly, not to mention being able to achieve very short turnaround times for things like news photography, live coverage of events etc.
As a Pro I don’t want to spend more time than needed processing images. That’s why composition and lightning should be spot on from the start. The occasions I have to save an image by cropping or completly adjust the lighting is few.
Fortunately my family likes me 😉 , so I’m not 24/7 busy with work.
I can imagine however that an enthousiast could spend hours on the attic getting the best out of a few images he likes, but I have to move on.
And I don’t chatter too much on a site as DPreview or this, because there’s a world beside photography gear etc.
The point isn’t that pros don’t (or do) use jpeg. The reason jpeg comparisons are meaningless is because one camera’s default values may be very unlike another’s. Think camera A’s jpegs aren’t as sharp as camera B’s? Then just click sharpening up a notch on camera A (or down on camera B).
The fact that one is sharper tells you nothing about what the camera or lens is capable of. It only tells you how the engineers set the default values on those particular cameras.
Many pro prefer jpg over raw because they value speed over quality.
On the other hand, few master photog (amateur or pro) are satisfied with their original capture. That’s because no camera can be perfect.
Today, the least imperfect cameras are the ones with the best acuity, widest DR and least noise. That is FF. The best photog will do what it takes to produce the best results.
Makes no sense to compare JPEGs, by the way…
Yes, it does make sense to compare jpegs see my comments above!!!
I’ve shot Raw only since my Canon G10. I don’t even look at jpeg comparisons on reviews.. I don’t shoot jpeg, so why should I bother?
I don’t want a smaller file size and I want the most out of my photos, which is why Raw is the way for me. I think relying on a camera’s jpegs is like a crutch.
If you stick to that, maybe you can join Jared Polin’s raw talk and get one of those ‘I shoot RAW’ t-shirts from them?
I thought at first that it could be because of JPEG processing differences, but switching to RAW in dpreview widget shows that the differenece is there either. I think it’s pretty convicing and there are few other cameras that show the same level of acuteness. However it could still be due to lens differences (or even focusing error as others suggested, though hardly believable to me).
The other interesting thing to note is how differently Fuji cameras render compared to all others, offering decisively less accutance but also what seems to be much less chroma noise/bleeding even at lowest ISO, although it suspiciously looks like it loses actual color details too.
Admin, there is a new good review for E-M1: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/olympus-e-m1/olympus-e-m1A.HTM
Another oly link on a pana post from you…
Note that DPreview has also posted new ‘real-world’ sample shots from GM1. And as was commented, it appears that 12-32 lens produced visible blur on the right side of the images. Seems like a manufacturing issue of the particular lens, but it is a bit discouraging.
Hmm, you’d never post anything about a Lumix product in an Olympus related thread now would you?
Hi
well its probably been said before but DPreview have hobbled their comparison tool with their so called update. Previously you could check against many cameras, now of course you can’t. So its good to help hide that some new things are not as good as many older ones.
unless of course they then reshoot all that old gear on the images.
DPR’s testing methodology seems to be getting increasingly sloppy. If you compare the full in their comparisons, it’s clear that sometimes the plane of focus varies from one set of images to the next.
And trying to compare sharpness using OOC jpegs is meaningless, unless great care has been taken to normalize the amount of in-camera sharpening used. Simply setting each camera to it’s default value doesn’t come close to guaranteeing the same amount of sharpening.
true (about the sloppy and about the jpgs)
however I usually looked at their RAW pages as some of the parameters were shown there.
Ballpark data is all I’m usually after.
I sometimes use Tonemapping on images to get better quality and so knowing about noise and DR is useful to me.
for example http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2008/11/tone-mapping-for-lazy-photographer.html
🙂
The reality is that the tester farted during the testing process thus causing vibration to one or the other cameras. Don’t know which. This process is called pixel pooping which is as idiotic as all the peeping which many posters seem to find interesting.
Who bloody cares which is the “best” just take pictures with whichever camera you own. It will always be better than the picture you haven’t taken with the camera you do not own (or cannot be bought yet).
Couldn’t agree more!
well I sometimes care to see if there is actually any point in upgrading my GH/GF1 to the latest cameras or if there has been no net gain.
You may deride the process of knowing about your tools, and perhaps many just froth about stuff, but I happen to like to be able to quickly make an assessment then move on.
🙂
I think Oly have removed antialiasing filter and used software post-processing to remove moire, which accounts for the miniscule difference in perceived sharpness. As a guy with signal processing background I know that including AA filter is the right thing to do. It prevents visual artifacts of discrete sampling (Shannon’s theorem). But people for some reason like the artifacts more. Just like audiophiles like the artifacts of analog tube amps even if they distort the signal. However, if anyone bases his choice of camera on pixel peeping I think he has another sort of problem. Obsessive-compulsive disorder comes to mind 🙂
Sorry by Oly I meant Pana. But Oly has done the same in OM-D E-M1.
But this is a comparison between the Lumix GX7 and Lumix GM1.
Maybe Lumix removed the AA filter as well, but please take care to not mention Olympus in this thread, or you’ll upset True Homer!