E1 review/Olympus digital tonality?

Photozone posted a favorable review of the Olympus E1 some time ago:<br><br>

<a

href="http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/dslr/olympus_e1/verdict.htm">http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/dslr/olympus_e1/verdict.htm</a><br><br>

 

 

<i>Within the ISO100 to ISO400 range the E-1 renders beautiful images with vivid

colors and smooth tonality - especially when using the Olympus RAW converters

but also Raw Shooter Essential. When checking the various Olympus forums on the

web you may be surprised that many people exchanged their Canon or Nikon DSLR

just for this characteristic. Many user argue with "film like" color rendition

and I tend to concur here. Unfortuntely the camera didn't really like polarizers

during the field tests - the white balancing was way off here usually.</i><br><br>

 

 

The above review excerp refers to something called <i>smooth tonality</i>. As

someone who has not yet seen large prints of Olympus dslrs, is this attribute

real? If so, how is it accounted for? And have there been people who switched to

Olympus from Canon or Nikon because of it?

Forums often have vociferous chest-pounders repeatedly telling the world how great their choice of gear is. So sure, there might be a handful of loudmouth gearheads who have migrated from some brand to Olympus, but it's a small number, and there are probably a whole lot more Olympus film owners who migrated to Canon and Nikon.

I am under the impression that "camera users" as apposed to photographers change systems as soon as the megapixel count or frame rate increases. Image quality? What the hells that?

I have made up to 16" prints and have seen 20" ones too and the tonality is very good; the

Oly can definitely bring home the bacon. But I do think every DSLR is different, just like

every film is (was?) different and the choice is mostly one of personal preference.

 

I don't care much for the Canon look and prefer Olympus, just like I prefered Provia to

E100 but Portra films to NPS/NPH. That said, if I were willing to spend the cash and

ignorantly thought it would make me a better photograper, I would buy a 5D, so obviously

I don't dislike the look *that* much or feel that strong about it.

 

On top of that, the skills of the printer, and the look he creates matters as much with

digital as it did with optical prints, making it very hard for any review to come up with a

decisive answer; they may well prefer the *default* look of one camera to another!

It would be an issue for me...smooth tonality and the general 'look' of a picture is more important than some machine-generated assessment of quality with its illusion of objectivity. (OK, MTF curves are important, but only to a certain extent).

 

There is the really plastic look about now, maybe not only native to the Canon (as sometimes said), but seemingly reinforced afterwards. It looks like those hyper-real paintings, which hit their high point sometime past, but are also back a bit in favour.

 

This is fine for an effect, but not as a normal thing. Beautiful rendering is the key. Digital 'sharpness' is pretty easy to acheive based on the ease in which even the simplest image programs can sharpen edges until the cows come home. When the tonality and sharpness come together (eg in a Zuiko 90 f2!) the result is great.

 

It seems this is being acheived in MF digital better (better dynamic range, better processing etc).

When I read the comments about Olympus E1 "tonality", I wondered if this was the result of simply "superior" sharpness of the Olympus E optics, a software design choice or some combination of both. As a heavy medium format user (P645 and Mamiya 7), I know that MF blows 35mm away with no trouble or ambiguity whatsoever. But that is due to the immense amount of noise/grain that is inherent with photographic film. <br><br>

 

However, I'm not yet certain that bigger is always better in the digital realm beyond the tiny sensors of current P&S digitals. People have reported seeing little difference in enlarged results between Canon FF digital and Nikon's top digital camera. And this indecisive verdict was reached, without taking into account that Nikon (or APS in general) could be further supplemented by supperior lenses can be had by reducing their coverage from full-frame to just APS. So let me ask two more questions:

 

<ol>

<li>Does the noise level of the Olympus E1 match that of the Canon 1DS or 5D at each camera's lowest setting--100ASA?<br><br>

<li>Can one perceive a difference in sharpness between the E 50F2.0 Macro and a good 50mm OM Zuiko--a very late 50F1.8 or 50F1.4 for example?

</ol>

 

If the answer to both of the above questions is a Yes, then can the statement be made that the Olympus 4/3's system is superior under certain conditions--or at least matches APS and FF digital? Or so it would seem to me!

<br>The remaining question is how much of the "character" of 4/3's system is due to software. That might be answered by whether it exist only <i>if</i> Olympus RAW conversion software is used--does it disappear if PS (or some other theird party) is used for RAW extraction?