Nikon D800E and Olympus OM-D

No, I´m not going to use both D800E and OM-D. This was just one of my reality checks. It is nice to check every now and then what´s going on with various brands and systems. I did not want have the subject as D800E versus OM-D because this also is not about that. There is no single camera of which I could say that it is made for me. There are a few cameras I could be perfectly happy with, if there were no other choices. Both of these two overlap my needs but differently, and I wanted to know to what extent and how differently.

Size matters

One of obvious differencies between these cameras is physical size and weight. The image above shows them with lenses which give (almost) equal angles of view: Nikon 35mm f/1.4 G AF-S and Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8. Both are the best native "35mm" prime lenses from respective brands for these bodies. 

The difference by 2X for focal lengths in these lenses shows that there is also the same difference between image size on sensor. The area of OM-D sensor is roughly one quarter of D800E sensor size. Respective sensor sizes in pixels are 6144 x 4912 pixels for Nikon (36 megapixels) Nikon and 4608 x 3456 pixels (16MP) for Olympus. Sensors have different aspect ratios, 3:2 for Nikon and 4:3 for Olympus. Because of different aspect ratios final images are cropped a bit differently and actual resolutions are dependent on this cropping. I would say that D800E has roughly 37% more linear resolution to start with when compared to OM-D. True relationship with image quality is dependent on many factors including filters on sensor, the lens and of course users´s shooting and post-processing technique.

Handling

I have used Nikon FF DSLRs long enough to be happy with D800E from the start. There´s "nothing" to it. It´s just like a Nikon should be. Olympus OM-D has become pretty much an extension of my right hand. D800E couldn´t become so much used because of weight and size. For me this is the difference, not handling as such but size and weight. Every extra lens makes the disparity only more favorable for OM-D.

This is the situation now. If I were still an advertising photographer I would go for more resolution and Nikon´s excellent 85mm PC-E lens. Nikon has also better AF tracking, but I don´t need it.

Camera Body Tests

I have tested and written about OM-D. Others like dpreview.com or dxomark.com have tested both. I will not go any deeper into that territory here, just refer to a couple of measurements later when they mean something.

Key West, Florida, USA, 2013. OM-D w. 17mm f/1.8 lens

Camera-with-Lens Performance

This is what I´m interested in. Final image quality with RAW images opened in latest Lightroom.

I posted in January a blog on diffraction. There D800E was my example for two reason: diffraction is easy to see because of huge resolution but also it is not such a problem as common "wisdom" says. I´m not going to duplicate those crops from image center here.

Here is my test targets as shot with D800E:

I shot the same with OM-D so that the subject ie. those targets take the same area of frame. Lets compare what happens in corner targets, which are far from extreme corners. 

Above is D800E 35mm at f/8 and below OM-D 17mm at f/4. Nikon D800E crop is 100% and OM-D crop has been enlarged to the same size. Why these apertures? Because that´s my most used depth of field and DOFs are equal when D800E is closed down two steps more than OM-D.

Now, check Nikon 35mm center performance in my previous post. The difference is quite obvious to what is seen here with Nikon 35mm lens. Even here D800E crop is slightly sharper or should I say cleaner than the enlarged OM-D crop but the difference is neglible for any practical need. There is a test of Nikon 35mm f/1.4 G lens at photozone.de. They tested with Nikon D3x. D800E only amplifies the difference between center and corner performance.

In this example ISOs are at 100 for Nikon and 200 for Olympus, these are studio shots on tripod. I shoot normally hand held. To keep shutter speeds the same I would need then to raise my ISO for Nikon to 800 if OM-D is at 200 in order to have same DOF. Actually this would not be a problem for Nikon in this kind of situation. ISO 800 suffers only slightly. The difference is even not worth producing here. What happens though is that D800E loses it´s lead in dynamic range, which can´t be seen with this kind of target. According to dxomark.com these two cameras would have practically the same dynamic range at ISO 200/800 setup. The same is true for tonal range and color sensitivity. The only real difference between these cameras with these lenses would be resolution in the center of frame. (Structures in grayscale is not sensor noise, this structure comes from printed target). 

Key West, Florida, USA, 2013. OM-D w. 17mm f/1.8 lens

In Print

I prepared print size files for you to print and see. Nikon crops are from the center of frame and, lazy as I am, OM-D crop is the same off-center as above. M.Zuiko 17mm has quite even performance over the frame. In print size A3 there is no visible difference in print between images or test target from these two cameras.

Also size A2 prints are quite similar with normal everyday subject, but with this kind of target the higher resolution of D800E (above) can just possibly be seen on glossy paper. It depends on printer, paper etc. Make a 6 by 6.1 cm and 300 ppi background in Photoshop. Copy and drop the above crop from A2 print file into it. Print with your printer. Any difference?

This is an image file for a crop from A1 print. Make a 6 by 8,7 cm and 300 ppi background in Photoshop. Copy and drop the above image file into it. Print with your printer. Any difference?

Real Life

Pixel peeping on screen and reading numbers on some test sites is easy. Knowing what matters in real life and what doesn´t (and how much or how little) is a lot harder. These examples above show that the absolutes are not valid in real life, and these examples are still far from real life and in favor of the one which has the better starting point.

In real life hand held photography there is one more thing which forces these cameras closer to each other. It is in-body image stabilization (IBIS) which OM-D has.

What we have here is again D800E above and OM-D below, but this time I´m shooting hand held in a dim light. Exposure for OM-D is 1/13 s at f/4 and ISO 200 with IBIS on. I can get sharp images with a ratio of 9/10. To get sharp images with D800E, I had to set shutter speed at 1/30 s at f/8 and raise ISO accordingly to 2000. Now my test gave me sharp images with a ratio of 3/10. Sharp and sharp... Well, this is what I get at these parameters. This goes to show the power of IBIS. Besides of sharpness there are other things to consider, at ISO 2000 D800E has fallen below OM-D in dynamic range and color accuracy. IBIS keeps you going within the sweet spot of OM-D for a long time.

Miami Beach, Florida, USA, 2013. OM-D w. 17mm f/1.8 lens

Summary

Technically, if you are striving for the most detailed images, Nikon D800E is far better than OM-D. It has more resolution, wider dynamic range and higher color accuracy. But then also you must be up to task because this goodness does not come for free for the careless shooter. You must use tripod, you must use only the best lenses inside their best performance envelope. Small things mean suddenly a lot if you want keep the performance up. On the other hand D800E has plenty. You can give away a lot and still get great images.

My D800 pluses compared to OM-D

- lots of resolution, dynamic range and color accuracy to start with

- better viewfinder in bright daylight

- possibility to have shorter DOF

My OM-D pluses compared to D800E

- size and weight

- IBIS helps keeping ISO low and dynamic range up

- better exposure metering (ETTR) with a practical gain of at least 1EV in DR 

If I were a hardcore dedicated landscape photographer or still an advertising photographer, I would take D800E. While I am not, D800E does not give me anything above OM-D in practical shooting and in my print range of A3 to A1. It would not make my images any worse either. It only is bigger and heavier and it would strip me from many shooting opportunities which a smaller system gives just by being smaller and handier to have with me.

-p-

Being Diffraction Limited

Luckily this subject makes no dramatic screen play even though some writings about it in the internet make it seem so.

First of all: what is diffraction? Wikipedia explains it quite thoroughly. Please read there and look at animated examples. To explain how light works, light must be partly explained as waves and partly as tiny particles, photons. Light is counted as photons in camera´s image sensor. Light behaves like waves when it interacts with the diaphragm inside lens. Common sense would say that tiny particles would either go straight through the slit or hit it and bounce off. Common sense is wrong, diaphragm is a slit which makes light waves bend and causes diffraction. Actually the whole lens and/or every single lens element of the lenses causes diffraction but the smallest opening is the most important. The smaller the opening the more we have diffraction. This makes the diaphragm the major culprit in most cases. 

Wikipedia shows how diffraction (see Airy disk) is directly dependent on the wavelength of light and the f-number used. The bigger the f-number the smaller the aperture and the more diffraction. The longer the wavelength (ie redder light) the more diffraction. In spectrum the opposite short wavelength end is blue and causes least diffraction. In the middle we have yellow-green.

Wikipedia shows lots of equations but in practical photography you need only remember those two: aperture and color of light. Red spreads more than blue. And the fact that diffraction is a property of every lens.

Diffraction limited bodies?

In the internet there are furious debates on camera bodies being diffraction dependent or diffraction limited. How come when diffraction is property of the lens? This an issue which has risen when megapixel counts get bigger. The more megapixels in a sensor the smaller the sensor elements are. Well actually it is the opposite: we get more megapixels with smaller sensor elements, sensels or pixels, if you want. We have long ago passed the point when Airy disk can cover several sensels. Lets say we have two very small light sources side by side. They can´t be seen as two on sensor if those Airy patterns overlap enough. Two becomes first a rod with two blobs at the ends and then with even smaller apertures those blobs grow together. No resolution left, more pixels inside that blob does not help.

The theory of diffraction alarmists is that more megapixels is bad because diffraction is seen at ever larger apertures and this will make such cameras useless for most of photography. It was long ago when I mentioned to bosses at Canon that sensors are coming eventually diffraction limited. My point was that in commercial photography, like in table tops or product shoots, we need to use small apertures to get enough depth of field. They must make sure that the gain in sensor resolution and increasing bit depth does not cause problems here. The answer was that there is no such thing as a sensor being diffraction limited, never heard of. Oh well...

An example of diffraction

There are hundreds of blogs and thousands of discussions on Nikon D800 and how it is diffraction limited. "You should not use smaller aperture than..." Yes, Nikon D800 is a good example to bring something tangible into this discussion, which now becomes one of those hundreds and thousands. Actually I wanted to test Nikon D800E and its 36 MP sensor just to see how good it really is. It was sort of reality test to see where things are going. As a sidekick we can check these Nikon D800E test images as an example on how diffraction works:

f/1.4

f/2.0

f/2.8

f/4.0

f/5.6

f/8.0

f/11

f/16

Looking at the series above you can see how they get sharper up to f/4.0 and then start to get softer after f/5.6. I really can´t pick the better one from f/4.0 and f/5.6. Now, diffraction is there all the time, but it is not the only working parameter in optics. Other gains make the image better when diaphragm closes down untill diffraction becomes too strong. I have prepared these examples so that lightest areas are the same in all images. By doing so diffraction eats from dark areas and you can see how black lines get weaker. I could correct a lot of it in postprocessing but I wanted to show how diffraction works. These crops are 100% and from the center of image. The lens here is the relatively new Nikon 35mm f/1.4 G AF-S. The pattern seen in people silhouettes is moiré. Nikon D800E is the second camera I have tested which is able to show it. The first was my PhaseOne P45+ digital back with the better Mamiya 645 lenses. This combination is so good that you can see this moiré pattern even wide open. Why am I speaking about moiré as a good sign? It is because those areas are printed with a very tight raster. Only the sharpest lenses and sensors can see that there is a pattern. D800E can´t resolve the pattern itself yet, no one-shot consumer camera can from my shooting distance. By f/16 the lens can not convey even a hint of this pattern to sensor because Airy patterns overlap so strongly.

Being Diffraction Limited

To get a better idea how deeply (or not) D800 is diffraction limited is to compare it to D700, which has 12 megapixels. They both have a full 35mm size sensor, which means that D700 has bigger sensor elements and it should not be as much diffraction limited as D800. Right?

This comparison image shows D800E above and D700 below. Aperture is at f/5.6 to be on the safe side for D700. Again D800E is at native 100% and I have enlarged D700 image to same size by using Photoshop Bicubic Smoother interpolation. This is pretty much what happens if you want to print a D700 image as large as a D800E image. Well, this tells us only that D800E has more pixels and this lens can show it. How ever, the difference is not coming from megapixels alone as D700 has in front of sensor a low pass filter which softens images while D800E doesn´t. (Actually also D800E has a certain layer structure because of which this could be argued, but it really is of no concern here.)

Same situation, but now my aperture was at f/16. To give D700 a slight advantage I have corrected its contrast, but even then there´s no question which camera shows more detail. It is easy to see that D700 has not suffered as much from diffraction, it is not as much diffraction limited. But this is only because D700 is more limited to start with. Diffraction is a relative thing, it is a gradual thing. There is no Diffraction Limit™ which hits your images and makes them suddenly unusable. But there also is no superhero called Diffraction Buster. You have learn to live with diffraction, and preferably, learn to correct what it smudges in post process when you need to close down because of need for DOF.

Rules of thumb

When you think about image quality you should always think about the combination of lens and body. As a simplification (image quality) = (lens quality) * (body quality). Body quality meaning sensor plus conversion to final image. Here the lens quality must drop dramatically before the difference between these bodies becomes obscured. As a rule of thumb we could say that diffraction starts to show in images when you have closed aperture down a full stop from the size (number) of pixel pitch. Nikon D800 sensor´s pixel pitch is 4.88 µm. This tells us that we can go beyond f/5.6 to almost f/8, just like is seen above. And then again we must remember that diffraction is caused by the lens. With slower lenses, like a zoom having f/5.6 as largest aperture, image quality usually gets only better when stopped down by one stop. But there are also lenses, especially with P&S cameras, which should always be used wide open, if you think only about image quality as seen here. Know your equipment!

I will come back to D800E and discuss OM-D with it in a later blog.     

-p- 

The Road to Photokina 2012

This peculiar image (image source: wikipedia) dates back 30 years. Kodak Disc Film and Disc 4000 camera were introduced at Photokina 1982. The camera was fully automatic and the film disc was inside a convenient plastic cassette. You just had to drop the cassette inside camera, press the shutter button and Kodak took care of the rest. It´s was the simplest solution for handling film, ever. Today we have of course memory cards and no more film processing. What has not changed is the aim to have small and simple to use cameras. 

Speaking of small, look at the prism housing of this Nikon F3. Huge. This is the first autofocus camera by Nikon, the F3 AF, also introduced at Photokina 1982 (image source: wikipedia). It had two AF lenses, 80mm and 200mm and the focusing was not actually fast by today´s standards. It was slow but pro. Although the consensus among pros was then that we don´t need any damn autofocusing. The original Nikon F3 look with that red stripe (and the original beautifully proportionate prism, of course) was designed by the famed Giorgetto Giugiaro. I guess he too damned the F3 AF... However, both AF and red stripe have stayed. And so has Nikon.

Kodak was not so fortunate. Disc film was a bold move to streamline film handling both for consumer and labs. And simplify cameras. Too bad the film was not ready for it. As you can see, frames on processed negative disc are very small. They were too small and the prints turned out grainy and unsharp. Many labs helped the effect by using cheaper, optically inferior printing solutions. Despite Kodak´s massive marketing Disc cameras never became popular and were soon forgotten. And now also Kodak is little more than history, although one of the most glorious chapters in the history of photography. 

Kodak was so big then, they had one hall just for them at Photokina 1982. Nikon was then the choice of pros (Af sorning and others), but then Canon made better AF systems and minds turned. Hasselblad´s huge medium format multi projector slideshows were so impressive. 3D was making one of it´s comings... 30 years ago Photokina 1982 was my first Photokina. I was then working as an editor at Helsinki based Kameralehti (literally Camera Magazine). 

Nothing new under the sun of Cologne

I chose these two very different examples because they show that nothing has really changed in photography. Essentially photography (and camera industry) is still the same. What has happened is smaller electronics and more powerful computers. As said, chemical labs died, it´s done now inside cameras and by computers. Moving mechanical structures like film trains and mirrors are being superseded by electronic components. The strive for small, easy to use cameras is greater than ever. So is the strive for quality and performance. Kodak had the right general idea, only timing was wrong and the frame of opportunity was too short. Nikon´s implementation was also far from mature but they had time to make it better inside a larger system. 

We still want to be impressed by photographs, video and multimedia. We want to see and show images. Clunking slide projectors are history when we have social media and huge screens. But one has stayed, the print.

I love printing. Back then 30 years ago I was just moving from black and white shooting and printing into color transparent or slide photography and Cibachrome (color) printing. Now I do pigment printing. The image is the king, only the methods and equipment is changing. 30 years ago my camera was OM-1, now it is OM-D, so different, so alike.

What we see in Photokina 2012 is equipment which is again more powerful by computers. We see also better and more expensive lenses. More expensive because it is ever harder to keep lenses performing with more and cheaper megapixels.

Photokina 2012 and me

Personally for me this year´s Photokina is something that was not to happen. Two years ago I was there with my son who is sound designer and works naturally a lot with video. We didn´t pay much attention for still cameras, it was all video and seeing exhibitions. I was also shutting down my studio and retiring. I really thought that this is the last time for me, I´ve seen this too many times already.

But then I started blogging and making and showing more prints, and things started to lead from one to another. Photokina, here I come again! I´ll be working for Canson Infinity, the French printing paper maker. I´ll be doing something with Olympus and then, of course, will be meeting several friends and people inside industry.

I know Canson is presenting new ways to show and present images. I know Olympus has promised to fullfill one of my biggest wishes. But which one? We´ll see...   

I´ll be at Canson booth for the last three days of Photokina. I am showing my newest print portfolios and telling about my photography and printing on Canson Infinity papers. If you come to Photokina during those days, please come and let´s have chat on yours and my photography. I would love to meet my readers!

If you want to discuss more privately and on other matters, please contact me. It´s a long week and my calendar has still plenty of free spaces.

As an extension, after the Photokina I´m going to Paris and from there to Canson factories with a group of Australian professional photographers. Should be fun! And right after that (the next day actually) I´m giving lectures in Finland for two days in a joint seminar with Canson and Canon. Senior citizens are busy...

-p-

-----------------

General info on Photokina 2012 here.

Nikon Seminar with Bill Frakes

Nikon Nordic NPS Team organized a nice seminar last Saturday in Helsinki. The title was Still Moving Pictures. http://www2.nikon.se/nordic/billfrakes/pages/?Home,en_GB

NPS seminar was divided into two parts. First there was a presentation on Final Cut Studio by Apple. This presentation was just an hour and half long which means it covered Final Cut Pro only very briefly. Actually most demoed features are included already in Final Cut Express.

Another three hours after lunch was reserved for Bill Frakes. Bill is a globe trotting Sports Illustrated photographer. He arrives on the shooting spot with a huge array of equipment. Like some 60 camera bodies at IAAF Championships in Helsinki 2005. Bill is the master of remote shooting with those bodies and suitable lenses installed before hand and then radio triggered as needed. Of course he uses cameras also manually but remote control gives so many more possibilities - WHEN you know what´s going to happen.

Bill has moved from film Nikon F-series through digital Canon 1D-series to present Nikon D3-series. Mainly he uses D3:s, some studio and landscape stuff with D3x and now more and more multimedia with D3s. Actually Sports Illustrated is now using Nikon cameras only, as far as I know. Bill claims to focus always manually and practises every day focusing on suitable moving subjects.

According to theme Bill showed how his work has moved from still photography into multimedia which combines stills, video and sound. Being a stills-only sports or news photographer in the USA starts soon to be a dead end. In Finland most photographers are not too eager to take advantage of video´s possibilities. But also there is a marked difference in using video at websites of major US and Finnish papers.

Bill started his foray into video with Nikon D90. Now he uses also RED. The difference between RED and D3s is in prepation time. With RED it´s triple. Also equipment costs with RED are much higher, some six times as much as with D3s. Lens selection is hugely better with Nikon. At HD video broadcasting quality there is no difference in image quality according to Bill.

Bill Frakes showed several videos he had made with his associate Laura Heald. Straw Hat Visuals is their company, and Laura is the expert in integration of HD video, stills and audio into multimedia productions. Some of shown videos can be seen at their web site http://strawhatvisuals.com/multimedia.html : ”All Over Down Under”, ”Missy”, ”Nascar Fans” and ”Rail Bird: The 135th Kentucky Derby”. Of these All Over Down Under is produced for Nikon to show the hybrid capabilities of D3s. Straw Hats Visuals web site tells also a lot about equipment they use.

Also shown at seminar was a music video shot previous day and night at Backyard Babies gig with seven cameras. During seminar Laura made the first cut of this video! She had no time to do final color and such but this video was still an amazing show of pros at work.

Some background on this video, shooting more material for it and seminar at Manfrotto web site: http://experience.manfrotto.com/turku_day_three and http://experience.manfrotto.com/helsinki_day_4

 All in all Nikon seminar was a great opportunity to see a high level example of where professional photographers are going with video!

-p-

Nikon D3x: ISO 400 -> 1600

Here are two observations on Nikon D3x in dimmer light conditions. One is about image quality at high ISOs and the other about camera´s stability at slow shutter speeds, which are kind of connected issues.

D3x, AF-S Nikkor 200mm 1:2G @ f/2, ISO 400

ISO 400 - ISO 1600

I have been lately shooting using Nikon´s great Auto-ISO feature. Previously I was very disappointed with Canon´s  Auto-ISO version in 5D MkII. For me it´s totally useless. Nikon betters by giving user two sets of parameters: a setting for highest allowed ISO value and a setting for lowest allowed shutter speed. These two settings make Auto-ISO a really useful feature. For instance with a 85mm lens I set 1/125s as the slowest allowed shutter speed. That ensures sharp hand held images, and thus gives me the real benefit from D3x high resolution sensor. Auto-ISO works as should with every exposure mode setting, and ISO sensitivity is shown in the viewfinder all the time so that I can override automation when ever wanted.

Originally I considered D3x only as a studio and landscape camera. I was not expecting anything special from higher ISO values at all. Actually in Lappland while shooting landscapes I was afraid of going over ISO 200 to maximize quality.  Now Auto-ISO led me suddenly into using higher values than before. When I evaluated images I was positively surprised with the clean tight noise granularity in them. Actually I did not notice any visual difference with Canon 5D MkII look which I liked so much. 

Now I had to test also this issue to really see how these two cameras compare.

Test image pairs at ISO 400, 800 and 1600 can be found here. Those images should be downloaded into your own computer if you want to see them at 100% size. Test images contain Canon files scaled (107,7%) into Nikon size to show comparable same size prints.

These images are converted from RAW files. Both cameras had always equal ISO settings and all camera corrections set off. Lenses were Nikon 85mm/1.4 and Canon 85mm/1.2 LII respectively. Aperture was set at f/8. My chosen converter was Adobe Lightroom because that´s the one I always use. Noise Reduction settings were Luminance 0, Color 25. To bring out any possible differencies I had  Shapening settings at 50 / 0,5 / 50. I´m fully aware that there are tests like DxO Labs (dxomark.com) which say these cameras should not have similar sensitivities. My findings do not support that claim. Same Lightroom tonality settings gave almost same highlight values only Canon being slightly more ”sensitive”, but these highlight corrected pairs show Nikon as slightly lighter at 1/4 tone. So these cameras seem to have a little different tonal responses but in reality sensitivity differencies are buried into differencies in lens aperture calibration.

I find comparison pairs very similar. Nikon has a slightly smaller and tighter noise grain and shows also a slightly better detail. This difference is shown on screen but it is almost disappears in a print. Still, this is a very impressive result from Nikon when you consider how much better camera D3x was at ISO 100.

Disclaimer:

I also test converted Canon files with DPP and Nikon files with NX2. DPP gave a cleaner and tighter grain structure for 5D MkII which I knew from my previous experience. Nothing new there. For D3x it was more interesting with NX2 but I did not see any practical difference between it´s two converters. So, because for me DPP is a subpar converter in every other respect than slightly better grain and sharpness I did not go into a useless trouble of trying to get DPP images into same tonality and sharpness as Lightroom images. Outside of test images I´m not going to sacrifice the beauty that I like in my real world Canon shots for a little tighter grain by using DPP. If anyone wants to see the difference between Lightroom look and DPP look, it can be seen in my comparison between 5D and 5D MkII.

D3x, PC-E Micro Nikkor 85mm 1:2.8D @ 1/50s, f/2.8, ISO1600. Crop 100%.

Stability of shooting at slower shutter speeds

Another IMO thing that had to be solved by doing a little test was the stability of hand held shooting. Namely, when I started  testing D3x it felt as a very stable platform and shooting with it felt positively non shaking. Now I have done some shooting with 5D MkII again, and when I raised it to shoot it also felt very stable but in a totally different way than D3x. The moment of exposure with the whole feel of it is so different. Actually, now I don´t know which I prefer more. But my little test showed that my first hinch was in the right direction. During a longer series of images that are scaled in to same print size I think I can manage more sharp images in the average with D3x. The slower the shutter speed the better for Nikon comparatively. Each of my test shots is a sum of ten consecutive shots. (Ten shot aligned as Photoshop layers to give as tight pattern as possible, mode screen). Shutter speeds are 1/15s and 1/2s, lenses 85mm like above.

This almost equal result shows again the difficulty of ”testing”. If someone says that one top camera is better in hand and has better ergonomics than the other, I say hardly, you just think so. These are very personal preferences that are dependent on your physiology and previous experience.

-p-