Olympus E-P3 and Action

Furball on the left is our Bearded Collie named Vertti, or Memorylane One for the Sun. Vertti is my official and eager tester for action capable cameras. Very few cameras pass through his test with flying colors because this buddy can move in so many directions at one time. Vertti is a living example of Heisenberg uncertainty principle...   

I always map auto focusing into a thumb button in every camera where it is possible. In DSLRs I map there continuous auto focusing. Then with a press of a button my subject is in focus. If it is a moving subject I just keep the button pressed and I´m ready to take a picture or a series of pictures any moment I want to. 

With Olympus E-P2 I had to map there single AF because E-P2´s continuous AF is no good. It just hunts back and forth and can´t lock on anything. With E-P3 this is changed and now I can map continuous AF into thumb button. Focusing is just like single AF with non-moving subjects and with thumb butten pressed I can follow many moving subjects. Now, define ”many”...

While E-P3´s single AF might be at same level as D3x´s single AF, continuous AF is not. With a good DSLR like D3x, I can follow an erratic subject, like a running dog easily, keep focusing and shooting, and most shots are sharp if shutter speed is okay. With E-P3 the first problem is Live View. VF-2 viewfinder is not refreshed for too much of the time. Following the dog, composing and shooting continuously at the same time is difficult. This is simply an area where an optical reflex viewfinder is still better than electronic viewfinder. The sensor’s double duty takes too much time from viewfinder. The second fact is that algorithmic prediction of focus seems to be slightly lacking in E-P3. With a DSLR there´s a shorter time gap between the latest distance information and actual exposure than with a live view camera. DSLR can predict better where the focus should be when the shutter goes. And finally E-P3´s shooting rate of 3 images per second is not so good for action series. All of this may lead into problems in following the subject, keeping composition and getting sharp images. For dogs running I would not choose E-P3 as my camera. And if I had to, I would not use sequential shooting but single shots while following the dog and trying to get peaks of action. This technique seems to improve the percentage of keepers a lot.

Playing children are now easy, mostly. Sports from audience or at the side of track is easy, mostly. Aeroplanes are easy, mostly. Cars are easy, mostly. 

”Mostly” because the actual speed of movement is not decisive. What counts is the rate of change of distance. Anything very fast far away is not moving fast relative to the camera. The closer the movement gets the more difficult it becomes. Below I have a simple exercise which shows how first differences are small but then there´s a lot of change at the end. This car is approaching at about 40km/h (the speed limit on this road):

Images above are 100% crops. Eight consecutive images with E-P3. Lens M.Zuiko 40-150mm 1:4-5.6. Focal lenght 40mm, aperture 4. Continuous AF. Images are oversharpened so that only sharp sharpens, unsharp doesn´t.

Below the original cropping of the first and last image. I´m standing quite close to road. This is a situation which E-P3 handles quite well up to eight image except for composing getting difficult  in the end. The ninth image was unsharp.

OTHER FOCUSING ISSUES

Nikon gives AF range as -1 - +19 EV for D3x. Olympus gives values 0-18 EV for E-P2 and 0-20 EV for E-P3. Between these values AF should detect and lock. Now EV 0 corresponds to 1 second at aperture 1 at ISO 100. I tested Olympuses with Lumix 20/1.7 lens. AF was able to lock reliably down to 1” (EV 0.5, ISO 200) with E-P2 and 4” (EV -1,5 !!, ISO 200) with E-P3. I tested D3x with 50/1.4. AF locked reliably down to 2” (EV 0, ISO 100). My target was black blocks on white, 50/50. At EV 0 I really can´t see through D3x viewfinder. VF-2 with E-P2 is noisy as hell at EV 0.5 but doable. What I really was surprised with was VF-2 quality with E-P3. Noise is gone, you actually can see perfectly well what you are doing at EV -1,5 through VF-2. 

In real life situations there usually is something brighter you can focus on. Now it was totally uniform grayness/darkness for my eyes. D3x and E-P2 results are logical enough. I´m not saying my EV numbers are absolutely correct as such, this was my way to measure. I don´t know what kind of targets they use at Nikon or Olympus. But EV -1,5 for E-P3??? (NOTE: AF assist light was NOT on.) I checked many times and that´s the result I got every time relative to the others. The difference between E-P3 and others was... well huge, marked, notable, pleasant and annoying. With moving subjects the point is to look for a contrasty area as quickly as possible. Otherwise there might be nothing where AF can lock on.

And, yes, there is now an AF assist light for low light situations if you really want to get noticed by your subjects...

E-P3´s face recognition has new features. You can choose if it uses left or right eye to focus on, or you can set it to focus on the nearest eye. Portrait and glamour shooters are going to like this one!

You can also focus by touching anywhere on rear OLED screen. E-P3 focuses and takes a picture. It was kind of cool among people with 12mm wide angle. Nobody realised if I was just flipping through my images or what. Works great with IBIS. This feature can be set on and off by user directly on screen.

One thing I´m missing is focus confirmation for manual lenses. Ages ago we had a focus column in Leaf software for their three shot backs. You turned the focusing ring and watched column go up, up and then started to drop. The you turned just a bit backwards until maximum and bingo. Something alike shouldn´t be too hard to implement.

And then there is zone focusing with 12mm/2.0 lens... But that´s again another story.

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Olympus E-P3: AF speed and responsiveness

Olympus E-P3 was introduced on 30th of June. As name says it is the third version in E-P series which I use. I am interested because Olympus promises now to correct the slow AF which hampered previous models. All in all the responsivity of this camera should be at a totally new level.

I created a simple test arrangement to get a real world understanding on E-P3´s AF speed. A sat at a table with my elbows leaning on table. On the others side of table I had a newspaper (at 1m distance) and directly behind there´s a plant across the room at 5m distance. I set both E-P3 and E-P2 to do single-AF at a press of shutter button AND shutter is activated only after focusing is done. Other settings: Program AE, ISO 400, single shot mode, medium JPG, only center focusing spot active. 

Now I aimed focusing spot at newspaper and pressed shutter button until camera focuses and shutter goes, aimed focusing spot at plant and pressed shutter button until camera focuses and shutter goes, aimed focusing spot towards newspaper and pressed… I went on doing this until I counted 75 shots. The number 75 is not important. The point was to make enough shots so that slight differences between each single shots become averaged when shooting with both cameras. I repeated the same drill for four lenses:

  1)  The new Olympus m4/3 kit zoom lens 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6 II R. Tested at 42mm focal length.

  2)  Olympus m4/3 zoom lens 40-150mm 1:4-5.6. Tested at 50mm focal length.

  3)  Olympus 4/3 zoom lens 12-60mm 1:2.8-4 with Novoflex m4/3 adapter. Tested at 50mm focal length.

  4)  Panasonic Lumix G 20mm 1:1.7

Then I looked into EXIF data of first and last shot of each series to see the time difference between them. I divided this time by number of shots to get the average time for aiming camera and focusing and exposing each shot.

These are my results:

        E-P3     E-P2        E-P3 is faster by

1)    0,82s    1,41s            42%

2)    0,89s    1,46s            39%

3)    1,96s    2,26s            13%

4)    0,87s    1,54s            44%

I have no way to know how long it took to aim the camera between each shot but it was not much. Just turned the camera a few degrees up or down. Olympus gives a shutter response time of ONLY 60ms for E-P3. My conclusion is that E-P3 is in practise twice as responsive camera as E-P2. With older 4/3 system DSLR lenses the lens is the restricting factor. I would guess that these lenses would benefit of a new firmware for m4/3 bodies.  

So how responsive E-P3 is then? Olympus claims it to be the fastest focusing camera of all system cameras. Lets see!

I repeated the same test with Nikon D3x and three Nikon lenses:

  5)   AF-S Micro Nikkor 105mm 1:2.8 G

  6)   AF Nikkor 85mm 1:1.4 D

  7)   AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm 1:2.8 G. Tested at 24mm focal length.

Results:

D3x

5) 0,97s

6) 1,15s

7) 0,70s

Results for differences between these three lenses are logical and should be familiar to everyone who has used them. Wide angle zoom 14-24mm is fast because there the distance to move focusing element is so short. Other than that look at E-P3! E-P3 is faster (with three consumer grade lenses) than Nikon. It´s responsiveness is up (or should I say down) there with a super fast professional DSLR with 10 fold price tag! 

UPDATE: 

Same test with the new Olympus M. Zuiko 12mm 1:2.0 lens. This lens is Olympus´ first lens that which they consider as belonging to the top level in their three level lens grading.

Test result with E-P3 0,74s.  E-P2 was not tested because speed difference is already known.

Already while testing the new kit zoom lens I was somewhat distracted by Live View refresh rate. Live View goes off and back on with each image, as sensor is reseted before and after exposure. (I did not have record view on, just viewfinder image). With this 12mm lens, it is quite obvious that now the restricting factor is not focusing but other functions of camera. Mere focusing back and forth is a lot faster, also faster than Nikon 14-24mm. With this lens focusing is done immediately as you press the button. How ever, this result tells how fast you can take two consecutive images with varying focusing distances. Focusing is very fast but the responsivity of a Live View camera like E-P3 is not yet quite there with a professional reflex camera like D3x.

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Olympus E-P2 plus VF-2

Here they are, the Olympus Twins. Without lenses and detachable viewfinders (and the shiny new black finish, of course) the new E-P2 would be hard to tell apart from it´s brother, the E-P1.

EP-2 has some refinements over EP-1 but the biggest new thing is it´s electronic viewfinder VF-2. E-P2 has a slightly higher hot shoe and a new accessory connector behind it. VF-2 is simply slid into hot shoe and new connector. Push the VF selector switch under the eyepiece and you have a whole new way to look at the world with a PEN. 

I had a pre production EP-2 (firmware 0.9) for a few days and was able to try it and VF-2 in practise. My E-P1 has seen quite a lot of use since late June. Sadly the new EVF is not compatible with E-P1. As a body E-P2 is operated exactly in same fashion as it´s predecessor. So, It felt like a brother should and took just  a couple of minutes to configure menus and map buttons to suit my way of shooting. The only change I made later was to map Fn button for depth-of-field check. This feature is just one of the benefits of EVF over E-P1´s plain brightline optical VF.

Viewfinder VF-2

People at Olympus did not confirm this but obviously VF-2 has Epson´s new TFT panel. Anyway, it has 1.44 megapixels, it´s big and it´s bright. I compared VF-2 to Canon´s EOS 5D MkII and Nikon D3x. Not fair of course, but this new EVF really has a big image. With my glasses I can see the whole image and it´s, well, big. In bright daylight it is no match to these full format 35mm viewfinders. They are smooth, continuous tone, true color; VF-2 on the other hand is still artificial, has paler colors and shows it´s pixel nature in comparison. But when you come to a dimly lit or even an average room the relation changes. VF-2 is brighter and nicer. And when you go somewhere really dark you can´t actually see anything through these fancy optical viewfinders - and 5D MkII stops focusing at all. VF-2 on the other hand turns quite grainy but I can still compose, and the E-P2 focuses at a press of a button just fine.

I had used Lumix 20mm/1.7 lens plus optical VF-1 combination for so long that it was kind of a shock to shoot the first shot through VF-2. It went black for a second... Well, that´s because of a mechanical shutter. When you shoot in continuos mode there is no blackout between shots. After half a day I actually kind of forgot about EVF, it was so nice to work with because you can evaluate very quickly exposure and DOF when you get used to it. It´s a keeper for me.

But isn´t it kind of a funny looking gadget on EP-2! If E-P1 with VF-1 has actually a stylish retro look, then this is what - huh, commie retro style? I can´t help comparing it to a DDR-era Pentacon Six and it´s Soviet Kiev 6 or 60 descendants or what about a brand new (still being made in Ukraine) Arax/Kiev 88 with TTL prism! Oh brothers, Olympus!

The considerable height of VF-2 comes from several issues: add-on construction, articulated construction where eyepiece can be tilted up stepless up to 90 degrees, big screen, high quality no-distortion eyepiece with diopter correction, and finally the hot shoe of E-P2 is higher because of the needed extra connector. Actually the height from base plate to eyepiece is practically the same as with EOS 5D MkII. In practise I did not feel that VF-2 compromised E-P2´s compactness in any way. Which was emphasised by the fact that I had to keep the camera´s identity and design un-noticed all the time. Olympus did here the right thing and did not make a small but crappy EVF like Panasonic for GF-1. What I was missing was some kind of locking for VF-2 to secure it better, now it is possible knock it off the hot shoe.

VF-2 shows of course all the same information as camera´s back LCD. With E-P2 there´s a lot to choose with new finer grids, level indicators, live histograms, exposure information etc - or just a clean, unobstructed view. VF-2 can be also used for  play back and you can switch between VF-2 and LCD at any time. VF-2 is simply the best electronic viewfinder for still cameras I have ever seen. 

 

Other new features

The new connector behind hot shoe can also be used for other accessories, like stereo microphone adapter (EMA-1) and stereo microphone (ME-51S). This adapter slids also into hot shoe - but only one accessory fits in at a time, same goeswith external flash. This has not bothered me so far but I can understand those who disagree.

AF-follow lock is better than with E-P1 according to specs but I did not notice any great difference. At least it´s still not in the league of EOS 5D MkII which is kind of low level for usability for me. 

HD-video is still 720p but now also manual controls work. There are two new art filters: Diorama and Cross Process. Diorama makes people and buildings toylike by blurring up and down and Cross Process gives you fancy color effects. I´m not thrilled, although I actually have used E-P1´s ART 6 for a jerky video project. Last and least there is some more image automatics (i-Enhance) and play back control option via HDMI.

One accessory I would really like to see is an extension cord between body and VF-2. It would give many new possibilities for remote control.

All in all, for me E-P2 is the very same camera as E-P1, just a connector for VF-2. Otherwise same hardware with mentioned accessory and software updates. I´m lucky Olympus brought E-P1 like it did because I have had fun and shot so much with it. Too  bad Epson product development was half a year late for E-P1. Speaking of product development, I feel that Olympus and Panasonic are fighting too much against each other and not together for micro 4/3 system. One more stupid decision is that EVF connectors for Olympus and Panasonic are different!

Availability and price

E-P2 is still being readied for full scale production. Although this pre production sample felt already well finished and I didn´t find any problems with EVF operation, which is the new part of package. EP-2 with VF-2 will be available during January 2010. Olympus is still struggling with E-P1 back orders which they can´t make fast enough. Lets see how they manage then with E-P2. Price for body with  VF-2 is given at 899 euros, which is not bad and in reality shops will sell under that anyway. 

New Lenses 2010

I wished Olympus would introduce fast wide angle and tele primes. In reality those are marginal wishes and Olympus is introducing two consumer series zoom lenses. They are 9-18mm/4.0-5.6 and 14-150mm/4.0-5.6, really compact zooms with ED glass, and available during the first part of 2010. With EP-2´s good stabilizer they are more usable than numbers say, but still...

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Image quality that can be brought out when working with E-P2 (or similarly E-P1) RAW files is outright outstanding when compared to it´s 12MP image size, small physical size and carry around ability. Even so when conditions are far from optimal. The image above is shot hand held with Lumix 20mm/1,7 lens @ 1/40s, f/2.0 and ISO 1000. Doesn´t that tell how dim it was! Images on this page are tweaked my style and don´t represent camera´s quality as such. I´m a photographer not a copy machine... ;-)  This crop is 100%. I did not produce any comparison pair but feel free to compare with your rainy night ISO 1000, f2.0 shots.

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.

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Nikon D3x, resolution king?

Everyone is driving yesterdays car and shooting with yesterdays camera. This is how it is always from technolygy point of view. I have never thought that new models make my old cameras any worse and kept shooting with them as they fit into my needs. However, from professional point of view, staying put means falling back in a competitive environment. That´s why I have been really interested in Nikon D3x since it´s launch. All the specs and other information gave me the impression that Nikon has pushed the limits of sensor technology as far as is possible today. It looks like that low price was not a target for Nikon. I wrote some thoughts on D3x launch earlier in this blog.

Speaking of technological advances, it must be said that progress does not always go straight forward. A good example is Leaf Volare back, which was the epitome of quality long past what you could read from a spec sheet of many later launched one shot digital cameras. How ever good, Volare was the last of it´s kind because there was no market for that kind of backs.

After a period of shooting

I have now used D3x (actually two bodies) and Nikon lenses (ranging from 14 to 200mm) for a month and half. I´ve been shooting both for my own pleasure and professionally. After a background of nearly 10 years with Canon DSLRs, it took me a while before Nikon logic started to become sensible. Before that D3x seemed like a mystical computer with wrong UI. When I had managed to configure bodies according to my shooting style and my fingers started to find their way to buttons and wheels, using D3x started to be pure delight.

After this period of shooting I am assured to say that D3x´s image quality is the best in any DSLR ever made. And with DSLR I´m referring to 35mm category. If D3x is the best camera for my personal shooting or not is another matter. My present choice Canon 5D MkII has the edge in some areas of usability. Also if I were now to buy a DSLR for my personal use with my own money, I think my choice would be 5D MkII because of price difference. If I had to make the same choice today as a studio shooter, I would not hesitate to pick D3x instead of any Canon.

A Lappland shot with Nikon D3x. Magnifient scenery like this really benefits from as much resolution as ever possible.

Resolution test

The rest of this essay concentrates solely on my resolution test with D3x. I´ll write about other issues later. I have been using the same test setup for digital cameras for a decade. This setup tells about resolution and color. I´m not interested in any absolute values but comparing cameras against each other with my background experience of using the same equipment in practise. My comparison setup is easily reproduced, it gives always the same result and most importantly it answers to the right question. Test group was now D3x, 5D MkII and PhaseOne P45+ digital back. I have tested earlier Canon´s 5D MkII and 1DsMkIII, so I know that their resolutions at ISO 100 are very similar. They are not exactly the same but they are so close to each other (depending on RAW converter in use) that any critics on comparing dissimilar DSLR bodies is pointless here. Besides my experience of shooting with D3x told that it is meaningless to do any more pixel peeping between these two Canon bodies. 

It´s not possible for me to compare DSLR bodies or digital backs directly, with out optics. And I wouldn´t care because I`m a photographer. Lens is very decisive in a test like this. That´s why I included more than one lens from Canon and Nikon. In suitable focal length range I had three Nikon lenses: AF Nikkor 85mm 1.4D, PC-E Micro Nikkor 85mm 2.8D and AF-S Micro Nikkor 105mm 2.8G ED. As corresponding Canon lenses I chose my own great and proven EF 85mm 1.2L II USM plus from Potkastudios lens cabinet 3pc TS-E 90mm 2.8 and 2pc EF 100mm 2.8 Macro USM. So Canon was given three extra tries. Moreover, after shooting with it I had noticed that 105mm Micro Nikkor can´t be okay. It is a demo lens from Nikon Nordic, which according to my location shots seemed to have something wrong with possibly VR unit. My resolution chart (VR off) confirmed that this lens needs to be sent to repair shop. It was so much inferior to all other lenses. That left Nikon with 2 chances against Canon´s 6.

This case with Micro Nikkor shows again how important lenses are with a body like D3x. Camera body´s extra resolution shows only with top lenses. Perhaps Micro Nikkor´s faultiness might have passed my notice with a body like D3? At least nobody had noticed it before...

I shot tethered into CaptureOne Pro 4.7 so that files had same exposure in every case. After shooting, files were converted in C1. After that I imported RAW images also into Adobe Lightroom and matched tonal ranges to be as close to C1 files as possible. Canon files were opened also in Canon DPP software and Nikon files in Nikon Capture NX2, and again developed to match C1 files. This test period is my first experience with NX2. Matching files there succeeded only okay. I need more practice. The other converters are familiar to me since they were born, and I have been a beta (and even alpha) tester for C1 and DPP.

Both Nikon and Canon files showed one lens as better than others. Nikon´s both lenses were so close to each other that in an ordinary photograph it would have been hard to tell any difference. Anyway PC-E 85mm was slightly better. In Canon camp my favorite lens 85mm 1.2L II beat all others. Beating is of course an overstatement but it was easy to choose. Note that test chart was only in the center of image. I was looking for the best possible resolution in camera, not comparing lenses.

As a side product this test gave a comparison of both companies´ still life tilt/shift lens with their best resolution bodies. Canon, this is pathetic, hurry up with a re-designed 90mm TS!!!

Nikon advertises that D3x rivals with digital backs. Also in that context it was interesting to see a difference between 24,5 MP DSLR and 39 MP digital back. P45+ back was attached to Mamiya AFDII camera, and lens was Mamiya´s excellent 120mm Macro.

You can find comparison shots of these three cameras (the best lens of each) here. To see them at 1:1 they should be downloaded to your computer. Also use your own choice of interpolation to upscale Canon and Nikon files to match PhaseOne. Only then you can see the real differencies.

Conclusions

My conclusions:

• 1. P45+, 2. D3x, 3. 5D MkII - clearly
• D3x is surprisingly much better than Canon and surprisingly less worse than P45+. Surprisingly refers to my expectations when considering AA-filters (or not) and linear resolutions. (P45+ suffers here slightly because shooting distances were defined by long edge of frame).
• My early expectations on D3x was proven right: Nikon has managed to maximize 35mm resolution without ruining other aspects of shooting pleasure and quality. D3s might be expensive but you get what you pay for. From what I see, besides of sensor, also AA filter, microlenses and other image quality related parts are chosen and designed with image quality in mind. Canon really has to run faster now when they are developing their new flagship model.
• D3x is a match to any digital back with MP count starting with 2. Beyond that it´s only natural that size matters as P45+ shows.
• D3x is a very, very interesting choice for a studio thinking about how to invest between DSLRs and digital backs. Studios with Canon gear, like we at Potkastudios, must invest heavily in both.
• Concerning RAW converters, C1 Pro is very good for all these cameras, Lightroom shows again it´s typical mushiness and shows this 5D MkII moiré which is absent with DPP. I´ll come back with NX2 after some more studying.

High image quality is much more than resolution. My opinion on D3x regarding those issues in next blog. 

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