Olympus Pen EP3 sensor struggles

In my last post I talked about why I would still choose a compact micro four thirds camera kit like the Olympus EP3 to take travel photos with - over just carrying around my iPhone. At the moment.

This is likely to change, probably in the not too distant future. I'm looking at 'upgrading' my current iPhone 6 to a 6sPlus, or maybe 7 - ostensibly for better video. But I'm sure the camera upgrade will also be nice to have as well.

For the time being though I prefer the ergonomics, extra control and far greater lens selection of the Olympus EP3, especially if I can get an evf accessory to go with it (anyone out there in internet land got one they would like to send my way?). The larger m4/3rds sensor is also nice to have and offers a slight IQ boost as well, although it does have its limits. I discovered what these are traveling home from our recent trip to Christchurch.

Olympus EP3 unedited RAW capture

For all of our trips over to Christchurch this winter we have been blessed with fantastic weather. And none more so than on our last trip back. Heading towards the West Coast at about an hour before sunset, the clouds and light over the mountain range was simply beautiful. I just had to stop and capture what I was seeing - with my Olympus EP3.

Fortunately, with just my wife and I traveling, we aren't really constrained by time (or bored kids), so I've been able to stop and take my time shooting the landscape. Having said that though, it is mid winter, and was absolutely freezing cold getting out of the car. After only about 5 minutes I couldn't feel my fingers anymore, it was quite windy in places, and I had only brought my flimsy travel tripod with me. All of which is to say that I didn't want to spend hours setting up shots and bracketing hundreds of exposures. I was working fairly quickly.

As you can see above with the unedited RAW capture of one image, the dynamic range in the scene was off the chart, requiring at least some bracketing to capture all the information. So bracket I did - mostly. But I'm also pretty sure that with some of the images I took, the histogram on the lcd screen of the EP3 was telling me that I had captured the information, without clipping the highlights or shadows? In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what it was telling me about the above RAW image (but I could be wrong)? If it was telling me that, then it lied. Because once I got the images into Lightroom, it became obvious fairly quickly that some of the highlight areas had blown completely. Still, there was something there, so I decided to work on the image anyway.

Springfield light. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm lens. f11 @ 1/250th, ISO 200

The final image, cropped to a pano format to hide the blown out clouds, is ok - but it required a lot of work to get it looking like that. Maybe that's not surprising, given the RAW file? But a lot of the work was in dealing with the noise from the smaller senor. Even with the initial poor exposure (my fault), there was more noise in the image than I was expecting using it's lowest ISO 200 setting.

Heading home. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f9 @ 1/250th, ISO 200

Even when the dynamic range wasn't too vast for the sensor to handle, working on the image in Lightroom was always about balancing how much noise was left in. I guess this should be no great surprise? The laws of physics will tell you that smaller sensors = more noise. It's just a fact. But I guess I'd been a bit spoiled with my previous micro four thirds cameras (the EM5 MkII and EM1), whose 16MP sensors I found quite remarkable. It's no surprise that the more 'consumer' oriented 12MP EP3 isn't in the same league - especially when the sensor is pushed to its limits.

Don't get me wrong, the image above isn't horrible. In fact I like it a lot. But I have had to do a lot of noise reduction work on it to get it to where I'm happy with it. Of course, in strong and evenly lit conditions (during most of the day) when the sensor isn't being pushed to its limits (see images from previous post) the noise at ISO 200 is negligible. Yet still probably more apparent than on my Canon 50D.

Waimakariri River Lookout. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f9 @ 1/25th sec. ISO 200. 3 exposure blend in Photoshop

Of all the images, I guess I'm most disappointed with this one. I don't think the final image does any justice to the scene I saw in front of me and tried to capture. And despite freezing my butt off getting it, I took my time with this image to make sure I had what I needed.

I bracketed exposures (2 stops either side) to make sure I had the dynamic range covered, and once again still found that the highlights had blown. Shadows struggle to hold any detail and quickly turn to mud, and contrast seems low - on all the images I took with the EP3. Even with good light during the day, the clarity and dehaze sliders are used immediately in Lightroom to bring some life back into the images. Maybe again this is good? Maybe RAW files are supposed to be flat? Well, maybe. But having done this for quite a while now, I feel that the images coming from the EP3 just need that much more? And it's very apparent that the images from the 12MP m4/3rds sensor don't handle vigorous post processing manipulation.

The Waimakariri River Lookout was processed using Photoshop's merge to HDR function - which gave a lot more control, and a better result, than Lightroom's version did. I can't say for definite that I would have got a better result had I used my 15MP APS-C Canon 50D, but I get the feeling that I would have. I used the 50D on a previous trip (post here) - in better lighting conditions to be fair - but I still like the 'look' of those images much more than I do the ones coming from the EP3.

Maybe all of this is just user-error? Maybe I really don't know what the hell I'm doing (very possible). I know a 'professional' doesn't blame their tools etc, etc.... But this is the first time in a very long time that I've been so disappointed with a set of images, and struggled so much to process them to my liking.

So maybe it is the sensor on the EP3 reaching (and in some cases exceeding) its limits? Maybe it wasn't made for high dynamic landscape work? Or maybe I'm just a little deflated since my 'vision' wasn't matched by the final result? Maybe I can't answer that question objectively at the moment? And maybe, just maybe, the next time I go away I might bring my 50D with me for those landscape shots taken in tricky light on the way home?