Camera Comparison

I currently have two cameras. I don't know how long that will last but it does present a great opportunity to compare them.

One is a Sony A6000 which remains maybe the best value ever in digital cameras. It sells for about $750 with a lens, and for that you get a 24 mp image and 8 frames per second of speed. Unheard of performance in this price range. To give you a reference, it's successor, the A6300, sells for about $1200 for the body only.

My other camera is my brand new Olympus OMD EM 1, which I am really enjoying.

This is probably an unfair comparison in more ways than one. For one thing, the EM 1 is the top of the Olympus line and when it came out a few years back sold for around $2200 for the body only. So right off, you would expect higher end features on the Olympus. And generally I would say that is true. But from another point of view it should be unfair in another direction - picture quality. The Sony, as I said above, shoots 24 mp images with an APS-C sensor. The Olympus shoots 16 mp size images on a micro 4/3 sensor. For reference, the 4/3 sensor has an area of about 225 square mm and the APS-C has 370 square mm of space, over half again as big.

The lenses are comparable, with the Sony lens being the more expensive (about $500). It is a zoom but it consistently takes better pictures than the 60 mm fixed lens I have for the Sony as well. The Olympus has a 30 mm macro that sells for $399.

I stated rather boldly in one of my previous blogs that good digital pictures have a lot of different factors involved in their making other than mega pixels and sensor size. The question is, is that true? This test should give a decent idea of that. Let's look at a few pics and find out.

The top pic is from the Sony. The bottom one is from the Olympus. The white balance was on auto on both cameras, so it's a bit surprising how different they are. The Olympus is a lot closer to the true colours, especially with the wood tone of the table. Other than that, you might have a hard time choosing one over the other, which would make you say good for Olympus and the micro 4/3. But we're not done yet - we're going to zoom in about 300% ( more than most people do but I like to see what is happening at the detail level). So...

Again, the Sony is on top and the Olympus is on the bottom. The photos are untouched. And the results are pretty shocking. The Olympus isn't just a picture with cleaner detail, it is strikingly so. (As an aside, I would also say that both Olympus shots have more of a feeling of depth to them).

So what gives? I honestly don't know, other than that the people at Olympus seem to know what they're doing. And they obviously understand that it isn't just mega pixels and sensor size that determines what a picture will look like. But I do know this - the next time the guy at the camera store tells you you won't get as good a picture with a micro 4/3 camera because it has a smaller sensor, you can maybe ask him if he's ever actually put that to the test.