You’ve been waiting patiently, and we’ve been working hard.  We’ve tallied the preliminary results of our pretty extensive testing, and the verdict is a resounding, “Not Bad”.    Here’s the deal.  

We ran our basic noise and ISO tests on the in-camera JPEGs, as often we do, and we were able to run the same tests on the Canon Digital Rebel T1i and the Nikon D5000…  with some pretty interesting results.

First off, let’s look at graphs.  The overriding concern with ISO and noise is because of a couple things.  All these cameras are running sensors with some pretty small pixels, and the rule of thumb is that performance costs money.  At under $1000 we’re thinking the noise/ISO issue is what’s going to rear up first.  The other issue is that Olympus has, in the past, not been really at the top of the food chain in noise/ISO performance.  Good, but not the best for the buck. 
 

Our testing of these cameras, unfortunately, supports that.  Here’s a graph of the complete noise picture we made using Imatest.  The graph shows the appearance of noise, so lower is better.  Interestingly, the Nikon is the best of the three, but, as is the case with noise and ISO processing, we’ll see that Nikon is sacrificing a little sharpness to get that noise under control- a common case of “something’s got to give”, in file processing.   Olympus is the highest noise of the three.

What does that look like?  Here are a few shots to get a feel for it.  These are shot at ISO 1600, a pretty extreme ISO for any camera in this price range. 

Overall Shot

This is the shot- a very contrasty scene with deep blacks and full sun.  Here’s the Olympus, cropped,

Olympus E-P1 - ISO 1600 Crop

and here’s the Canon.

Canon Rebel T1i - ISO 1600 Crop

The Olympus is acceptable.  Not great, and certainly an improvement on the previous Olympus files we’ve seen, but clearly shooting at higher ISO than 800 is going to be painful- you’re going to see some noise.

The next area we’re concerned with is color accuracy- again, the E-P1 does pretty well.  Here’s our standard Color Accuracy chart from Imatest. 

Once we post the “Mini Head-2-Head” you can compare, but suffice to say it’s as good as most- not great, not horrible. 

The initial conclusions are that this camera is not a stellar performer- the file quality appears to be firmly in the middle of “Acceptable” for it’s price range, and up against it’s two rivals.  Once again, let me remind you to check back and see our three-way, “Mini Head-2-Head” for an more complete look at how these cameras stack up against each other, but the thing that really sets this camera apart is going to be it’s unique size and configuration, and it’s interesting array of features. 

Those features include a pretty interesting Image Stabilization configuration- “In-Body,” “Mechanical” and “Electronic” as described on the Olympus site.  We’ll be testing that out on our IS Test Bench, and running some comparisons to see if you’re getting actual performance out of it.  Live View Autofocus allows you to preview the actual focus, HD video recording, and, of course, interchangeable lenses with pretty impressive dust reduction in the body.  There are a number of pretty interesting presets and effects- maybe not for Pro use, but certainly fun for point-and-shooting. Digital Leveler, 19 automatic scene modes, ePortrait, Face Detection, Shadow Adjustment Technology and background music are all kind of fun, and maybe useful. 

The jury is still out.  Once we match up the three, we’ll be able to draw some final performance conclusions- the scorecard- but can say that the camera is a great, and unique array of features with acceptable performance. 

Stay tuned!
 

NEWS FLASH!  Mini Head-to-Head is UP!  Check it out HERE!