08-31-2013, 02:37 PM
Quote:Calling it a problem area would probably be an overstatement, but the low ISO performance of MFT is still miles away from the cleanness of a full frame sensor (compare the E-M5 and the D4 for example).
The question is: Does the E-M5 really need ISO 25600, when everything above 3200 is hardly usable anyway? Or would a sensor that is optimized for lower ISO be the better option in terms of image quality? I think the latter is true, but it's mainly a marketing issue...
Yes, exactly. There are at least two reasons for low ISOs to be essential for MFT cameras: (1) The image of a MFT camera at its native ISO is not as clean as that of a FF camera,due to the smaller size of the sensor. Even extended low ISOs can make the image cleaner. (2) In bright light conditions larger apertures are more often used than in the case of FF cameras, because of the larger DOF of MFTs.
If the DXO results are correct then the native ISO of the sensor in EM5 is 100. But Olympus choosed to drop the native ISO and start ISOs from the extended 200 in the camera settings, which is strange.