The image above was taken with the Olympus PEN E-PL5 in Aperture Priority mode set to f5.6 and 200 ISO. At these settings, the Olympus PEN E-PL5 metered an exposure of 1/1000. At its base 100 ISO sensitivity setting the Canon EOS M metered 1/800 at f5.6. To match exposures with the Canon EOS M and produce similar results for comparison I applied -2/3EV exposure compensation on the E-PL5 resulting in an exposure of 1/1600 at f5.6.

This is a contrasty scene with a wide brightness range including bright highlights and deep shadows. The E-PL5’s original metering didn’t over-expose the image, but exposure compensation was applied to produce visually similar results for comparison. The E-PL5 image overall is punchy with good saturation and the warm colour balance typical of the PEN range.

The level of detail in the crops is also very good. Taking the top one first, the small details in the chapel, the doors and windows as well as the stonework are very well resolved. The grassy hill in the foreground with its rocky outcrops is a difficult area for sensors to hold onto detail, but the E-PL5 has managed it, you can make out detail in the rocks as well as the clumpy texture of the grass.

In the next crop the lighthouse is a distinct white column and you can make out the separate detail in the lamphouse. There’s also some detail in the cliffs beyond. The roofs and houses in the foreground of this crop are looking a little blurry and indistinct though. And the detail in the third crop from closer to the edge of the frame also looks a little bit soft. This area was in shadow and there’s also a little bit of noise texture creeping in. Another issue is chromatic abberation, with quite visible red fringing on high contrast vertical edges. The fourth crop from the close to the centre centre of the frame shows a return to the form shown in the first one, with nice, sharp, clearly resolved, well-defined detail right down to the individual roof tiles.

Though the Olympus PEN E-PL5 shares the same sensor as the Olympus OM-D E-M5, I think these reults look quite different to those from the E-M5. These crops have a punchier, sharper look to them much more in tune with what consumers would want from a straight out of camera JPEG. The sensor is doing an excellent job, let down slightly by the quality of the 14-42mm kit lens at the edge of the frame, at least at the wide angle setting.

The PEN E-PL5 crops are also crisper, more detailed and punchier than those from the EOS M. First, take a look at the chapel on the first crop, the doors and windows look sharper in the E-PL5 crop and there appears to be more detail on the stonework. In the second crop, as with the EOS M, the windows in the foreground are a little indistict, but there’s more detail in the roof at the bottom of the crop. There’s not much to separate the two in the third crop, but though the EOS M also suffers from chromatic aberration, unlike the PEN E-PL5, it has built-in correction (which for these tests was in the default Off setting). In the final crop, as with the first, the PEN E-PL5 crop looks to be sharper with a little more detail. Note the E-PL5 crops also show little evidence of noise in the sea and sky areas at its base sensitivity of 200 ISO

The question is are these differences merely down to processing, or is the Olympus E-PL5 Micro Four Thirds sensor recording more detail than the APS-C sensor in the Canon EOS M? To discover more check out my Olympus E-PL5 RAW results on the next page or see how these models compare at higher sensitivities in my Olympus E-PL5 Noise results.

The image above was taken with the Olympus PEN E-PL5 in Aperture Priority mode at f5.6 and 200 ISO. At these settings, the Olympus PEN E-PL5 metered an exposure of 1/1000. At its base 100 ISO sensitivity setting the Canon EOS M metered 1/800 at f5.6. To match exposures with the Canon EOS M and produce similar results for comparison I applied -2/3EV exposure compensation on the E-PL5 resulting in an exposure of 1/1600 at f5.6.

I processed both files in Adobe Camera RAW using identical settings: Sharpening at 70 / 0.5 / 36 / 10, Luminance and Colour Noise Reduction both set to zero, and the Process to 2012 with the Adobe Standard profile. To further reduce any distracting visual differences between the crops I also set custom white balance to 5500K and tint to 0. These settings were chosen to reveal the differences in sensor quality and isolate them from in-camera processing. The high degree of sharpening with a small radius enhances the finest details without causing undesirable artefacts, while the zero noise reduction unveils what’s really going on behind the scenes.

These crops reveal even more detail from the PEN E-PL5’s sensor than the in-camera JPEGs. The detail in the chapel in the first crop is really very impressive. The absence of any noise reduction means that there is a very fine noise texture that’s most visible in flat colour areas – the sky and sea in this case, but it’s not particularly intrusive. The second crop is interesting because it shows that a sensor is only as good as the lens you put in front of it. The 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 isn’t a bad kit zom, but the quality does appear to deteriorate the closer you get to the edge of the fame at the wide angle setting.

The quality of the PEN E-PL5’s in-camera JPEGs is extremely good. but what these crops show is that if you shoot RAW and do your own processing you should be able to produce qualitatively different results without losing out on detail. So, if you find the in-camera JPEGs a bit too punchy for your liking it should be possible to tone down the contrast and sharpening without losing out on detail. Alternatively you might be able to squeeze even more fine detail from the E-PL5’s RAW files without suffering unduly from noise.

The comparison with the RAW crops processed in the same way from the Canon EOS M makes interesting viewing. There is much less of a gap between the two in terms of sharpness and detail resolution than we saw in the JPEG crops. In crops one and four, from closer to the middle of the frame, there’s really very little to tell them apart, though the PEN E-PL5 crops look to be a little bit noisier. The E-PL5 crops from closer to the edge of the frame are a little softer though. So there’s much less in it between these two sensors than the JPEGs would suggest, but the EOS M’s kit lens looks to be a better perfromer, at the wide angle setting at least, than the E-PL5’s

Now, it’s time to examine their high ISO performance, starting with a JPEG comparison in my Olympus E-PL5 Noise results.

The PEN E-PL5 was fitted with the M.Zuiko 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 kit zoom and the EOS M with the EF-M 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM kit zoom.

The zoom on both cameras was set to its maximum wide angle, 14mm (28mm equivalent) on the PEN E-PL5, and 18mm (29mm equivalent) on the EOS M providing an approximately equivalent field of view.

Image stabilisation was disabled for this tripod-mounted test and all other settings were left on the defaults.

The PEN E-PL5 was fitted with the M.Zuiko 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 kit zoom and the EOS M with the EF-M 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM kit zoom.

The zoom on both cameras was set to its maximum wide angle, 14mm (28mm equivalent) on the PEN E-PL5, and 18mm (29mm equivalent) on the EOS M providing an approximately equivalent field of view.

Image stabilisation was disabled for this tripod-mounted test and all other settings were left on the defaults.