I’m a big fan of the 7-14mm lens and wanted to see if the issue remained on the OMD EM1, so I took the same composition with the OMD EM1, OMD EM5 and Lumix GX7 to see if there were any differences. I took care to include a bright light to trigger the effect. Each camera was mounted to a tripod and fitted in turn with the same Lumix 7-14mm lens, set to 7mm f4 in Aperture Priority mode. All three cameras were also set to exactly the same exposure. Below are the three images with crops of the affected areas below – the crops are taken from the same area, marked by the red rectangle on the image below left.

Olympus OMD EM1 using Panasonic Lumix 7-14mm		Olympus OMD EM5 using Panasonic Lumix 7-14mm		Panasonic Lumix GX7 using Panasonic Lumix 7-14mm
Full image		Full image		Full image
100% crop showing affected area		100% crop showing affected area		100% crop showing affected area

As you can clearly see, the OMD EM1 suffers to exactly the same extent as the EM5 before it, suffering from quite dramatic purple blobs on the image. To be fair in this particular example they’re quite well hidden when viewed at lower magnifications, but I have seen other situations where the purple artefact has been visible even with the image viewed on the camera’s screen without zooming-in. It is a real issue if you’d like to shoot bright lights with this lens on an Olympus body.

Interestingly while many owners of Olympus bodies and this lens have reported the issue, most people have assumed Panasonic bodies avoid it altogether. As you can see from the GX7 crop though, this is not the case – the same flare blobs are present on the image when you know where to look, but crucially they’re much less noticeable. As far as I understand this isn’t down to digital correction, but more likely a difference in filtering on the sensor – as both Olympus and Panasonic use different sensors.

It’s a shame the Lumix 7-14mm suffers from bad flare as it is otherwise an excellent lens – indeed one of the sharpest ultra-wide zooms I’ve tested across the frame. But the noticeable artefacts when mounted on Olympus bodies, including the new EM1, means I find it hard to recommend the combination unless you avoid interiors or city night scenes. If you do shoot these scenes with an Olympus body and want ultra-wide coverage, it’s best to go for the slightly less wide Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 9-18mm instead. As for owners of Panasonic bodies though, I think the flare artefacts are sufficiently hard to see to not be a major problem – I’ve certainly shot with the Lumix 7-14mm on Panasonic bodies for many years without issue and it remains one of my favourite lenses.

I fitted each camera in turn with the same Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f1.8 lens to eliminate the optics from the comparison, and set the aperture to f4 as pre-determined to deliver the sharpest results. All three cameras were set to 200 ISO and shared the same exposure.

Note there was a minor difference in cloud cover when shooting with the EM5. I plan on performing this test again soon, but wanted to share these initial results.

In my comparison below you can see how the Olympus OMD EM1 compares against the OMD EM5 and Lumix GX7 when all cameras are set to RAW and processed using Adobe Camera RAW using identical settings: Sharpening at 50 / 0.5 / 36 / 10, Luminance and Colour Noise Reduction both set to zero, the White Balance set to 5500K and the Process to 2012 with the Adobe Standard profile; I also enabled Chromatic Aberration correction. 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.

The first thing you’ll notice compared to the JPEGs on the previous page is how all three cameras are now understandably sharing very similar degrees of sharpness and contrast. The thick black lines and occasional haloing of the Olympus JPEGs have been toned down, while the subdued Panasonic JPEGs have been livened-up. As you’d expect they’ve subsequently met in the middle with very similar degrees of real-life detail at first glance. I’d say all three have benefitted from this processing approach, and you’ll also notice the coloured fringing from the EM5 JPEGs has been eliminated during the RAW correction.

Look closer and I’d say the OMD EM1 enjoys a small advantage over both the EM5 and GX7 when it comes to ultimate fine detail. It’s not so much that there’s any more of it on the EM1 crops, but it just looks finer to me. Lines and scratches in the brickwork and woodwork are a little thinner and crisper and in some cases better defined, due no-doubt to the absence of an optical low pass filter. But it’s still a very minor difference and I reckon with some careful adjustment to sharpening you could achieve an almost identical result from the EM5 and GX7. If you look at the cones on the tops of the chimneys in the first crops, you’ll also notice some jagged diagonal lines on all three samples, but particularly on the Olympus ones, proving you should always be careful with over-sharpening.

Ultimately here I’d say the OMD EM1 enjoys a very small advantage over its rivals in this particular scene, but it’s so small, I wouldn’t use it as a reason to trade up to the EM1 alone. I’d also encourage you to check out my Olympus OMD EM1 noise results as the different subject matter is equally revealing as well as demonstrating how all three cameras compare across their sensitivity range.

What makes the Olympus cameras even more unique though are their Live Bulb and Live Time options which let you take regular peeks at the exposure on the screen as it builds-up to see how it’s getting on. This lets you stop the exposure early if it’s already perfect, or perhaps not going to work out. The interval between updates can be set to 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30 or 60 seconds, and the maximum number of peeks depends on the ISO value: 9, 14, 19 or 24 times for ISOs of 1600, 800, 400 or Low respectively. Once you’ve used up your allocation of peeks, there’ll be no more, regardless of the exposure length.

The ability to take a peek at long exposures as they build is a boon in theory, but I wondered what impact it might have on noise levels, especially as the Olympus cameras impose a limit to the number of updates which decreases as the ISO increases. I’d also heard from those who owned both the EM5 and EM1 and had found long exposure noise to be worse on the new model. So on this page I’ll investigate long exposure noise quality on the EM1 and compare it to the EM5 before it.

Note all tests were performed with the EM1 running firmware version 1.1 which, among other things, promises improved quality in Live Bulb mode. I also ran Pixel Mapping prior to my tests.

To show you what’s possible in a real-life environment, here’s a two minute exposure of Brighton Pier on the UK’s South Coast, using the 17mm f1.8 lens with a LEE Big Stopper ND filter fitted. I set the camera to apply long exposure noise reduction, which takes a ‘dark frame’ of the same exposure length afterwards, and disabled live peeking, so this is a best-case scenario. With two minutes for the exposure and two more for the dark frame, the total time taken to capture this image was four minutes.

6.05MB, Time (NR enabled), 120 secs, f3.2, 100 ISO, 17mm (34mm equiv) + LEE Big Stopper Click image to access original at Flickr

I spent many evenings experimenting with long exposures using the EM1 and EM5 on Brighton Pier and got some useful and interesting results, but inevitably the conditions were in constant change, preventing me from making definitive comparisons. So for consistent and controlled conditions I moved indoors and photographed a still-life of a toy train under artificial light using the Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens and my LEE Big Stopper ND filter.

I experimented with different exposure times ranging from 30 seconds to two minutes with and without long exposure noise reduction enabled, and also with and without live peeking enabled. I then repeated my tests for the EM5 for direct comparison. All the exposures were made at the base sensitivity of 200 ISO, the white balance was fixed and the aperture adjusted for the different exposure times as the filter and light source remained fixed; note the aperture was wide open for the 30 second exposures, so the depth of field is shallower than the others with some slightly softer details as a result. Finally, the room was quite cold (UK winter with no heating on) and each camera was allowed one minute to cool down between exposures. Here’s what I discovered.

Olympus OMD EM1 long exposure noise (30, 60, 120 secs at 200 ISO) Noise Reduction On, Noise Filter Standard, Live Time disabled, 100% crops from in-camera JPEG
30 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On		60 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On		120 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On

In my first comparison above you’ll see 100% crops taken from in-camera JPEGs at 30, 60 and 120 seconds with Noise Reduction enabled and the Standard Noise Filter. Enabling Noise Reduction on the EM1 for long exposures takes a second exposure of the same length immediately after the first as a ‘dark frame’, allowing noise to be subtracted. This is very effective technique resulting in almost noise-free images on the EM1 above, but doubles the amount of time required to record each image – so a 30 second exposure takes one minute to complete, a 60 second requires two minutes, and a 120 second requires four minutes. During the dark frame exposure the camera is locked, which may not be an issue if you’re shooting cities or sea and sky-scapes in fairly static lighting conditions, but could mean missing a key explosion in a fireworks display or leaving gaps between star trails on a stacked composition. So it’s important to also see how the noise compares with noise reduction turned off. I’ve made that comparison below.

Olympus OMD EM1 long exposure noise (30, 60, 120 secs at 200 ISO) Noise Reduction Off, Noise Filter Off, Live Time disabled, 100% crops from in-camera JPEG
30 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off		60 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off		120 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off

In my second comparison above you’ll see 100% crops taken from in-camera JPEGs at 30, 60 and 120 seconds with Noise Reduction off and the Noise Filter also set to Off. It doesn’t take a pixel-peeper to notice green speckles sprinkled over the crops, which become progressively worse as the exposure increases. Unfortunately these are hot pixels which are much harder to reduce than high ISO noise. When I put the accompanying RAW files through Adobe Camera RAW, it couldn’t do anything to reduce the speckles, and any enhancements to the image actually made them more obvious; indeed I’d say the in-camera JPEG processing is doing it’s best to minimise their impact.

So from this initial comparison I’d say it’s best not to shoot exposures longer than 30 seconds or so on the EM1 without noise reduction applied, unless you don’t mind a big serving of hot pixels. Once again though, applying noise reduction comes at the price of a delay between exposures as the dark frame is being recorded, which in turn makes it frustrating for fireworks displays or stacked star trail composites. And again I couldn’t personally find a way to easily process the hot pixels out from RAW files, but I’d love to hear from anyone who can.

This also begs the question though, is the EM1 any better – or indeed any worse – than the EM5 in this regard? Find out below where I’ve repeated the EM1 results below the EM5 results for an easier comparison. So on the top row is the EM5 and on the bottom row is the EM1.

Olympus OMD EM5 top row, OMD EM1 bottom row Long exposure noise (30, 60, 120 secs at 200 ISO) Noise Reduction On, Noise Filter Standard, Live Time disabled, 100% crops from in-camera JPEG
EM5, 30 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On		EM5, 60 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On		EM5, 120 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On
EM1, 30 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On		EM1, 60 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On		EM1, 120 seconds, 200 ISO, NR On

I’ll start as before with both cameras applying noise reduction with their standard noise filters. The results between them above are essentially the same: virtually noise-free at 30 seconds and only the faintest of speckles appearing at two minutes. I’d say there’s nothing to choose between the EM1 and EM5 at this point. But now check below when noise reduction is turned off. Once again it’s the older and cheaper EM5 on the top row and the newer and more expensive EM1 on the bottom row.

Olympus OMD EM5 top row, OMD EM1 bottom row Long exposure noise (30, 60, 120 secs at 200 ISO) Noise Reduction Off, Noise Filter Off, Live Time disabled, 100% crops from in-camera JPEG
30 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off		60 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off		120 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off
30 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off		60 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off		120 seconds, 200 ISO, NR Off

In the comparison above, you’re looking at 30, 60 and 120 second exposures from each camera with noise reduction disabled. On the top row it’s the EM5 and on the bottom row it’s the EM1, and this time the difference is clear to see. The EM1 is displaying those nasty hot pixels which get worse as the exposure lengthens, but in stark contrast the older and cheaper EM5 remains pretty clean throughout. Believe me, this is not a mistake. I repeated the tests in a variety of conditions and always found the same result. With noise reduction turned off the EM1 will exhibit hot pixels, whereas the EM5 manages to mostly avoid them. Indeed the EM5 results with NR off look almost the same as those with NR enabled. So what’s going on?

The short answer is, no-one can tell me. I don’t think the older EM5 has a mysteriously superior sensor for long exposures and I don’t buy into the EM1’s phase-detect AF pixels being at fault as the sprinkles occur across the entire image beyond the PDAF assist area. I don’t think we can blame the lack of an optical low pass filter on the EM1 either as hot pixels are nothing to do with incoming light. I additionally don’t think it’s the JPEG engine either as the respective RAW files exhibit the same differences.

My guess is it’s something going on prior to the RAW data being recorded on the EM5 – a kind of on-chip noise reduction if you like. We’ve certainly seen it before on some Sony cameras. So I don’t think the EM5’s hardware is better, but I do think its sensor is doing something different to its data before it’s recorded.

Ultimately until Olympus engineers explain what’s going on (and I keep asking), we’re all left guessing – the only official comment I have is that Olympus recommends using the EM1 with noise reduction enabled. But while I don’t think the EM5 has a superior sensor, it clearly has something in the pipeline that’s more friendly to long exposure work. If you’re happy to wait and apply noise reduction to long exposures, there’s nothing between the two models, but if you prefer to shoot without noise reduction, then the older EM5 is by far the preferred choice. This will be important for those who assemble long star trails from multiple exposures and understandably don’t want gaps between them, or equally those who don’t want their camera tied-up recording dark frames during a busy fireworks display. This issue will only affect a small minority, but if you’re one of them you’ll want to know the facts.

Olympus OMD EM1 Live Time

Before concluding this page I wanted to share some more long exposure comparisons, this time for the EM1 when it’s using Live Time. This is an innovative feature for Olympus cameras where you can actually peek at a long exposure while it’s building to see if it’s already sufficiently cooked, or indeed if you’re wasting your time for some other reason. It’s also great fun, reminiscent of watching a black and white print develop in an old chemical darkroom. But my question is whether enabling these peeks has a detrimental impact to the image quality, as the number of peeks becomes less for higher sensitivities and once they’re used up, you won’t see any more updates to your exposure.

Olympus OMD EM1 long exposure noise 120 secs at 200 ISO Noise Reduction On, Noise Filter Standard, 100% crops from in-camera JPEG
120 seconds with Live Time disabled		120 seconds with Live Time, 15 ‘peeks’ at 8 second intervals

In my final comparison above, you’re looking at two exposures taken with the EM1, both of them lasting two minutes with noise reduction applied. The only difference is the exposure on the left had Live Time disabled, while the one on the right had it enabled with ‘peeking’ at eight second intervals – this provided 15 updates throughout the exposure.

As you can see, the 100% crop of the image taken with Live Time enabled (above right), exhibits some chroma noise that’s absent on the one with Live Time disabled. It’s a lot more discreet than the hot pixels seen earlier though and is something that’s much more easily reduced in post-production on a RAW file.

I made the same comparisons at 30 and 60 seconds and found the noise levels to be similar. The impact seems to boil down to the number of peeks you make rather than the exposure length. The more times you peek at the image, the worse the noise.

To put it in perspective again though, it’s not exactly terrible, just worse than the version with it disabled. Ultimately if you want the cleanest results you should shoot without Live Time, although you could of course use it to quickly nail the correct exposure for a shot, before then turning it off and shooting your ‘proper’ exposure with it disabled.

Next skip straight to my verdict!

I was particularly interested by the diffraction compensation as you don’t need to close the aperture too much on the Micro Four Thirds system for it to become an issue. To put it to the test I took a series of photos with the EM1 fitted with the Olympus 75mm f1.8, which is an extremely sharp lens. I took the same composition in RAW+JPEG at every aperture and processed the RAW files using Adobe Camera RAW with the sharpening set to 50 / 0.5 / 36 / 10, which delivers very crisp results.

Below you can see 100% crops from the in-camera JPEG and Adobe-processed RAW file with the lens set to f2.8 where it’s arguably performing at its best. As you can see there’s loads of fine and crisp details and little to choose between them on detail and sharpness. The big question then is what happens as you close the aperture and keep the processing setting the same.

Olympus OMD EM1 with 75mm f1.8 at f2.8 100% crop from in-camera JPEG		Olympus OMD EM1 with 75mm f1.8 at f2.8 100% crop from RAW processed with ACR
75mm f1.8 at f2.8		75mm f1.8 at f2.8

Below is the same shot taken at f22, the minimum aperture for the 75mm lens and one that’s well within the murky depths of diffraction. As you can clearly see from the JPEG crop, it’s considerably softer than the one at f2.8, with many fine details wiped-out by diffraction. This isn’t surprising, but what’s interesting is to compare the JPEG against the RAW file, the latter processed using exactly the same sharpening settings as the f2.8 sample above. It’s clear to see the in-camera JPEG is delivering a much better result than the processed RAW file, and no amount of extra sharpening to the RAW file in Adobe Camera RAW could bring it to the same level.

Olympus OMD EM1 with 75mm f1.8 at f22 100% crop from in-camera JPEG		Olympus OMD EM1 with 75mm f1.8 at f22 100% crop from RAW processed with ACR
75mm f1.8 at f22		75mm f1.8 at f22

While there’s no documentation on how the diffraction correction is implemented, I’d say it’s definitely being applied to the in-camera JPEG and not to the RAW file. And while the JPEG at f22 still looks soft compared to the one at f2.8, it looks a lot better than the processed RAW file could. Maybe there’s better results with different RAW converters, but based on my own workflow with ACR I’d say I’d prefer the in-camera JPEG for overall detail when shooting at very small apertures.

Next skip straight to my verdict!

I fitted each camera in turn with the same Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f1.8 lens to eliminate the optics from the comparison, and set the aperture to f4 as pre-determined to deliver the sharpest results. All three cameras were set to 200 ISO and shared the same exposure. Note there was a minor difference in cloud cover when shooting with the EM5. I plan on performing this test again soon, but wanted to share these initial results.

The image above was taken with the Olympus OMD EM1 fitted with the M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f1.8 lens. The EM1 was mounted on a tripod and Image Stabilisation disabled. Aperture priority mode was selected with the aperture set to f4, which produces the best result from this lens. With the sensitivity set to the base setting of 200 ISO the camera metered an exposure of 1/2000. The same lens was used on the EM5 and GX7, and both cameras metered the same exposure. As always, the areas marked by the red rectangles are reproduced below at 100% for comparison.

As a reminder, all three cameras share the same 16 Megapixel resolution, although all use different sensors and different image processors too; in addition, the sensor on the EM1 does not have an optical low pass filter. Since the same lens was used for all three cameras, we’re able to directly compare the sensor and image processing.

At first glance the crops from the two Olympus bodies look very similar in style and detail. There’s a minor boost in contrast from the EM5 in the middle column, but this is more down to a slight difference in the cloud cover at the time of shooting. Remove this contrast difference from the equation and I’d say they look very similar.

Look really closely and this conclusion remains unchanged. I’ve stared and stared at these images and really cannot see any benefit of the EM1 over the EM5. Both cameras are delivering essentially the same degree of detail and their processing styles are essentially the same too. You may notice the EM5 exhibits a little chromatic aberration in the crop showing the metal bench which is absent on the EM1, proving the new model’s digital reduction capabilities, but otherwise there really isn’t anything between their in-camera JPEGs here.

At first this is a little disappointing as the absence of an optical low pass filter on the EM1 would suggest it may enjoy crisper results than the EM5. Maybe the EM5’s low pass filter was already very weak. Maybe the default image processing settings of the EM1 are to blame as Olympus explains it is doing in-camera moire-management. Perhaps the EM1’s processor is digitally doing the same job as the physical filter in the EM5 and effectively eliminating any benefit. Certainly I can’t see any evidence of moire on the EM1 crops, despite several instances of very closely paired lines.

In the meantime the third column shows the output from the Panasonic Lumix GX7 which looks quite subdued in comparison. We’ve seen this before though when comparing Olympus and Panasonic bodies – the former tends to apply punchier processing with higher contrast and sharpening. If you look beyond this and examine the actual detail in the crops, you’ll see the GX7 is essentially delivering the same detail. If you apply the same degree of sharpening and contrast to the GX7 as employed by the Olympus bodies, it delivers very similar looking output.