Dear reader, thank you for visiting our website. The article you are looking for – Comparing the 20MP sensors of the Olympus Pen F and Panasonic GX8 – has been transferred over to our new comparison website. You can find the link in the comment section below. We apologise for the inconvenience.
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The article can be found here:
https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/panasonic-vs-olympus/pen-f-vs-gx8-20mp-sensor-comparison/
Yes, the pixel race is a funny illusion… It reminds me often of the ridiculous focus on Watts with the specification of loudspeakers. That was a totally superfluous specification because it was really no indication at all for quality and endurement since it could only be considered within a complex system of other variables. The same seems to apply with the pixel race. I just came accross your own review of the new Sony megazoom for the fullframe A7 series. The A7rII has a wonderfully high pixel rate, but that lense reduces it to a mere MPs, so the result is a lower effective resolution than a 16 MP M43 sensor with a good lens! Photography is about a complex interwoven system of variables, but for marketing the pixelrace does make sense.
Looking at these pics, I’m doubting my intention of buying a gx80. Olympus colours do look good.
Did a quick test..Just on the RAW files with “warming” on and “warming” off….I can see no change in the Raw file color so it must only effect jpegs. Anyones thoughts are appreciated.
Heather, with the PEN did you have the “Keep Warm Color” turned on or off? I love Olympus colors, and I keep my warming turned “off”, but find the color still to be on the warm side ( in a good way). Also..do you know if the “Keep Warm Color” effects RAW or only JPEG? (Guess I could test that easily enough! LOL.)
Good comparison…pretty much what we would expect. Both cameras have a lot to offer in a small package.
Yes, and it’s too bad that the new GX80 doesn’t have one!
As crazy as it sounds, at least 40MP should be easily possible from an M4/3 sensor. No one complains about the excellent dynamic range and low-light performance of the 20MP Sony 1″ BSI sensor, and a 4/3 sensor is twice as large as that. Using present technology a BSI M4/3 sensor could easily accommodate 24MP or 28MP with headroom to spare and still achieve better dynamic range and ISO performance than it does now.
…it’s no surprise that such a sensor doesn’t exist, though. It would likely not only be expensive, but I don’t imagine Sony would have much incentive to step on its own toes by delivering such a sensor to its competitors.
what I love about the panasonic is the flip up EVF…once I got used to that every time I pick up any camera I miss it terribly.
I like to use the mFT with 16MP. The only downside i see is to have less potential for cropping of images, that’s where the 20MP migh come useful (I have lots more potential wirh Sony APSC and 24MP to do crops of images).
On the physics side, the 20MP MFT in comparison to other sensors is the most challenging when it comes to diffraction effects. Purely from a calcualtion view, optimum aperture is at F5 for 20MP but compared to the 16MP with F5,5 it isn’t too far away from it … it would be interesting to prove by images whether diffraction differences are really to be seen with 16MP vs. 20MP.
Apart from that: I am out of the Megapixel race by now … just being happy shooting with 16MP (or in most cases with 14,4MP shooting in 3:2 … ) or 24MP APSC and cropping …
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PS some technical notes:
Below is a comparison of Pixel Pitch / Optimum Aperture to the other sensor sizes (I wrote up a small XLS spreadsheet to do the calculations: http://www.mopswerk.de/photography-math-formula-spreadsheet-calculation/ ) : The 24MP APSC pixel size is comparable to the 16MP MFT, whereas even a whopping 42MP on Full Frame still puts in a bit more size per pixel than a 24MP APSC counter part:
Pixel Pitch(*)
20MP MFT > 3,35 micrometer > Optimum Aperture F4,9 (**)
16MP MFT > 3,75 micrometer > Optimum Aperture F5,5 (**)
24MP APSC > 3,92 micrometer > Optimum Aperture F5,8 (**)
42MP Full Frame > 4,54 micrometer > Optimum Aperture F6,7 (**)
(*) Pixel Pitch: Length/Height of a Sensor Pixel
(**) Optimum Aperture: Circle Of Confusion at optimum aperture fits into area corresoponding to square with sides of pixelpitch length