Canon G9 vs. Olympus E-500 vs. Sony P200

I took my Olympus E-500 DSLR, Canon G9, and Sony P200 to Columbus Circle, and while facing southeast, attempted to take the same photo with each camera. All cameras were set to cloudy white balance (because the picture was mostly in the shade, although there was some hazy sun), contrast -2, and sharpening -2, except for the Sony P200 which only has -1 settings. All cameras were set to - 1/3 EV. The Olympus and Canon were both set to F4.5. The Sony is at F6.3.

On the Olympus E-500, I'm using the 14-54mm F2.8-3.5 lens. This is the upgrade lens (around $425) and not the cheap kit lens.

I successfully captured approximately the same field of view with each camera. The Sony focal length is 51mm (in "full frame" equivalence), the Olympus and the Canon G9 both 50mm, so I was pretty close. Furthermore, the camera with the fewest megapixels is at the narrower focal length, so the P200 isn't at an unfair disadvantage.

Canon G9

Olympus E-500	Sony P200

I observe two things from the above photos:

(1) The Canon G9 has a yellower interpretation of the color of the brick building compared to the other cameras. As I said above, I set the cameras to cloudy white balance, so this is contributing to the yellowness. I believe the photo needs to have a slight cooling filter applied to it.

The Olympus photo has a magenta tint to it, which I think is an incorrect interpretation of the scene.

(2) The Olympus photo is darker. The Olympus seems to be underexposing by about 1/3 EV.

(Or since I did set all the cameras to - 1/3 EV, perhaps the other cameras are overexposing by 1/3 EV and the Olympus has the correct exposure. But don't conclude that the Olympus has better light metering--the Olympus will often produce a photo in which the exposure is way off, and that never happens with the Sony P200. Consistently overexposing by 1/3 EV is a good thing because it's easy to correct.)

Now, let's examining the resolution by looking at a street sign:

Sony P200	Olympus E-500	Olympus E-500 with sharpening	Canon G9

The Sony P200 has the obviously worst performance. The Olympus has only one more megapixel than the Sony, yet the No Parking sign is much more legible. This is especially true after sharpening is applied to the Olympus photo (the E-500 seems to apply the least in-camera sharpening of the three cameras). If I were only comparing the Sony and the Olympus, I might wrongly conclude that this proves that the large sensor of a DSLR outperforms the small sensor of a compact digital camera. But the G9 photo on the right demonstrates that this is not the case. The photo from the G9 shows more detail than the Olympus photo.

This explains why I was never satisfied with the Sony and its "Carl Zeiss" lens. The Carl Zeiss Foundation is obviously whoring its brand name out to Sony to be put on cheap lenses.

The Sony is so bad compared to the other two cameras that I'm no longer going to include it in the comparison.

Now let's look at another comparison demonstrating the superior resolution of the Canon G9:

Olympus E-500	Canon G9

In the crops above, the bricks mush together on the Olympus camera, but on the Canon G9 you can better make out the individual bricks. Once again, we see the superior resolution of the G9.

Now for some crops from the extreme upper right corner:

Olympus E-500	Canon G9

We see that the G9 has more chromatic aberration than the Olympus E-500 with the 14-54mm lens.

However, after I apply some chromatic aberration correction and "defringing" in ACR (yes, you can open a JPEG file in ACR), the G9 shot looks a lot better:

Canon G9 after CA correction and "defringing"

This flaw in the Canon G9 lens can be mostly corrected with some post-processing.

And now finally I get to a problem that irks me quite a bit, blown out highlights. Because the sun is shining, there are various places in the photo where there's a blown out highlight. Let's look at the street lamp (and please note that I increased the midtones brightness in the E-500 photo because the blown highlights look worse when next to dim midtones, and I didn't want to unfairly make the E-500 photo look worse):

Olympus E-500	Canon G9

I was expecting the Olympus to outperform the G9 in this comparison, because the much bigger sensor of the DSLR is supposed to have greater dynamic range. Furthermore, the Oly was underexposed by -1/3 EV compared to the shot from the G9, and that once again favors the Olympus. Further handicapping this comparision in favor of the Olympus, the Olympus photo is developed from a RAW file, while the Canon G9 is simply a JPEG. But surprisingly, I like the look of the crop from the Canon G9 photo better. The DSLR should have performed better here, but it did not rise to the challenge.

CONCLUSION

The Canon G9 is producing better image quality than I get with the Olympus E-500 DSLR. This is despite the fact that the E-500 has a much larger imaging sensor than the G9. From now on, I'm never going to bother to use the E-500, except when I need some special attribute of the E-500 or one of its multiple lenses. What attributes might I be talking about? A wider angle than 35mm, or shallow depth of field which gives a photo the look of a more expensive camera. The E-500 also does ISO 800 pretty well, and the G9 really falls apart at ISO 800. The E-500 is definitely better for photographing people indoors. But for regular pictures of buildings, landscapes, still lifes, and street photography, the G9 produces the higher quality image. On top of that, the G9 is less conspicuous and there's no shutter noise. And the G9 has image stabilization. Yes, I will no longer be getting much use out of the E-500.

SOME OTHER OBSERVATIONS

In the course of doing this comparison, I also noticed the following two things:

(1) The G9 produces sharper photos at F4.5 than it does wide open, so I suggest stopping down to at least F4.5 if you want to maximize image quality.

(2) With this particular scene, there is no benefit at all to shooting in RAW.

Comments

[Chris]

Very good comparision! Thanx!

[Klaas]

Thxx for the good comparision

[Franky]

Hm, very good comparision! (I'm from Hungary.)

[totunu]

Excellent information! Thank you!

[clyde bascue]

I was just starting to believe all the hype on noisey small chips and now this! Thanks..

[latew]

In the bricks crop comparison it is clear that the difference is due to the smaller DOF that the DSLR has, compared with the small sensor cam. I suggest a comparison at the focus point.

[proshooter]

Are all cameras on a tripod? The G9 has image stabilization (IS), the Sony P-200 doesn't. Enlarging a small sign in street landscape on a sensor the size of a fingernail without the aid of IS isn't a fair comparison test, or for that matter the purpose of any P&S digital camera. It is also apparent that the P-200 was reviewed with bias (CZ lenses) and then, based only on one "test" was eliminated from the "Vs." review. The P-200 is a much smaller camera and does the job nicely for what it was intended, but I agree with Big Mike that the G9 is probably the "winner", but for a completely different set of reasons.

[Jon]

Thanks for the comparison.

Unfortunately, I've found my G9 to be very fragile, and not built very sturdily!

I had an Olympus for 5 years without a single repair.

In sharp contrast, my G9 is now back for it's second repair in ONE YEAR...

Love the image quality of the G9, but it is built like a piece of crap. Serious design flaws make it very fragile.

[Phil Olenick]

I agree with the recommendation to stop down for sharpness! As a Canon XTi user (w/a Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS as my main lens), my G9 has a high bar to meet for image sharpness, and stopping down is part of my recipe for usable shots with the G9. I've found by trial and error that shooting wide open produces a rather soft image.

I've had my G9 for 2 years. I've found it to be easily carried - and even forgotten about - in a front pants pocket.

I put away the straps that came with it and replaced them with a pair of split rings: a tiny one to go through the right-hand strap mount and a larger one to step it up to something I can put my index finger through while shooting. Put a keyring clip on your belt and you can clip the larger split ring to it and slip the camera into your front pocket.

I shoot RAW exclusively and use an EV -1 to -2 setting indoors (boost the LCD's brightness for a better idea of what you're getting), and a top ISO of 200 to 400. I generally set the thing to Av (aperture priority), and I dial it down to a stop or so less than wide open. I find this gets me the most usable shots in low light, even though I may have to do some work in Photoshop.