After my outdoors shootout in which I discovered that at ISO 200 the Olympus E-620 was less sensitive than the Canon G9 at ISO 100, I decided to do a higher ISO test. ISO 400 is the highest ISO at which the G9, in my opinion, gives you a useable image that’s not ruined by noise. I wanted to see how well the E-620 did at a comparable sensitivity.
I was really surprised to discover that the E-620 and the G-9 seem to have the exact same sensitivity when both cameras are set to ISO 400!
Canon G9, ISO 400, f/3.5, ¼ second
Histogram for the Canon G9 photo
Olympus E-620, ISO 400, f/3.5, ¼ second
Histogram for the Olympus E-620 photo
I don’t understand why the cameras behaved so differently between this test and the outdoor shootout test.
You can take my word for it that, at ISO 400, the Olympus E-620 with its bigger pixels is significantly less noisy than the Canon G9. The E-620 blows away the G9 at ISO 400. (But unfortunately, the E-620 front-focused here, just as my E-500 did, even though the E-620 and 14-54mm combo focuses perfectly on a white sheet of paper with a focus test printed on it. The Canon G9 has much more dependable focus.)
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