Olympus Pen F Lab Test and Comments

This excerpt from the test on the Olympus Pen F, done by Betternet, a German testing lab affiliated with TIPA (Technical Image Press Association), gives a good indication of the features and capabilities of the camera. The test was performed in March, 2016. I currently serve on the Technical Committee of TIPA.

The Olympus PEN-F is a mirrorless system camera based on the Micro Four Thirds system. It is the first MFT camera by Olympus that features a 20 MP sensor. The design features some homages to classic rangefinder cameras and the original PEN-F of the 1960s. For example, the small dial on the front, which has a very analog look, offers digital effects like color modes, a special black and white mode and the “Art filters” used by many other Olympus cameras. All dials and function elements offer quick and professional operation of the camera even without using complex menus, which is full of additional functions.

The camera has a bright and clear view finder system. Its EVF offers 2.36 million RGB dots and a field of view of 100%. It also offers an optional preview of exposure adjustments. The color temperature of the EVF can be adjusted separately. Compared to an optical SLR viewfinder (50mm lens/focus setting to infinity) viewfinder size is 1.23x, which is quite large.

The camera has a 3-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1.037 million RGB dots and is touch-sensitive.  Images can be taken by a fingertip touch on the screen. The LCD is fully articulated. This is very helpful for recording videos, photo shots near the ground or when taking selfies.

The large number of dials and buttons offer a very direct and fast operation of the PEN-F. The main mode dial offers the usual auto-, movie-, P-, A-, S- and M-modes and can also be used for four custom modes. An additional dial is used for exposure compensation by 3 f-stops.

Just like a professional SLR system, the new Olympus camera offers two parameter dials. The rear dial is located near the photographer's thumb; the front dial can be found near the shutter release button. In addition it has two customizable buttons on the back and an Olympus-exclusive, a button that allows the photographer to set up the gradation or tone curve before taking images: options include high contrast and separate settings for highlight and shadow.

The Olympus PEN-F has two remarkable features: It offers a very powerful 5-axis-image stabilizer system based on sensor shift technology.  Its performance during the tests was very good. Due to the built-in system the image stabilizer can be used with every lens system. In combination with its fast autofocus system it nearly guarantees sharp images. The stabilizer system is also helpful when recording videos.

The second special feature of the Olympus PEN-F is its “high resolution mode.” This uses the sensor shift system of its image stabilizer to take eight photos, which are shifted by half of a pixel. The PEN-F image processor combines all images to a single 50MP shot. The detail reproduction of these images can be compared to photographs taken with a medium format camera system. Note: Due to the pixel shift technology this mode can only be used for still scenes without any moving objects or elements.

The camera has a USB 2.0 interface for data transfer to PCs or Macs. This combi interface also allows for establishing a connection to a TV via an AV-cable. In addition, the Olympus PEN-F offers an micro-HDMI interface and, for wireless transfer and remote control, it has a Wi-Fi-module.

Comments on Image Quality

Color: The automatic white balance system of the Olympus PEN-F tends toward a cooler color reproduction with a little shift into the blue areas of the color space and little over emphasized magenta rate. Some mentionable color errors are visible in red and deep blue areas. Skin tones are reproduced very naturally. The saturation of all colors is slightly raised. 

Sharpness: All technical test images were shot with the M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8 lens. Using this, the PEN-F reproduced the ISO 12233 chart with 3641 of 3888 lines. This is an excellent result. In some cases we noted in our charts that aliasing and moiré effects could occur in very fine structural image elements. The overall look of the Olympus photos in the field is natural and sharp, albeit with a little artificial look created by the image processing in the camera. By using raw files and fine-tuning the image settings you can get highly differentiated reproduction of fine details/structures, all with a very natural look.

Noise: The Olympus offers ISO speed settings between 200 to ISO 25,600. In lower speeds, from ISO 200 to ISO 800, the camera showed excellent, quite SLR-like results. The luminance noise factor crosses 1.0 percent line only at ISO 12,800. In addition, the noise spectrum is very low. Below ISO 3200 the look of the images is very clean. Luminance noise gets visible in images taken with ISO 800 to 1600 settings but is acceptable for real-life-images. At ISO 6400 and above darker areas become more diffused; at ISO 25,600 too many details become lost due to the anti noise filtering.

Nevertheless, the dynamic range tests are on a high level. The PEN-F achieved a maximum of 11.7 f-stops and keeps a high level of 10 f-stops up to ISO 3200. At ISO 6400 there are 9 f-stops but above this line dynamic range drops to 8 f-stops at ISO 12,800 and 7 f-stops at ISO 25,600.

Scorecard

Pro

+ stylish body with retro-design

+ excellent noise-results especially in lower ISO speed settings

+ realistic and natural color rendering

+ fast AF system

+ additional high resolution mode (50 MP using pixel shift technology)

+ excellent image stabilization system

Con

- very compact; perhaps too small for photographers with large hands

- no built-in flash system (note: a very compact flash system is supplied with the camera)