{"id":6453,"date":"2016-04-16T09:52:13","date_gmt":"2016-04-16T14:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=6453"},"modified":"2024-09-05T17:07:47","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T22:07:47","slug":"review-olympus-pen-f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/review-olympus-pen-f\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Olympus Pen-F"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s been almost seven years since Olympus entered the Micro 4\/3 market with the Olympus Pen E-P1.  The Pen name harkened back to Olympus’ half frame line of film cameras that began in 1959. After several iterations of the Pen lineup, Olympus has borrowed the full name of one of those film bodies for its latest compact Micro 4\/3 camera: the Pen-F. The original Pen-F was released in 1963, and had an iconic style. Today’s new Pen-F borrows a bit from that style and the result is one of the genuinely most attractive cameras around today.  The camera comes in both black and silver.  I am reviewing the black version, but I have to say the silver version looks amazing to my eye.  The Pen-F has a distinct old-school design with large chunky dials and a flat front with a leatherette wrapping, but packs all the latest technologies from Olympus.  It also has the first integrated viewfinder on a Pen series camera, which has been a requested feature for years.  Let’s find out how Olympus did with this latest Pen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The new Olympus Pen-F<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re not familiar with my reviews, I review from a real world shooting perspective. You won\u2019t find lens charts or resolution numbers here. There are plenty of other sites that cover those. I review products on how they act for me as a photographic tool.  I am not a videographer, so my reviews concentrate on the still imaging capabilities of a camera.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F is designed to have as much retro charm as humanly possible, and at times, this service to aesthetics is a disservice to ergonomics, and nowhere is that more the case than the front grip, which is…absent. The camera has a completely flat front, like many old rangefinder cameras, and it can make for a moderately uncomfortable squeeze required to keep the camera in check.  Thankfully, it didn’t handle as poorly as I expected, especially with smaller lenses, due to two key things: a very nice texture on the leatherette that covers the camera, and a very deep recess for the thumb, which provides some much needed purchase on the rear of the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Olympus Pen-F<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite the lack of weather sealing, the camera is very tightly assembled and feels very well constructed.  Seams are tight and there is zero flex to the body.  It’s also a fairly dense camera, which simultaneously makes it feel like a premium item while also making it a bit harder to hold on to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When reviewing the past few Olympus cameras, I’ve had high praise for the large, chunky dials and the outstanding action of these dials. While the Pen-F continues the chunky dial trend, unfortunately the action on these dials isn’t what I expect from Olympus.  The front dial is nice and big, but the movement of the dial is partially shielded by the inexplicably raised movie record button, which your finger bumps after one or two clicks on the dial. The dial also doesn’t move quite as fluidly as the dials on the E-M5 II and E-M10 II, but rather in a bit of a jerky manner.  The rear dial is small but fat, and actually moves fairly well for such a small dial.  The exposure compensation dial (which is a first on an Olympus Micro 4\/3 body), unfortunately feels terrible.  It has very short travel that is extremely stiff, and the clicks are very loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the positive side, the dials are all well positioned, save for the slight shielding of the front dial by the record button, and your fingers fall naturally to them.  The rear buttons are positioned identically to those on other recent Olympus bodies, but there’s a new dedicated magnify button that comes in handy when you’re shooting in manual focus mode or with an adapted lens. These buttons are well placed and hard to press accidentally.  There’s a new front programmable button as well, near the base of the lens mount, that is in perfect position to press with your ring finger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The front creative dial is prominent (and slightly in the way)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One odd design change from the OM-D cameras is that they’ve gone back to the solid silver ring for the four-way controller instead of the nice big individual direction buttons that are featured on the E-M10 II and E-M5 II.  These ring buttons are easier to press than those on the E-P5, but it’s not as good as those on the Mark II OM-D’s.  It’s an unusual change because the rear of the camera isn’t any smaller in the control area than those two OM-D cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another odd design decision is the new creative mode dial that sits on the front of the camera.  This dial is very difficult to turn, which I’m sure is intentional, and is used to change JPEG profiles. While I’ll discuss the utility of the dial in the next section, here I’ll say that it was a bit of an odd location.  It did rub against my finger with heavier lenses, but was benign when using small, light lenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the issues I list above, I grew accustomed to most of them over the review period.  While I don’t think it handles as well or feels as good in operation as my E-M10 II, it’s still a very usable camera with well placed controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operation and Controls<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F has a similar control scheme to most other Olympus Micro 4\/3 bodies, with a few notable exception.  The interface is still predominantly controlled with the two top mounted front and rear control dials.  These change exposure parameters, navigate through images upon review and so on.  The big change with the Pen-F is the addition of a dedicated exposure compensation dial.  A lot of manufacturers have started adding them, after it became popular with Fuji, Sony and more recently Panasonic. At first, I didn’t really feel like it was that different using the Pen-F due to this dial, as I typically used the rear control dial for exposure compensation in the aperture and shutter priority modes.  With the new EC dial, Olympus defaults to using both control dials to control aperture in aperture priority.  After a few days, though, it dawned on me that I could assign ISO to one of the dials, and suddenly: in aperture priority, I can control aperture with the front dial, ISO with the rear dial and EC with the EC dial.  Like the E-M10 II, the Pen-F lacks the two-way switch featured on the E-M5 II and E-M1, but the dedicated EC dial makes up for this.  For what its worth, you can still assign that two way function to one of the programmable function buttons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The rear of the Pen-F (with the screen closed)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of programmable buttons, the Pen-F has three dedicated Fn buttons for programming, plus several others that can be repurposed from their labeled function. The ability to customize these makes it easy to set up the camera to your liking for easy access to often used controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two new additions to the camera that have caused some controversy: the front ‘Creative Dial’ and the rear curves lever. These are two dedicated controls, that can’t be repurposed, that are dedicated solely to JPEG output modification.  The creative dial sits on the front of the camera and is perhaps the most prominent control on the camera. You can choose from five positions on this dial: the ‘standard’ mode (which Olympus calls ‘Image Enhancement’), Color, Art filters, Black and White (Mono) and CRT.  The Image Enhancement mode is the same default JPEG mode that Olympus has had on all their cameras. You can select certain JPEG profiles, such as Vivid, Neutral, etc.  The Color mode allows you to adjust the response of individual colors, using the front and rear dials, as well as that dedicated lever. Say you want intense blues and reds, but muted greens: this is your mode. The Monochrome mode acts how you’d expect, by creating black and white profiles.  This allows for quick setting of the black and white color filter, the contrast settings, curves and shading.  The Art filters mode allows quick access to the art filters that have been featured on Olympus cameras for years, while the CRT mode (Color Creator) mode, is a more global color adjustment mode (hue\/saturation\/curves).  The lever, in any mode, is the means to access the curves adjustment and shading controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The three major control dials, the mode dial and the curves lever all sit on the top and rear of the camera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I got the camera, I was disappointed that such a prominent controls were dedicated to JPEG output only.  This is a serious camera, and while Olympus JPEGs have always been great, it seemed odd to spend a reasonable amount of camera space to JPEG output only.  I still feel that these controls will probably get less use than some other things that could have been put there.  However, to my surprise, I used these controls a LOT during the testing period.  It was great to switch quickly to a black and white output, or tweak certain settings.  I did use it mostly for black and white output, but if you’re a JPEG shooter, it’ll come in very handy, as it’s very fast and easy to adjust output in rather dramatic ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving on from the JPEG controls, the Pen-F features the same super control panel (SCP) and menu system as previous Olympus bodies.  The SCP, as always, is fantastic: allowing very quick access to the vast majority of the shooting options on the camera. The menu system has the same plusses and minuses as previous cameras as well: it’s a lot of power with tremendous customization options, but at the cost of deep complexity.  If you’re an existing Olympus shooter, you’ll feel right at home. If you’re new to the system, be prepared for a learning curve while you get used to the menu system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The familiar Super Control Panel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F also has a bevvy of touchscreen controls, including the ability to change focus point by touch, navigate playback of images, and more.  The touch screen is responsive and accurate.  The Pen-F also inherits the AF Targeting Pad feature from the E-M10 II, which allows you to reposition focus points when using the viewfinder simply by sliding your thumb across the touch screen like a trackpad.  This is one of my favorite features on the E-M10 II, so I’m glad to see it in the Pen-F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Viewfinder, Screen and Performance<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Viewfinder and Rear Screen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F is the first Pen series camera from Olympus to feature an integrated viewfinder, and it’s been a long time coming.  The Pen-F electronic viewfinder (EVF) is almost identical to the one in the E-M10 Mark II, which means it’s smaller than the large viewfinders found it most of today’s top tier mirrorless cameras, but the 0.62x magnification still provides a larger view than most APS-C DSLRs.  The 2.36 million dot EVF is clear and crisp, with good detail and excellent color and contrast.  There’s limited lag in most lighting conditions, though it slows a bit in dimmer light.  Overall, it’s a fine finder, though not one that stands out in the crowd of mirrorless cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Pen-F’s fully articulated rear screen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rear screen is a 1 million dot fully articulated touch screen, which is a first on a Pen camera.  The full articulation allows for easy viewing of the live feed from almost any angle, including portrait orientation shots low to the ground.  I’ve always felt mixed about fully articulated screens, as I love the ability to get low in portrait orientation, but it’s less fluid to tilt it out for low horizontal shots.  I also don’t like that the view is offset by a considerable margin from the lens when shooting horizontally.  Overall, however, it’s a better option than a straight tilt screen, and the one on the Pen-F is fluid and easy to position.  That is, once you get it out.  The deep area to get at the screen is the area where the thumb rest sits, making it very difficult to pull the screen out when handholding the camera.  You can also pull it out from the bottom, but this is also somewhat difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autofocus and Performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F has the same contrast detect autofocus system as the recent OM-D E-M5 II, and as such, there’s nothing particularly new to report with regards to the AF.  The camera is still among the fastest focusers in the mirrorless world when it comes to single shot AF, locking nearly instantly with most lenses, and with excellent accuracy.  While low light AF performance isn’t amazing, it still manages to lock in dimmer light most of the time, though occasional hunting can happen, especially with slower lenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuous autofocus is pretty good for a contrast detect system, but lags behind mirrorless cameras with on-sensor phase-detect autofocus.  I was able to get a reasonable hit rate on cars coming towards me when using the Olympus 75-300mm, though it was limited to further distances.  Once the car got fairly close, the ability to maintain an accurate point of focus was lost. The shot below is from a sequence of 9 shots, of which 4 of the 9 shots were in perfect focus.  This isn’t a great hit rate, but it’s not terribly bad for a CDAF system and a fast moving subject.  In more moderate situations it’ll fare better.  Still, a phase detect system will have a notably higher success rate in these types of situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Pen-F can track moving subjects better than most CDAF cameras. This is shot 6 in a 9 shot burst.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F can maintain continuous AF between frames when shooting at the continuous low frame rate of 5 frames per second.  There’s also a high burst rate of 10 frames per second, but when this mode is selected, the focus is locked after the first exposure.  With the Pen-F’s electronic shutter capabilities, there’s also a 20 fps high+ mode using the electronic shutter, though this is less useful for action due to the rolling shutter effects that will cause odd warping of quickly moving subjects, even at fast shutter speeds. The buffer is fairly ample as well, especially given the style of camera. The Pen-F can record over 40 JPEGs and nearly 30 RAW files before slowing down when shooting in 10 fps burst mode, a fairly impressive buffer for a camera that is not really geared towards action shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from the action oriented items, the Pen-F is a responsive camera that doesn’t force you to wait on it. Write times aren’t super fast, but the large buffer means that it almost never hinders shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flash<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F lacks a built-in pop-up flash, which is a bit of a bummer, but it includes the rather capable little clip on flash that first appeared with the OM-D E-M5 Mark II.  This flash isn’t particularly powerful, but it can swivel and bounce to provide much better lighting quality than most clip on flashes.  Unfortunately, the the low power necessitates a higher ISO when bouncing the flash, but the results are still going to be better than a direct flash at low ISO.  The direct flash works quite well in macro situations as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The clip on flash is capable of bounce and swivel shooting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In practice, you’ll still be better off using a dedicated flashgun that has a lot more power, though it’s a task that is made difficult by the small size of the camera.  Using a flash like the Nissin i40, which is very compact, is a good idea.  However, Olympus is to be commended for packaging a clip on flash that does more than the typical on-camera flash.  The shot below was taken with the clip-on flash, using ISO 800 to make up for the low power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Easter<\/a>
Easter Morning – Olympus Pen-F with Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 @ f\/1.7, 1\/80s, ISO 800 with flash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now let’s dive into some of the key features that the Pen-F has, including Wi-Fi, High Resolution mode and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Key Features<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

High Resolution Mode<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After the OM-D E-M5 Mark II, the Pen-F is the second Olympus camera to feature their sensor-shift High Resolution Mode (henceforth referred to in this article as HR mode).  The HR mode takes advantage of the precise control afforded by the excellent in-body image stabilizing system to precisely shift the sensor to capture significantly more data than is generally available with the native 20 megapixel sensor. It does this by taking 8 discrete photos and merging them into a single file.  First, the camera takes a shot, then shifts the sensor to the side one pixel, then down, then to the other side.  This doesn\u2019t add any direct resolution, but instead shifts the Bayer color filter array around such that red, green and blue values are captured for every pixel location, rather than requiring interpolation.  This alone increases detail since color interpolation isn\u2019t required like it is for almost all digital cameras.  It then follows by shifting the sensor up and to the side, placing the pixel array exactly halfway between pixels both horizontally and vertically.  It then completes the shifting to capture full color information at all of THOSE locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Blossom<\/a>
Blossom – Olympus Pen-F with Olympus 60mm f\/2.8 Macro @ f\/3.5, 80 MP High Res Mode<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The result?  A true 80 megapixel RAW file with RGB color information at every one of the 80 megapixels. Because of diffraction effects, there’s not really a full 80 megapixels of detail here, but it’s still excellent.  Olympus manages expectations by outputting a 50 megapixel JPEG image, which captures essentially all the actual extra detail offered by this mode.  It works very well, but there are a few caveats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the camera must be completely still, so you are limited to tripod mounted shooting, and if it’s windy, I wouldn’t try it.  Second, the scene itself must be still.  Objects that move will leave diagonal line artifacts in the final image.  If you’re photographing moving water or skies with long exposures, this is less of an issue (as you can easily blur out any visible artifacts), but for sharpness in your image, you’ll need to shoot still scenes on a rock solid tripod.  See below for an example.  The full image above was captured using the HR mode, and as you can see in the 100% crop below, there’s really quite a lot of extra detail here that wouldn’t have been captured in a single shot. This is a crop of the 80 megapixel RAW, which shows some softness due to diffraction, but there’s at least 50 megapixels of true data here.  I’t something to use sparingly, but when used well, it’s a great feature to have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"100%<\/a>
100% crop of 80 MP HR shot above. (Click to view full size)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Image Stabilization<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In-Body Image Stabilization<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Of course, one of the best reasons to choose Olympus bodies for your MIcro 4\/3 kit is the excellent in-body Image stabilization (IBIS).  The Pen-F inherits 5 Axis IBIS similar to those on the OM-D line of cameras, and like you’d expect, it works very well. In my experience, the IBIS system is generally useful for allowing an extra four stops of handholding at slower shutter speeds.  With wider angle lenses, I\u2019ve even been able to get sharp shots as slow as 1\/2 second.  The shot below, for instance, was taken at 1\/4 second handheld and is very sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>
Under the Railroad – Olympus Pen-F with Panasonic 12-32mm f\/3.5-5.6 @ 22mm, f\/5, 1\/4 sec, ISO 200<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, the downside of the recent Olympus stabilizers are also present, and that is a tendency for shutter shock at shutter speeds between 1\/60 and 1\/200s.  It’s not too big of a problem, though, as the Pen-F includes a fully electronic shutter that also can be utilized as a first-curtain electronic shutter to help eliminate shutter shock.  Electronic first curtain is enabled by turning on \u2018anti-shock\u2019 with a 0 second delay.  Of course, turning on silent mode with full electronic shutter will eliminate it completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focus Bracketing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F is the second camera to debut with focus bracketing (and the fourth to have it, after the E-M5 II and E-M1 had it added via firmware update).  This is a great feature for creating focus stacks where depth of field is limited. If you aren’t familiar with focus stacking, it\u2019s a process of taking many images, focused at different points in an image, and combining the in-focus parts into a single image.  This is exceptionally useful for macro shooting due to the extremely shallow depth of field that occurs when shooting macro.  When you want to get a lot of a macro subject in focus, often the solution is to stop down to very small apertures.  This does get more of the subject in focus, but often it still isn\u2019t enough, and you also incur significant loss of sharpness due to diffraction softening at very small apertures.  The solution? Shoot many images at an optimal aperture and stack them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/a>
This photo of a blossom was taken at f\/4, an optimal aperture for sharpness, but the final image has very shallow depth of field.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the past, a photographer has had to manually move the focus point bit by bit to create a good focus stack.  Given the very small movements required and the sheer number of images for a quality macro focus stack, this can be very time consuming and is prone to error if you overshoot focus on a few images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F automates that process completely.  You simply select focus bracketing, select a degree of movement (lower numbers move the point less than higher numbers) and select the number of exposures.  You then focus at the closest point that you want in focus, click the shutter, and the camera takes a series of images moved precisely in exact increments, covering the number of shots you wish to shoot.  Like the high-resolution mode, there are a few things to watch out for. First, this process uses the electronic shutter, I\u2019d imagine to avoid shutter vibration and save actuations on the shutter mechanism, as you can blow through over a hundred frames in a single stack.  This is great, though be careful if shooting under fluorescent lighting at certain shutter speeds, as banding can be induced due to the flicker of the lights. Second, and perhaps most obviously, this process will also, in most cases, require the use of a tripod.  If you’re using a small number of images to focus stack a landscape, for instance, you could probably hand hold it and get a good result, as most stacking software can adjust for minor variations.  For many images in macro shooting, though, I’d definitely shoot tripod mounted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image above shows a blossom, taken with my Olympus 60mm Macro lens at f\/4.  This provides for excellent sharpness, but given the very close focus distance, depth of field is extremely shallow as well.  Even stopping down to f\/16 will not get the whole blossom in focus, and it will also reduce sharpness due to diffraction.  The shot below, however, shows a 40 image stack with Helicon Focus, with each image taken at f\/4.  The whole process of taking the images took only around 4 or 5 seconds; a massive improvement on manually adjusting focus between each frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Blossom<\/a>
Blossom – Focus stack of 40 images, Olympus Pen-F with Olympus 60mm f\/2.8 @ f\/4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wi-Fi<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As is the standard with mirrorless cameras nowadays, the Pen-F has fully featured Wi-Fi capabilities, on par with those in the E-M10 Mark II and E-M5 Mark II, including image transfer, geotagging and remote control. Let\u2019s start with image transfer: The Pen-F has the ability to transfer JPEG images, either singularly or in bulk, to a mobile device, simply by connecting the camera to your phone or tablet and booting up the Olympus Image Share app.  The camera can connect to your phone in a few different ways, but the easiest is via scanning a QR code displayed on the rear of the camera, which will then pass the WiFi network credentials to your phone or tablet.  Once connected, you can browse the contents of the camera and pick which images you\u2019d like to transfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are primarily a RAW shooter, Olympus also has you covered, as the Pen-F includes a rather full-featured, if somewhat confusing to operate, RAW converter.  Simply select your image and choose RAW Data Edit.  At this point, you can make adjustments to exposure, highlight and shadow tone, color, tone curve, art filters, etc, and create a JPEG image from those settings.  Then you can transfer your developed JPEGs to your mobile device for sharing.  One downside to the Olympus RAW converter is that after creation of the JPEG, the image review starts at the created JPEG, so if you\u2019re converting multiple files from earlier in a shoot, you\u2019ll spend quite a bit of time scrolling through images as you make your way back to the images you\u2019d like to convert.  Fuji had this same issue a while back, but changed this behavior last year via firmware update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The Wi-Fi remote control is full featured and fairly responsive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For geotagging, you’ll simply start a GPS log on your phone using the Image Share app. Prior to doing this, you’ll need to connect the camera at some point before to sync clocks, but this doesn’t need to be done frequently.  After a shoot, connect the camera to your phone over Wi-Fi and the app will prompt you to merge the GPS data with the images on the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F can also utilize remote capture via Wi-Fi, with full live view and the ability to change camera settings remotely.  The remote capture works well and allows for adjustment of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focus point, and so on while viewing the live display.  I found the remote shooting on the Pen-F to be fairly responsive with relatively low lag. When shooting remotely, the camera will transfer the completed image to your phone automatically, which is a nice touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Features of Note<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are quite a few long-standing Olympus features that are also present on this camera as well.  Worth mentioning is the outstanding Live Time and Live Bulb features, which show a live developing preview of the image during long exposures. Also present is the Live Comp mode first introduced with the E-M5 Mark II, which allows you to take a reference exposure image, and then let the camera check for new areas of brightness over the course of subsequent exposures.  Effectively, it allows you to expose for the background and then do subsequent longer exposures to composite into the frame, such as painting with light, or something as simple as fireworks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F is the first Olympus camera to have an upgraded 20 megapixels image sensor, and follows the Panasonic GX8 as the second Micro 4\/3 camera at that resolution.  Let’s see how it performs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dynamic Range and Color<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

While the sensor in the Pen-F is ‘all new’, I can’t say I see much difference with regards to dynamic range and color.  The dynamic range is still very good, and competitive with many APS-C sensors on the market, but falling short of the most recent APS-C efforts. This is most visible as a bit of a harsher transition of tones in the highlights and deep shadows.  This sounds bad, but it’s a very subtle difference to be honest. Despite trailing some of the competition in the mirrorless space, the Pen-F’s dynamic range is still good enough to provide a wide range of tones that will capture the majority of scenes in a single capture.  The Pen-F, like most Olympus cameras, tends to gear their RAW files towards underexposure, so you’ll likely have a fair bit of highlight headroom to recover in your RAW files, while shadows tend to get noisy a bit faster than larger sensors.  Still, the performance here is similar to the later 16 megapixel sensors used by Olympus, which should be plenty for most photographers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Magnolia<\/a>
Magnolia – Olympus Pen-F with Olympus 60mm f\/2.8 Macro @ f\/2.8, ISO 200<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Color response is typical Olympus, which is excellent. Olympus manages excellent tonality and color in the JPEG files, and the RAW files react very well to color adjustments.  The resulting images are natural, but with some vibrance, which I find very pleasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Detail and Noise<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Pen-F’s big advantage over earlier Olympus cameras is in the extra detail the 20 Megapixel sensor can provide.  The move from 16 megapixels to 20 is a modest one, but the Pen-F seems to make the most of this move.  I felt that the improvement in resolution felt more than you’d expect from the move to 20 megapixels, and I can’t really explain why.  Perhaps it’s the slight increase in detail combined with Olympus’ excellent contrast curves, but I felt the detail popped quite a bit with this camera.  You’re not going to be able to print appreciably larger due to the 4 megapixel increase, but I think you’ll see a small, but visible difference in prints at 12×18″ and larger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With an increase in pixel density, there’s often an increase in noise, and thankfully, the Pen-F avoids this pitfall.  Per-pixel noise seems very similar to earlier MIcro 4\/3 cameras at lower ISOs and a slight improvement at 100% at higher ISOs, but since each pixel makes up a smaller part of the image, the overall noise level in the image is definitely lower.  The change isn’t huge, but it gives a bit of extra breathing room at the high end, and I’d put the advantage of the Pen-F somewhere around a half a stop over something like the E-M5 Mark II.  The Pen-F looks good to ISO 1600, while ISO 3200 images are perfectly usable when exposed correctly.  ISO 6400 gets a bit noisy, but with proper noise reduction can still produce good prints and excellent web reductions.  ISO 12,800 gets into the realm of web use and small images only. I’d avoid 25,600 altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Eggs<\/a>
Eggs – Olympus Pen-F with Panasonic 25mm f\/1.7 @ f\/1.7, ISO 1600<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

JPEG Quality<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There’s been no change with regards to the Olympus JPEGs.  The camera still produces extremely high quality JPEG images that are among the best in the industry. Images are saved with minimal compression, have nice natural colors and contrast.  There is a bit too much smoothing in the noise reduction algorithm when set to default, but adjusting that setting down helps improve the results quite a bit.  Once noise reduction is lowered, JPEGs yield a fair bit more detail and, in my opinion, a more natural looking file that is truly excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As I note at the beginning of each review, I’m not a videographer, so for a true look at the video features, I’d look to other review sites.  The Pen-F can shoot 1080p video at 60, 30 and 24 frames per second (though getting to 24p is a bit tricky at first).  There’s no microphone input, so serious video shooters will want to look elsewhere.  One thing most everyone can enjoy, though, is the excellent IBIS system when shooting in video mode, which creates very stable handheld movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n