Olympus PEN E-PL2 Samples

The crops below show the performance of the Olympus PEN E-PL2 next to the same ISO for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2. Both of these are Micro Four-Thirds SLD cameras but the GH2 captures 16 megapixels versus 12 megapixels for the E-PL2. They both cover the ISO 200 to 6400 range, with the GH2 also supporting ISO 160 and 12800.

All images below are 100% crops from their respective camera taken at the highest image quality JPEG setting available. ISO, aperture and white-balance were set on camera. Other settings were left at their default values. These crops help determine which ISO settings is acceptable on these cameras. As noise increases, most cameras compensate with noise reduction which introduces softness. The point at which a print become unacceptably noisy is a matter of personal taste.

Olympus PEN E-PL2	Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2
	ISO 160
ISO 200	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 1600
ISO 3200	ISO 3200
ISO 6400	ISO 6400
	ISO 12800

The Olympus PEN E-PL2 may seem humble with its lower resolution and smaller ISO range but it performs solidly and shows that bigger pixels is better than more pixels. Compared to the Panasonic GH2, the E-PL2 starts with a 2-stop image-noise lead which narrows to about 1 stop at ISO 1600. Details are not ultra-sharp and colors are very slightly off, yet results are impeccably smooth until ISO 800 with only a tiny about of noise appearing at ISO 1600.