I’ve got a bunch of cameras at the moment so I thought it would be fun to do a quick Micro 4/3 vs APS-C shootout.

This post is just for fun, it is not meant to be scientific but will just give a quick idea of how the different sensor sizes look and perform in the real world.

I woke up this morning with the sun shining and thought it would be fun to compare the various cameras I’ve got at the moment.

So I used a Nikon D7200, a Fuji X100T and the Olympus Pen F. I shot the Nikon with the 18-140mm kit lens at 24mm and compared it against the Fuji X100T and the Pen F with the Olympus 17mm f/1.8. Then I swapped out the Nikon kit lens for the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 and compared it to the Olympus Pen F with the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 attached.

So here are the images below. Looking at quick samples like this can give an idea of how different camera brands render images, how much bokeh can you get with each format, what is the difference in IQ and which camera produces the photos you like best. All the first images were shot in Raw and converted to Jpeg in Lightroom with no adjustments.

I shot the cameras at the same apertures where possible because this is how I would shoot them in real life. I know that this is not giving you scientific equivalents in terms of depth of field etc but most people don’t think like that when they are taking photos. So here goes.

Micro 4/3 vs APS-C Raw shootout

Notice the flare in the Nikon D7200 shot which is washing out the colours. This was unavoidable in this light at this focal length. This is the fault of the lens not the camera.

The colours are a bit richer from the Fuji because it doesn’t suffer with the flare issue.

The Pen F and Olympus f/1.8 handle flare fine but the colours aren’t quite as rich as the Fuji. The Fuji also offers a little more subject isolation at this aperture due to the larger sensor. It’s pretty close though.

Below is the same shot taken in the Olympus Hi resolution mode. This gives a huge raw file of 80mb.

High Resolution shot from the Olympus + 17mm f/1.8

Now there are some serious issues with this image due to movement in the background but just look at the colours it produces. The colours are so rich compared to all the other three shots. If Olympus can find a way to get this high-resolution mode to work handheld as rumoured on the OM-D E-M1 II then it could be incredible for landscapes. As it is it is a pretty cool feature and I could see it being superb for architectural photography and fine art for static subjects.

Below is a comparison of the Nikon D7200 + 50mm f/1.4 wide open vs the Olympus Pen F + 45mm f/1.8 again wide open.

Here we can see that the D7200 produces a richer image with more saturation and contrast . Whats surprising is that while the depth of field is shallower on the Nikon d7200 + 50mm f/1.4 combination it isn’t that huge a difference that a normal person would really notice.

Here’s a few more samples that show the rendering of the various cameras.

I’ve just been looking at the photos at 100% zoomed in on Lightroom and for sharpness it is close between the Pen F and the Fuji X100T with the Nikon D7200 + 18-140mm coming in last. Remember that is comparing prime lenses vs a kit lens so you should take that in to account.

When I compare the Pen F + 17mm f/1.8 at 1.8 and the Nikon D7200 + 50mm f/1.4 at 1.4 the Pen F is sharper by quite some margin.

Below are crops to show this

Nikon D7200 + Nikon 50mm f/1.4 wide open Crop

Olympus Pen F + Olympus 45mm f/1.8 wide open Crop

What do you think? Let me know in the comments what you think of these results.

Micro 4/3 vs APS-C Jpeg Shootout

Ok so the raw shots above show what each sensor is capable of in combination with the lenses used but both Olympus and Fuji are renowned for producing some of the best out of camera Jpegs in the industry so below I’ll take a quick look at what the images look like shooting straight out of camera Jpegs.

Nikon D7200 + 18-140mm SOOC Jpeg Standard Colour

Olympus Pen F + 17mm @ f/1.8 SOOC Jpeg Natural Colour

And here are the same shots below but with each cameras more saturated profiles.

Nikon D7200 + 18-140mm SOOC Jpeg Vivid Colour

Olympus Pen F + 17mm f/1.8 SOOC Jpeg Vivid

So looking at the above photos we can see that again the Nikon 18-140mm lens couldn’t quite cope with the flare and so the colours are a little washed out. I actually like the 18-140mm lens but it can’t compete here with the prime lenses on the other two cameras. The colours look a little washed out and the greens are actually too yellow.

Now this is the first time I have done real side by side comparisons between the Jpegs engines of Olympus and Fuji. I have used many of their cameras before and always really liked the Jpeg output of both.

However when looking side by side I notice several things. Fuji Velvia looks over saturated and un-realistic.

For me it is very close between Fuji Provia and the Olympus Vivid profiles as to which one I prefer. I think they are both excellent and it will really depend on what your photographing as to which you prefer.

When I look at the two images side by side in Lightroom one thing is clear, the Olympus 17mm f/1.8 on the Pen F is sharper wide open than the 23mm lens on the Fuji X100T when wide open.

The Olympus on the right is sharper than the Fuji wide open.

I know that Fuji are known to be excellent for portraits so when I get the time I will add a few portrait comparisons as well as some black and white images too. So keep checking back and let me know in the comments which photos you prefer.

You can see my reviews of the cameras below by clicking the links

Olympus Pen F Review

Nikon D7200 Review

Fuji X100T Review

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The Nikon D7200 is considered as one of the best enthusiast DSLR’s on the market so after having used it for a few months alongside a Canon 80D I’m going to write up a quick review and give my thoughts on this Nikon DX APS-C DSLR.

Nikon D7200 key features

24.2MP CMOS sensor with no optical low-pass filter
Multi-CAM 3500DX II 51-point AF system, all sensitive to -3EV
2,016-pixel RGB metering sensor, used for 3D subject tracking in AF-C
ISO 100-25,600, with ISO 51,200 and 102,400 black and white modes
6 fps continuous shooting (7 fps in 1.3x crop mode) with increased buffer depth
1/8000 sec maximum shutter speed
3.2″, 1.2M dot RGBW LCD display
1080/60p video (1.3x crop only) with clean output over HDMI and Flat Picture Control
Dual SD card slots
Wi-Fi with NFC
Magnesium alloy weather-sealed body

I used to own a D7100 a couple of years ago and liked the camera a lot but had one major gripe that a camera with a 6 FPS shooting rate was basically crippled by a ridiculously small buffer effectively rendering it useless for fast action unless you were shooting jpegs.

You literally couldn’t even shoot a 1 second burst with the D7100 in Raw so I hoped that the increased buffer size would make the D7200 more useful in this respect.

Apart from the increased buffer size not a huge amount has changed on the D7200. The auto-focus has been improved slightly and there is the handy addition of both Wi-Fi and NFC. 1080 60p video has been added although only when shooting in a 1.3x crop.

For me this is not a video centric camera and as I don’t shoot much video I’m not really going to get in to the video side of things.

What I’m interested in with a DSLR like this is image quality, handling, useability and low light performance so that’s what I’m going to look at here.

Handling

Having shot the Canon 80D quite a lot lately and then more recently shooting the Nikon D7200 it reaffirms my preference for shooting Nikon DSLR bodies for 2 main reasons. The first being that the ergonomics just feel better. Secondly the sensor performance is still ahead in terms of dynamic range and ISO performance.

I prefer the slightly shallower grip of the D7200 over the 80D’s as it just feels more comfortable to hold over the course of a day.

The D7200 feels more natural in the hand and subtle things like the placement of the on/off switch being by the shutter release and therefore usable one handed and the placement of Nikon’s rear control dial feeling more natural than the Canon 80D’s thumb wheel when shooting in manual mode and wanting to quickly change aperture or shutter speed.

Nikon seems to understand how photographers work a little better than Canon.

Add to this that the D7200 has dual SD card slots, quick access to most shooting functions very good auto ISO implementation and it feels like a solid camera intended to get out of your way and let you shoot.

The one issue I do have with the D7200 is that when shooting in manual ISO you have to use the ISO button which is located to the left of the cameras screen. I would much rather have a dedicated button on the top right of the camera next to the exposure compensation button or at least be able to reassign one of the function buttons on the front of the camera to ISO which is not currently available.

I understand handling is a personal and subjective issue so if you prefer Canon that’s great but for me the Canons feel a little more uncomfortable and less user friendly. I used to shoot Canon on a 450d, 40d and the 5D mk ii was my main body for a long time and I never had any major gripes with them but then I used them purely in manual mode for slow and methodical shooting producing landscapes for galleries.

Since buying Nikons I found them to suit my style better.

Image Quality

The 24mp APS-C sensor in the Nikon D7200 performs very well even with the 18-140mm kit lens. The lack of AA filter allows for more detail in your shots and although it wont make or break a great image the added detail is welcome, especially when you pixel peep as I must admit I do sometimes. You can see individual eyelashes defined a little better than with Canon’s 80D which has an AA filter. I never found issues with moire so the added detail comes at no cost.

I may be in the minority here as many rave about the colours coming out of Canon’s cameras but I actually prefer the slightly more subdued look of Nikons Jpeg engine. However if I want to crank up the saturation contrast or sharpness you can easily do so in the picture settings menu or in post.

Overall the D7200 is still ahead of the Canon 80D for image quality both in terms of actual resolution and in particular the dynamic range offered by the sensor. When shooting high contrast scenes I noticed that the Canon would blow out highlights before the D7200.

High ISO performance is still a little better from the D7200 in comparison to the 80D although the gap has definitely been closed by the Canon in this area. For me the difference is now somewhere around 1/3 to 1/2 a stop in favour of the D7200.

ISO 3200 is very clean and for my personal tastes 6400 is the limit of what I would use.

It is all very well all these websites claiming that 6400 ISO and above is clean in good light but you generally use high ISO’s in poor light and even at ISO 5000 in poor light the images don’t always hold up to scrutiny on even modern cameras.

Auto Focus

I’ll keep this short and sweet. The Nikon D7200’s 3d tracking autofocus is better than the Canon 80D’s. It is faster to lock on, tracks moving subjects better and ultimately will give you a higher keeper rate even if it shoots at 1fps slower than the 80D.

If you want to see examples and a more detailed comparison check out the 80D review here

Conclusion

As I said this is just a quick review after actually buying and shooting these cameras over an extended period.

There are hundreds of Nikon D7200 reviews out there giving every minute detail so my aim here is to give a quick overview of the camera performance in the real world and let the image examples (full res files available on Flickr) do the talking.

If I was buying an enthusiast level DSLR at this price point the D7200 and 80D would be the two cameras I would be deciding between. In this case if you have no investment in either system then the Nikon D7200 is undoubtedly the better camera for stills photography.

It’s autofocus is better, the image quality is better thanks to a lack of AA filter and better dynamic range. It also has a slight lead in terms of high ISO performance. Handling is subjective but for me the Nikon wins in this area too.

If you shoot video in any serious way then the 80D would be better but that is the only area I would say it beats the D7200.

Final Thoughts

Having shot Fujifilm a lot over the past few years ( I still shoot the X100T) I’m particularly interested to see what they have done with the XT-2 so that will be my next move and of course putting it up against the Nikon D7200. [UPDATE] Check out my Fuji XT2 review

Since I have a young baby and lots of nieces and nephews I don’t want to miss any of those first time moments. I will be testing to see if the auto focus system can keep up with the D7200 for shooting erratically moving children as well as a whole host of other subjects. If they have cracked the auto focus (finally) and with the new 24mp X-Trans III sensor with the beautiful Fuji Jpegs that might be a replacement for my trusty Nikon D7200. The only issue I have is that the initial price seems a little high to me considering the D7200 can be bought with the 18-140mm for well under £1000. The Fuji is over 50% more at the time of release.

Category: Gear

Micro 4/3 vs Aps-C Just for Fun Shootout