Beginner SONY A5100 or CANON EOS M100??

jpgreenwood

jpgreenwood

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jason
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Im looking for a small camera to take to NYC, and future trips away. I like the idea of a compact camera system as I would like the functionality of a DSLR and want to fit screw on ND filters for LE photography. I've looked at the reviews of a few brands and would like to keep the MP count above 20 as my old Oly EPM-1 is only 12MP and recently performed poorly in low light situations.
Ive narrowed it down to the Sony A5100 and CANON EOS M100. The articulating screen is a must if theres no viewfinder. Other than that, I was hoping someone could advise. Budget is around £350 and I can get the Canon for £379 (£50 cash back) from WEX. Not sure if theres any other deals out there as yet.
 
jpgreenwood said:
I've looked at the reviews of a few brands and would like to keep the MP count above 20 as my old Oly EPM-1 is only 12MP and recently performed poorly in low light situations.
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You might want to think about this bit again. Other things being equal, a higher pixel count means poorer low light performance, and vice versa. If your old Olympus was poor in low light, that's because it was old, and because it has a small sensor.

So do you really need/want more than 20 megapixels? Or is it low light performance that's most important?
 
If you can stretch it slightly you are better off getting the A6000. The A5100 is not nice to use. I haven't used the m100 but being a similar type body with limited controls I can't imagine it being much better.

I know you said you wanted at least 20mp but it seems to be for the wrong reason. Higher MP isn't synonymous to better ISO performance. Sometimes opposite is the case.

Panasonic LX100 will be better than both in terms of image quality despite having only 12mp because of the faster lens compared to the kit lens. Not to mention it's sharper also.
 
Wow didn't know that. Thanks guys. It is low light that I would like to prioritise, as I like LE photography. Obviously picture quality is very important too. I really don't want to go over £350 as its a second camera purely for travel .
 
jpgreenwood said:
Wow didn't know that. Thanks guys. It is low light that I would like to prioritise, as I like LE photography. Obviously picture quality is very important too. I really don't want to go over £350 as its a second camera purely for travel .
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Do you mean long exposure photography?
In which case why is low light performance so important. With long exposure you normally try and stay at the low ISOs with long shutter speeds.
 
StewartR said:
You might want to think about this bit again. Other things being equal, a higher pixel count means poorer low light performance, and vice versa. If your old Olympus was poor in low light, that's because it was old, and because it has a small sensor.

So do you really need/want more than 20 megapixels? Or is it low light performance that's most important?
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I think it may be worth keeping in mind that you can downsize a higher mp count picture and in doing so perhaps improve the appearance of low light high ISO pictures.
 
This is the kind of thing I mean. This was taken at sunset on a recent holiday to Menorca. It wasn't too late, with plenty of light. Olympus PEN EPM-1 12MP. A cheap screw on ND filter was fitted and an exposure of about 8 seconds. Its bloody awful, and I don't think any amount of NR in LR would bring it to a keeper standard. I could be proved wrong but I think too much PP would just be futile.
37895781_10156647737598408_3667043171814080512_o by jason greenwood, on Flickr
 
jpgreenwood said:
This is the kind of thing I mean. This was taken at sunset on a recent holiday to Menorca. It wasn't too late, with plenty of light. Olympus PEN EPM-1 12MP. A cheap screw on ND filter was fitted and an exposure of about 8 seconds. Its bloody awful, and I don't think any amount of NR in LR would bring it to a keeper standard. I could be proved wrong but I think too much PP would just be futile.
37895781_10156647737598408_3667043171814080512_o by jason greenwood, on Flickr
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EXIF data would help to figure what could have been improved upon.
 
Maybe people owning some of the cameras on your list could send you a low light / long exposure raw or two to process to see what you think of them?
 
I have the A5100 and had a couple A6000, they both handle fine in their own ways, A6000 has a mode dial and some FN buttons and the EVF, but the A5100 has a touch screen and touch shutter which is also very useful for stills and especially tracking in video. If you dont want a EVF the functionality of the touch screen is great.
 
Before you potentially look at other cameras I would look at how you are using your current Olympus camera.

Your example you posted is very noisy in the shadows which would suggest that a correct exposure wasn't obtained and too much lifting the shadows has brought in the noise.
The cheap filter may also have contributed to the lacklustre image.

My reason for commenting is that I took the following shot on an Olympus Em10 mkii which is a 16mp micro 4/3 sensor using a Haida 10 stop filter on a 14-42 kit lens @ 121 seconds exposure

In theory your EM1 should be equally capable of similar results.
Grafitti on the lighthouse by Stuart Pardue, on Flickr
 
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stupar said:
Before you potentially look at other cameras I would look at how you are using your current Olympus camera.

Your example you posted is very noisy in the shadows which would suggest that a correct exposure wasn't obtained and too much lifting the shadows has brought in the noise.
The cheap filter may also have contributed to the lacklustre image.

My reason for commenting is that I took the following shot on an Olympus Em10 mkii which is a 16mp micro 4/3 sensor using a Haida 10 stop filter.
Grafitti on the lighthouse by Stuart Pardue, on Flickr
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Yup, the Olys are great
 
So, what did I do wrong then? I don't want to go to NYC and get similar results.
 
jpgreenwood said:
So, what did I do wrong then? I don't want to go to NYC and get similar results.
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As I said above if you provide us your EXIF data i.e. aperture, shutter speed, ISO settings etc we'll be able to better help :)
 
stupar said:
Before you potentially look at other cameras I would look at how you are using your current Olympus camera.

Your example you posted is very noisy in the shadows which would suggest that a correct exposure wasn't obtained and too much lifting the shadows has brought in the noise.
The cheap filter may also have contributed to the lacklustre image.

My reason for commenting is that I took the following shot on an Olympus Em10 mkii which is a 16mp micro 4/3 sensor using a Haida 10 stop filter on a 14-42 kit lens @ 121 seconds exposure

In theory your EM1 should be equally capable of similar results.
Click to expand...

You have to keep in mind that the 16mp MFT cameras are quite a leap forward from the earlier 12mp ones.

I had the early Panasonic GF1 and G1 and they weren't great at ISO 1,600 or at longer exposures. A couple of things which could help are exposing to the right and backing it off post capture and resizing the picture for final viewing or printing. If I did all that even my G1 gave good enough quality for me at an in camera bootest ISO 3,200 but the newer cameras can also be used to get the best out of them and will therefore maintain their lead. These newer cameras are useable to ISO 25,600 with care if you don't expect a gallery sized print which can be examined with a magnifying glass after next to no processing.
 
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jpgreenwood said:
So, what did I do wrong then? I don't want to go to NYC and get similar results.
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nandbytes said:
As I said above if you provide us your EXIF data i.e. aperture, shutter speed, ISO settings etc we'll be able to better help :)
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As per above exif detail is our friend but I would hazard a guess that you didn't expose for long enough then tried to recover too much shadow detail
 
I think you also need to keep in mind that pictures viewed here may look lovely but they're after processing and resizing.

I'm often one who thinks that just about any camera is good enough if we can stop pixel peeping but when you start to push the envelope a bit with more demanding subjects and conditions I don't think there's any escaping the fact that more recent kit will do better than an earlier 12mp MFT camera. The key is what quality is acceptable to the OP and can it be relatively easily achieved with the OP's existing kit.

PS.
A couple of ISO 1,600 pictures taken with my 12mp Panasonic GF1. They don't look too bad on my screen but if you look closely they don't really get too close to the picture quality you'd get from a more recent 16mp MFT camera.

Both ISO 1,600, f1.7, 1/80 sec.

P1020757.jpg

P1020743.jpg

And as a comparison here are some pictures I took yesterday with a TZ100 which has a much smaller sensor but is newer... ISO 6,400 and 12,800.

https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/panasonic-tz100.653653/page-2
 
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nandbytes: Is that the old LX100 (12.8mp) or the new E version with 16mp? I'm still confused about sensor size and pixel count.
Would a bigger sensor be better in low light/long exposure situations, or is it down to the pixel count and quality of lens?

That LX100 looks great but ive now come across the Sony RX100 which seems to go up against it in lots of reviews.
 
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jpgreenwood said:
nandbytes: Is that the old LX100 (12.8mp) or the new E version with 16mp? I'm still confused about sensor size and pixel count.
Would a bigger sensor be better in low light/long exposure situations, or is it down to the pixel count and quality of lens?

That LX100 looks great but ive now come across the Sony RX100 which seems to go up against it in lots of reviews.
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I think there is only one Panasonic LX100 and that's the one with 12mp m43 sensor.

I had a rx100m3 before the LX100 and it was pretty good. But I found it rather fiddly and not as ergonomically friendly.

Right grab a coffee first lol... Here goes...

Ignore megapixels because going by your budget I don't think you'll end up with any high megapixel bodies with relative poor ISO performance.

Noise is generally a result of lack of light i.e. lack of information that your sensor (or post-processing software) will fill with junk data which is noise.

Larger the sensor more the amount of light it can gather and hence less noise. So for example a full-frame sensor can gather 4 times (or two stops) as much light as a m43 sensor so it'll be better in low light all else being equal.

But the amount of light falling in your sensor is also affected by your lens and shutter speed (i.e. your exposure). So a larger aperture lens will be able transmit more light on to the sensor.

So for example let's take A5100+16-50mm f3.5-5.6 Vs. Lx100 which has 12-36mm f1.7-2.8 lens. A5100 has a larger sensor that can gather 2 times more light than lx100 i.e. 1 stop advantage (roughly speaking). But the if you shoot both lenses wide open the lx100 lens is 2 stops faster i.e. it is capable of gathering 4 times more light. So the large sensor advantage is lost and in fact LX100 in turn has a 1stop advantage all else being equal.

But if you are shooting long exposure what you normally do is stop your lens down to f5.6-11 and increase your shutter speed. So in such cases it doesn't matter if you use a fast or slow lens (because you'll be stopping down anyway). But what matters is the larger sensor has better dynamic range i.e. better capacity for recovering shadows and pushing RAW files while introducing lower amount of noise (because it can gather more light).

But you can get over the lower dynamic range issue by other means such as using ND grad filters, bracketing and merging multiple exposures (eg. HDR).

The comparison between sensors become a bit complicated because there are several generations of improvements. So for example current generation m43 will perform similarly to previous generation APS-C.

I have simplified things a little and hope that kinda helps.
 
very helpful thanks. I am erring towards the Sony A5100 purely for the APS-C size sensor, flip screen and removable lens The LX100 has an awesome leica lens though....
Looking at your night shots (which are awesome BTW), how did you get such perfect DOF at F2?? If I was taking those photos, I would have been on F16 and loads of seconds. That's probably where im going so wrong.
 
My terrible picture above was taken at F14, 15 secs, ISO 200 @14mm with a cheap screw on ND filter.
 
jpgreenwood said:
very helpful thanks. I am erring towards the Sony A5100 purely for the APS-C size sensor, flip screen and removable lens The LX100 has an awesome leica lens though....
Looking at your night shots (which are awesome BTW), how did you get such perfect DOF at F2?? If I was taking those photos, I would have been on F16 and loads of seconds. That's probably where im going so wrong.
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In name only. Please don't be swayed by this silliness :D
 
jpgreenwood said:
My terrible picture above was taken at F14, 15 secs, ISO 200 @14mm with a cheap screw on ND filter.
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I'm going to go with 15 seconds @ F14 as being not enough to get a good exposure for the available light.
How does your histogram look? Is it all to the left?
 
jpgreenwood said:
very helpful thanks. I am erring towards the Sony A5100 purely for the APS-C size sensor, flip screen and removable lens The LX100 has an awesome leica lens though....
Looking at your night shots (which are awesome BTW), how did you get such perfect DOF at F2?? If I was taking those photos, I would have been on F16 and loads of seconds. That's probably where im going so wrong.
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Thanks.
At f2 on a m43 is equivalent to f4 in terms of DoF and couple that with 24mm wide angle field of view and you have plenty of DoF :)

That's nothing, here is 55mm @f2.2 on a FF sensor and still have plenty DoF ;)
St. Prancras by Anand Gopinath, on Flickr

And some long exposures with A6000 (same sensor as A5100)

DSC02614-2 by Anand Gopinath, on Flickr

DSC02015 by Anand Gopinath, on Flickr


jpgreenwood said:
My terrible picture above was taken at F14, 15 secs, ISO 200 @14mm with a cheap screw on ND filter.
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did you crop a lot and/or boost the exposure in post?
 
I think I read that the LX100 is actually a bigger crop factor than ordinary MFT, I think it's x2.2? Why they've done it like that I don't know. Maybe it's something to do with the different aspect ratios the camera can do leading to not all of the sensor being used. Something like that. Maybe.
 
woof woof said:
I think I read that the LX100 is actually a bigger crop factor than ordinary MFT, I think it's x2.2? Why they've done it like that I don't know. Maybe it's something to do with the different aspect ratios the camera can do leading to not all of the sensor being used. Something like that. Maybe.
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It's a 16mp sensor. You get highest effective MP of 12.4mp in 4:3 ratio and 12mp in 3:2 ratio. I think it still maintains 24mm field of view at the wide end in these two aspect ratios. It's quite a neat feature tbh to be able to change aspect ratios like that with a physical switch.
 
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