You know, I was thinking along similar lines
Ray, by your own admission you tend to treat an image fairly roughly in PP, and reducing an image down to web size is a big equaliser, but I'm curious as to how big an advantage you are seeing in the XP1 over the E-PL3 as it is coming directly out of the camera. As Dan said, unless you specifically say which camera took what there are no real giveaways here except in the high ISO night images.
Either way, you're getting some super images in the process. Keep them coming!
Nic and Dan - first Dan, sorry not to respond sooner. I saw your comment and meant to reply but got on to other things and it slipped my mind. But....
The camera certainly doesn't change what I'm trying for, what I see out in the world, and what I'm after in a finished image. So, in that sense, the finished images should look pretty similar. And unless you're specifically looking for highly specific details in relatively un-treated shots, I wouldn't expect you to see a difference. Except in low light shots which, if that was the only difference, would still be a HUGE difference!
But there's more going on here, in terms of GETTING the shot, both in terms of the comfort of the controls in physically geting the shot and also in terms of the incredible latitude the files have in dealing with imperfect exposures, which happen a lot in street shooting. I'm only working in jpegs to this point (and may never change that) and am only processing in Snapseed on the ipad for these files, which I find to be a really convenient and useable little program, but it doesn't offer NEARLY the control of its bigger brothers, Silver Efex and Color Efex pro versions (which I guess are the only versions). Yet, even with those two pretty significant limitations in mind, the differences between the X-Pro and the EPL3 are HUGE - even the differences between the X-Pro and the X-100 and GXR-28 are substantial.
First off, when I take a shot on a very bright day with a lot of shadows (which I've had a lot of during my stay in NYC so far), the dynamic range in the X-Pro's jpeg files is incredible, by design. I do keep the DR set to auto (to let it float between 100 and 400 percent, as the situation calls for) and the ISO at usually around 1600 for street shooting, so it can use the full 400 percent when called for. I use the high ISO for the DR and to keep both the shutter speed up and aperture small for optimal motion freezing and adequate depth of field for zone focus as I move in and out of shadows and the angle to the sun changes rapidly and I'm constantly working the exposure comp dial (which I LOVE having on the top of the camera with its own display!). 1600 on this camera might as well be base ISO on many, for any differences I can see! For non-street, I use auto-ISO with a top end of 3200 and auto DR and I get a lot of sunny daytime shots that come in at ISO 800, which is what the camera pushes it out to when it needs the full 400 percent of DR. Anyway, using high ISOs, auto DR, and the wonderful exposure comp dial on top of the camera, I'm GETTING more shots to begin with than I would with my other cams.
But inevitably, even with all of those advantages, you're gonna just blow some shots on the street, totally missing the light, burying some key detail in shadow, etc. And the latitude of these files, (even JPEGS processed in Snapseed!!) is pretty amazing. Here are two shots that I missed, the first with the GXR-28 (using RAW), the second with the X-Pro. In both cases, the faces I wanted were really badly buried in shadows. If anything, more buried on the X-Pro shot because it was taken on a sunnier day with much more contrast between the brighter area I managed to meter on and the shadow the women's faces were in. On the GXR shot, I was able to pull the faces up, but there's a LOT of noise. I got a shot that has its own charms, but its just barely on the borderline of useable, and I'd have prefered it cleaner. With the EPL3, this shot wouldn't have had a chance - you'd have never seen it. The X-Pro shot was from the first couple of days I had the camera and I figured it was a lost cause, but decided to have a play with it anyway. And I couldn't believe how relatively cleanly those faces came out of the dark! With a JPEG starting point and Snapseed! I suspect I'll do that much better with Silver/Color Efex once I'm home...
GXR:
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X-Pro 1:
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So that's the fairly large difference between the cameras for the type of work folks around here generally see. But I also like the occasional pretty snapshot of something scenic, which I do somewhere between little and no work on. Shots like this next one, where I pulled the clouds a bit and added a border, but nothing else. And the one after where I ONLY added a border. And what comes out of the X-Pro 1 is simply in another league, even better than the X100, which does this same kind of thing extremely well. Its funny, I've said and meant that I'm not much of an IQ freak - I don't look at test numbers or charts or read a lot of technical stuff (except as concerns high ISO, which I tend to obsess over a bit!). But the X100 and X-Pro 1 are two cameras that have made a liar out of me! There's just something undefineable about the files I've seen from these cameras that make me care - that I can even SEE without tests or numbers. Some of it is no doubt the jpeg engines, but that's OK, the X100 was the first camera with jpegs I've liked so much I never got into shooting raw after some early experiments. The X-Pro promises to do the same, but even moreso.
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That's the long answer to a short question. The OMD looks like it will have some of these same qualities, maybe even a lot of them (!), and if it even comes remotely close, it will be an amazing advance for m43 cameras and bodes well for the future. But I'll be very surprised if it can actually do what the X-Pro 1 does. If it really does, with the versatility and other strengths of the m43 system, it should be an absolute world beater!
In the meantime, I'm loving the Fuji. There's a feel to these cameras I just like and the results are all I could hope for. I've had one foot in the APS camp and one in the m43 camp for a while now. Its a nice balance - I don't see going completely one way or the other for the different strengths the two offer.
-Ray