Recently I purchased an Olympus E-410 kit, which is currently the most compact and light DSLR kit on the market. It's a nice solution for the days when the Canon 5D is too large and heavy but I want something more than a compact digital camera. Here they are, side-by-side, with a Zuiko OM 50mm f/1.2 lens on the E-410 and a Vivitar 135mm f/2.3 lens on the 5D:



In most respects, I'm very happy with the E-410. However, high ISO performance has been a bit disappointing. It's not that I expected the E-410, which has a sensor 1/4th the size of a 35mm sensor, to match the 5D in this respect. However, I had hoped that it would fare a bit better than it does. To be fair, a significant portion of my E-410 high ISO woes derive from the fact that I shoot only in RAW format. The default E-410 in-camera JPEGs seem to handle noise pretty well depending on the settings one chooses. However, the results I was getting using Adobe Camera RAW were marginal at ISO 800 and downright poor at ISO 1600. The main problem was blotchy color noise, distributed in coarse patches. I should note that the version of ACR I was using did not officially support the E-410. I was thus happy to learn yesterday that the new version of ACR and Lightroom (same RAW conversion engine in these Adobe products) officially support the E-510, which has the same sensor as the E-410. Therefore, I gave LR 1.2 a try with some high ISO files. As a comparison, I also processed the same files using Phase One's Capture One Version 4 Beta. I should note that the E-410 is not yet supported by C1 v4 Beta. In fact, to get C1 to recognize the files, I had to first convert them to DNG using Lightroom. Nonetheless, the results were interesting, so I will share a representative example here.

This test was conducted as follows:
- The photo was taken at ISO 1600 and underexposed a bit. I did not push the exposure up during RAW processing.
- All RAW conversion settings were at default except as noted
- Both C1 and Lightroom 1.2 noise reduction parameters were set to 67 for color noise and zero for luminance noise
- RAW conversion sharpening settings were at default for both C1 and LR.
- Both C1 and LR were used to export 16-bit TIFF files (Adobe RGB color profile) to PS CS3 for further processing.
- TIFFs were processed using the Noise Ninja plugin for CS3 using auto profile. Noise Ninja settings were at default for both files except that I set the sharpening amount to 60% on the file processed from C1 and twice that for the file processed from LR. This was done to make the apparent level of sharpening/detail more similar between the two images.
- Levels were adjusted identically in both photos to correct for underexposure, and then rough color correction using the PS color balance tool was done on each image.

Obvious issues with this methodology:
- Setting the NR values to the same number in each RAW processing application certainly does not mean that the same amount of NR was being applied in each case. In fact, it was obvious that compared to C1, LR 1.2 is applying considerable luminance NR at the minimum/"zero" setting, though not nearly so much as in LR 1.1.
- Likewise, setting the sharpening values to the same number in each RAW processing application does not mean they are getting the same amount of sharpening.
- E-410 RAW files are not explicitly supported by C1 or LR, though I assume they are supported in LR since LR offically supports the E-510, which has the same sensor.
- Differences in Noise Ninja sharpening settings obviously affect the outcome image quality.
- Color balance adjustments in the end of the process also affected the outcome.

I have experimented with a number of different settings and chose these for this comparison. However, given the significant issues mentioned above and others I may not have consisered, I think that the best way for others to see for themselves is to do a similar comparison using the RAW file. Feel free to download my RAW file in DNG format for testing by going here.

My main findings were as follows:
- C1 4 Beta is buggy as can be. Crashes often. Hopefully the E-410 will be supported in C1 v3.7 soon.
- LR 1.2 is a major improvement on LR 1.1. Everything looked unnatural to me at the pixel level in LR 1.1, and this has been largely addressed.
- LR 1.2 continues to apply more luminance noise reduction than I would like at baseline.
- LR 1.2 color noise reduction does a nice job handling fine color noise but doesn't effectively handle patches of blotchy color.
- C1 color noise reduction effetively eliminates these patches almost completely.
- Noise Ninja's "coarse noise" setting is capable of reducing any residual blotchy color noise remaining after RAW conversion, but can't completely eliminate them from the files processed from LR.
- I prefer the character of the noise after C1 conversion to that of the noise after LR conversion, though neither is very "film-like."

Here are the examples. First, the image processed by LR 1.2 (resized):


Next, the resized C1 conversion:


Here's what I mean by the trouble with coarse color noise patches in LR conversions. Note the blotchy yellow patches in the LR conversion on the left, absent in the C1 conversion on the right (click image for intended viewing size):


Finally, note the character of the noise in these crops. Again, the LR conversion is on the left, and the C1 conversion is on the right. Some of the blotchy color noise is also apparent in this crop of the LR image.



For the time being, C1 v4 beta is my RAW editor of choice for high ISO E-410 images despite the frequent crashes and need to convert to DNG in LR prior to opening files in C1. LR offers a terrific workflow and supports two of my cameras that C1 doesn't, but the coarse color noise just doesn't work for me.