Nikon D80 vs. Olympus E-420 high ISO comparison

I was saying that I am not actually ready to swallow the story of the big APS-C sensor vs. the small 4/3 sensor when it comes to high ISO performance (the story is undoubtedly true between any of these sensors and "your average compact camera" sensor). The story goes like this: if the sensor X is larger (area-wise) than the sensor Y, then X HAS to have better high ISO performance. Yeah ... in theory. maybe. But here is my case study: two 10Mpx cameras with different sensors: the Nikon has a 23.6mm X 15.8mm sensor and the Olympus has a 17.3mm X 13.0mm sensor. Which is better?


The experiment was conducted under the following conditions:

• the scene was poorly lit so as to favor noise levels
• both cameras were set to record RAW
• both cameras were set to use the same color temperature (3700K)
• all the noise reduction facilities were set to OFF
• the RAW files were converted to JPEGs with ACR 4.3 setting the white balance to 3700K (strangely enough, ACR did not recognize the WB setting from the cameras and gave values with +,- 100K) and removing any default noise reduction (Color NR was set to 25 by default in ACR)
• exposure was set to Manual with initial metering set to f/8, 1/15 @ ISO 1600. The exposure time was then adjusted to give the same exposure at different ISOs. The reason for this choice was to have EXACTLY the same exposure both with D80 and E-420 (so as not to favor noise in different meterings if these were to underexpose the scene).
• Nikon D80 was fitted with the Tamron AF-S VC 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD Asph IF SP lens
• Olympus E-420 was fitted with the Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ED lens
• The aperture of both lenses was set to f/8 as www.slrgear.com (arguably) reports it to give the sharpest images for both lenses

The crops presented below are taken from the 100% representations of the images. I will omit the 100 and 200 ISO crops because they are identical for all intents and purposes. So here we go...

Nikon D80, ISO 400, center image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Olympus E-420, ISO 400, center image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Nikon D80, ISO 800, center image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Olympus E-420, ISO 800, center image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Nikon D80, ISO 1600, center image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Olympus E-420, ISO 1600, center image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Nikon D80, ISO 800, right image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Olympus E-420, ISO 800, right image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Nikon D80, ISO 1600, left image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Olympus E-420, ISO 1600, left image crop, 100% view (click to see)

Nikon D80, ISO 1600, the scene - full image resized (click to see)

Olympus E-420, ISO 1600, the scene - full image resized (click to see)

Now it is my personal (preliminary) opinion that D80 is not by any means superior to the E-420 regarding the high ISO performance and this is coming from a Nikon fan ;) Other than the fact that Tamron 17-50 lens is sharper @ f/8 than the Zuiko 14-42, comparatively, there is nothing wrong (really) with the E-420.

I will also conduct the same experiment but with a properly lit scene. But, for now, bigger does not necessarily mean better high ISO.