Olympus C8080 tests

• see also:
  • home page
  • Olympus C-8080 camera and astrophotography
  • more of my lens tests - comparisons with OLympus OM on E330
  • Olympus C-8080 test comparison images - may take a couple of minutes to download on dialup
  • MTF lens testing tutorials (NB. MTF not used for my testing):
    • http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF5.html 

Resolution tests:

• basic testing with auto-focus, using a tripod of standard resolution charts printed at 300dpi and placed in centre and right upper corner
  • NB. it is very difficult to accurately focus manually with this camera - manual focus seems best for setting on infinity for astrophotography purposes.
• camera-subject distance adjusted so that right upper corner target in same position for each setting (which is approx. effective 35mm focal length x 26 in mm)
• all images taken in highest jpeg setting for the camera
• lines per mm calculated as per John Chapman's lens testing resources with the readings correlated with resolution chart then halved
• for a resized image of the full frame photo, click here
• in particular, the performance of the TCON-14D teleconverter seems impressive, while increasing to 400ISO (but not a problem at 200ISO) significantly degrades resolution more so than with the Canon S30
  • in the review on the imaging resource, he states:
    •  "The C-8080 Wide Zoom does a good bit better than the average 8-megapixel camera in the image noise department, at least at higher ISO levels. (All the 8 megapixels I've seen thus far are actually pretty close at low ISO settings.) To achieve this, the 8080 applies more heavy-handed noise suppression in its image processing at high ISOs, trading away some sharpness and resolution to achieve the lower noise levels. Looking at the 8080's images next to those of other cameras though, I think this tradeoff was a wise and largely successful one. While I generally hate to see cameras lose detail to achieve lower image noise, when I compare high-ISO images from the 8080 side by side with those from competing 8-megapixel models, I have to say that the 8080's are much more pleasing to the eye (or at least, less objectionable)." So I guess this is why the resolution drops at 400 ISO.
    • "Overall, the 8080's absolute resolving power was pretty much the same as the other leading 8-megapixel cameras, but it differentiated itself by being sharper than most from corner to corner." and this is born out in the excellent corner results in my tests.
• note that I have not adjusted for the difference in the 8 megapixel Olympus vs the 3 megapixel Canon S30, but given that the Olympus has ~60% more pixels in both horizontal and vertical resolution, it may be that the increase in pixels with a matching increase in lens resolution combine to give a ~50% increase in lines/mm resolution demonstrated in the images below.

camera settings	centre (lines/mm)	right upper corner (lines/mm)
Olympus C8080 28mm f/2.4 50 ISO (f/8 was similar)	60 photo	55 photo
Olympus C8080 28mm f/2.4 400 ISO	45	45
Olympus C8080 140mm f/3.5 50 ISO	60 photo	60 photo
Olympus C8080 196mm f/3.5 50 ISO TCON14D	60 photo	56 photo
Canon S30 wide f/2.8 50 ISO	40 photo	35 photo
Canon S30 wide f/2.8 400 ISO	38	35
Canon S30 tele f/4.9 50 ISO (f/8 was similar)	40 photo	40 photo