Panasonic GH1 Scored by DxOMark: Better Than Canon 7D (Not Really)

Everybody’s favorite micro four thirds camera (or was it the GF1?) is scored by the team at DxOMark, and some of the results are quite interesting, or perhaps annoying, depending on your perspective. First from their review of their analysis on the GH1, they find that it is offering better IQ than the G1, why?

the GH1 contains a slightly wider sensor capable of keeping the same diagonal size for different aspect ratios such as 4/3, 3/2, and 16/9. The sensor is natively 14 megapixels, but at most only 12 megapixels can be output in 4/3 aspect ratio (fewer with other aspect ratios), so we chose to evaluate its performance in 4/3 aspect ratio.
-DxOMark

The result is a higher score, indeed, of the MFT sensors scored so far by DxOMark, the GH1 takes top honors. Now for the part that upset some folks in the camera forums:

The GH1 even outperforms a hypothetical four-thirds sensor cut from a (wider) Canon EOS 7D sensor (with the same pixel size). With its 50% larger sensor surface (corresponding to 9 DxOMark Sensor points), one would expect the 7D to have outperformed the GH1 by 9 points. Instead, it achieves a DxOMark score of 64.9 — only slightly more than 1 point above the GH1’s score of 63.6.
-DxOMark

Ok, don’t get upset, the 7D isn’t a hypothetical MFT cut sensor, it’s a 7D with a full sized 7D sensor, and of course it goes without saying that a bunch of mashed up and mixed numbers don’t tell the whole story. Everybody knows the following:

• Pictures tell the story
• The better camera is the camera you currently own.
• Right?

Of course in this case, both cameras are very darn good.

• Canon EOS 7D Camera Body
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 with 14-140mm lens

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• Canon EOS 7D Review at Photography Blog
• Canon PowerShot SX20 IS vs. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35
• DxOMark Scores the Latest Cameras
• Panasonic Lumix FZ35 Field Report: Introduction, ISO …
• Pansonic Updates Lumix DMC-LX3 Firmware: Version 2.0

1. 

   Pepe says:

   February 12, 2010 at 4:04 am

   Well, I understand they was speaking about pixel density, and both have basically the same pixel density one have 14 Mp and the other 18Mp it is pitch of 4.3Um both cameras. I just have changed the 40D by the GH1 by weight problems, and I can confirm to you the iso looks way better at GH1 till 1600 (3200 as well, but start to appear the banding problem at GH1), while dinamic range is handled better in 40D. Then I don’t think Dxomark will be in a mistake.

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