Nature's Rich Colors

What you see are two nature photographs I've taken roughly nine months and to versions of Lightroom apart. The upper photo was taken today with an E-PL2 and the Leica 25mm lens, and post processed in Lightroom 4.1. The lower photo was taken with an E-1 and the Zuiko Digital 50mm Macro back in early November 2011, and post processed in Lightroom 3.5.

The general composition is pretty much the same, portrait photos of plant growth growing from bottom to top and sorta following the rule of thirds. Both photos also have strong reds and violets in them (the lower photo far more than the upper), which is the color I much prefer over so-called Olympus blues. Call these Olympus reds and magentas if you will.

Maybe it's my bad eyesight, but when I place the two photos side-by-side as prints and view them at a normal distance (not with me so close I leave nose-grease on the surface) that I find them, for all practical purposes, technically indistinguishable. I can't honestly tell you that the E-PL2's 12MP sensor is superior to the older Kodak 5MP sensor in the E-1, nor can I tell you that Lightroom 4.1 is superior to Lightroom 3.5. And I certainly can't tell what lens was used with either, not by looking, only by knowing through the EXIF data what was used with each photo.

What I'm trying to say is that with certain subjects and the right light and given the same attention to detail, that the output of the E-1 with the 50mm is indistinguishable from the E-PL1 with the Leica 25mm. I wonder, if I were to purchase a Sony α65 or α77, and put an excellent prime lens on the front, and learn how to really use the Sony, if I could see a difference, a real difference, between the output from the 24MP sensor of that camera and the output from the E-PL2 and E-1. An expensive experiment, but a fascinating one to contemplate.

If you're wondering why I titled the upper photo "Dark Day", that's because we've been getting a lot of heavy rain since last Thursday.

I took this right before I left the office for the day. The photo is actually a bit lighter than the effect I experienced. It was pretty dark over in that direction.