Micro 4/3 Can you emulate JPEG colors of Olympus E-500 Kodak sensor on digital Pens or E-M5?

[Penfan2010]

Posted this on mu-43 as well. Every time I go through my photo directory, the images that really stand out, color-wise, are the straight OOC JPEGs from my old E-500. While I love the Fuji X colors, and the mu-43s do a really good job, nothing has come close to the E-500 files, especially for color landscape photos. I am tempted to buy an E-500 body again, just for landscapes. It seems a number of other folks have done the same, especially as body only prices are low. Before I dive in and re-purchase my first DSLR, any thoughts on whether I can emulate the look via JPEG settings on RAW presets for the E-PL3 or E-M5? Thanks in advance.

 

[JJJPhoto]

If you Google around enough you can find multiple examples where people have come close enough with modern Olympus cameras that you cannot tell which shot came from the E-500 and which shot came from a m4/3 camera based on images resized for the web ... but there's always going to be some variance ... old Kodak CCDs just handle colors differently than the Panasonic 12mp sensors in the earlier Pens or the Sony 16mp sensors in the E-M5 and the new Pens.

I held onto my E-1 for the longest time because of the Kodak colors and the fact that I absolutely LOVED the ergonomics of that camera ... but someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I sold my trusty and much loved E-1.

A few of my old Kodak CCD shots:

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[serhan]

That is one of the discussed topics esp now new leica m with cmos is replacing the m9 Kodak ccd sensor

If you are looking for a landscape camera, I highly recommend Sigma dp's also... Older models are cheap. However you need to process jpegs from raw images...

 

[Steve Noel]

I had both the E-1 and 500, and loved the color. But: the fine "pebble" look to the smooth areas, bothered me. Still great photos, but not to my liking. It is especially noticeable, when light levels drop. It is noticeable in these photos, but they are still great. I don't print many pics, so that effect may not be prominent in the printed photos. I still use m43 cameras, and still have some problem with the "grain" from the 12mp ones.
I have just started using the Pentax K-01 also, and am happier with the smoother look, though the color is different. I have found a jpeg setting that I like.

 

[JJJPhoto]

I have just started using the Pentax K-01 also, and am happier with the smoother look, though the color is different. I have found a jpeg setting that I like.

I also love the 16MP Sony APS-C sensor in the K-01 and like the way the Pentax handles noise and colors but prefer RAW over JPEG. The colors are different than what I get from my old or current Olympus stuff, but that's not necessarily a bad thing:

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[Luckypenguin]

Hey Ed,

Unfortunately I don't have anything to recommend to get the look that you are after, but your post encouraged me to finally doing some experimenting with colour changes to my Lightroom 4 raw presets. Specifically I dislike the tendency of most digital cameras to oversaturate blues and turn light blues into cyan. Usually I adjust this per image but I figured there must be a way to at least partially automate it. As one of the worst offenders I started with my E-M5 and made some adjustments to the colour settings in the HSL tab. End result is that I am now happier that the raw preset gets the colours closer to where I want them to be.

I've noticed that my Samsung NX200 (whose default colours I prefer) sometimes goes in the opposite direction and can turn sky blues slightly purple, so that is the next on my list to experiment with.

Thanks again for putting the idea in my head, and I hope that you can also find something close to the look that you're after.

 

[Biro]

I miss Kodak as a sensor manufacturer already. The image quality out of those chips was the kind that one gets when one's technology is informed by more than a century of film imaging. It wasn't only the colors. It was more-subtle things like tonal gradation and more. For the life of me, I can't understand why Kodak couldn't make the sensor business work for them in the modern world. Clearly, the chips were good enough for Leica.

 

[Penfan2010]

I miss Kodak as a sensor manufacturer already. The image quality out of those chips was the kind that one gets when one's technology is informed by more than a century of film imaging. It wasn't only the colors. It was more-subtle things like tonal gradation and more. For the life of me, I can't understand why Kodak couldn't make the sensor business work for them in the modern world.

Completely agree, Biro.

I've given up trying to search for a way to emulate, and am sticking to the original (as they say, resistance is futile); saw an E-500 for less than $100, so sprung for it. Still have my OM to 4/3 adapter, so will use it for landscapes