Olympus Pen E-P1 vs Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1: High ISO Image Noise Performance – Cliff Smith:
I was expecting the E-P1 to show similar high-ISO noise results as the Panasonic G1, but unfortunately this is not the case. While the G1 doesn’t start showing any noise until 800 ISO, the E-P1 has visible colour mottling and noise in the darker tones at its default auto setting of 200 ISO, getting progressively worse, although overall colour reproduction remains reasonably good right up to 3200 ISO. JPEG images also show some over-sharpening, but at least the compression rate is nice and low, with fine JPEG mode producing files of around 5.5MB and Raw files of around 12MB.