Urnst Loc: Brownsville, Texas

Has anyone had the opportunity to compare these? Just curious. Thanks for any replies.

alamomike47 Loc: San Antonio, Texas

Fuji Jpegs are wonderful right out of camera.

ponchod5

Olympus jpegs are better in EM10 and EM5 series than EM1 series IMO. With that said, the Oly EM10/EM5 color science is rich, highly saturated, and every bit as good as Fujifilm jpegs straight out of camera.

radiojohn

So we are talking about the processing that makes up the image that is saved as a JPEG, not the nature of the JPEG file format itself, right?

Urnst Loc: Brownsville, Texas

Yes.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Fujifilm is known for its film simulation features, built into the JPEG engine.

Olympus makes excellent JPEGs, too.

Rent or borrow both and try them.

“Better” JPEG processing is a personal taste concept. But it is waaay down my list of reasons to buy a camera.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Are we talking $400 bridge cameras, or $1,000, $2,000 and $3,000 cameras with interchangeable lenses? Don't the lenses have a lot to do with IQ?

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

I do not use JPEG very often but when I do with my Olympus cameras I set the camera to Super Fine. Details and colors are excellent and as it has already been mentioned by Linda the glass has a lot to do with the results.
I do not use Fuji so I can make no comparisons.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Image quality (technical) does not equal picture quality (moment, point of view, content, composition, execution, message, impact...). The "old masters" of 20th century photography had far less sophisticated equipment, films, and papers, yet still created arresting images. Few people cared what gear a great photographer used. They just appreciated the results.

Our technical capabilities and standards have improved. Our technical skills get better, faster, as technologies evolve and converge. Innate human abilities to communicate visually evolve much more slowly. So yes, results still depend on knowledge.

Part of being comfortable with photography is using equipment that "feels" right to use. Does it fit your hands? Are the menus decipherable? Are the physical controls in the right places? Is it light enough to carry long enough to go where you wish to take it? Are the right lenses and other accessories available for what you need to do? Does it enable the sort of work you want or need to do? The answers to these and other questions can be far more important than, "How good a JPEG does it bake?"

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

JPEGs are JPEGs. If garbage goes in, garbage comes out.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

There is a lot of "color science" that goes into creating a jpg file. As burkphoto points "best" is a matter of taste.
In the film era various color films had their characteristic look too. Kodachrome was different from Agfachrome. For movies there was the Technicolor look. Each camera has different color profiles. On my Nikon different subjects require different profiles and perhaps more post processing. My Olympus cameras, PENF and EM1 Mk III can produce excellent jepgs but I use RAW almost all of the time.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Back in 2005, at Herff Jones' then Photography Division, we transitioned from using long roll Camerz ZII, ZIII, and Classic portrait cameras to Canon digital cameras. I was tasked with matching JPEG output from our new Canon 20D cameras to the "look" of Kodak Portra 160NC film printed on Kodak Portra Endura paper. It took lots of testing and fooling around in the menus, but we came remarkably close. We also nearly matched output from Nikon D70s with that Canon output. That was important, because we had many large wholesale dealers sending Nikon files through our labs, and we had 440 retail portrait photographers on the Canon 20D.

The great thing about digital imaging is that you have *some* "pre-processing" control over the camera's JPEG output. It's better control than we had with slide films and a bag full of CC filters! Also, JPEGs don't fade like Ektachromes did. I regret ever shooting any Ektachrome for personal use. My Kodachromes from the 1960s are pristine.

kenArchi Loc: Seal Beach, CA

My Oly EM10 jpgs are better than than my nikon

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Is that because you have more in-camera options for tweaking color, contrast, exposure, etc?

Urnst Loc: Brownsville, Texas

I guess I should have said "all things otherwise equai" as part of the question.