Both Canon G9 X and Sony A3000 have 20.0 MP resolution sensors but Canon G9 X's sensor is 1″ (13.2 x 8.8 mm ) and Sony A3000's sensor is APS-C (23.5 x 15.6 mm ).
Since Sony A3000's has a larger sensor area with the same resolution, this means that it also has a larger pixel area hence better light collecting capacity for a given aperture compared to Canon G9 X.
Below you can see the G9 X and A3000 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Sony A3000 has a 3.2x Larger sensor area than Canon G9 X. Larger sensors give photographer more control on the depth of field and blurry background compared to smaller sensor when shot in same focal length and aperture.
DxOMark Sensor Scores
DxOMark is a benchmark that scientifically assesses image quality of camera sensors. It scores camera sensors for color depth (DXO Portrait), dynamic range (DXO Landscape) and low-light sensitivity (DXO Sports), and also gives them an overall score. Canon G9 X and Sony A3000 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that A3000 has a better overall score of 78, 15 points higher compared to G9 X's score of 63.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Canon G9 X |
63 |
21.5 bits |
12.3 Evs |
495 ISO |
Sony A3000 |
78 |
23.7 bits |
12.8 Evs |
1068 ISO |