Both Fujifilm XF1 and Olympus E-PL1 have 12.0 MP resolution sensors but Fujifilm XF1's sensor is 2/3-inch (8.8 x 6.6 mm ) and Olympus E-PL1's sensor is Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm ).
Since Olympus E-PL1'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 Fujifilm XF1.
Below you can see the XF1 and E-PL1 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Olympus E-PL1 has a 3.9x Larger sensor area than Fujifilm XF1. 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. Fujifilm XF1 and Olympus E-PL1 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that E-PL1 has a better overall score of 54, 5 points higher compared to XF1's score of 49.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Fujifilm XF1 |
49 |
20.5 bits |
11.2 Evs |
199 ISO |
Olympus E-PL1 |
54 |
21.5 bits |
10.1 Evs |
487 ISO |