Both Nikon D700 and Olympus E-PL3 have 12.0 MP resolution sensors but Nikon D700's sensor is Full frame (36 x 24 mm ) and Olympus E-PL3's sensor is Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm ).
Since Nikon D700'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 Olympus E-PL3.
Below you can see the D700 and E-PL3 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Nikon D700 has a 3.8x Larger sensor area than Olympus E-PL3. 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
Both Nikon D700 and Olympus E-PL3 sensors have been tested by DxoMark. DxoMark 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. Of the two cameras that we are comparing, D700 has scored 80, 28 points higher than E-PL3.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Nikon D700 |
80 |
23.5 bits |
12.2 Evs |
2303 ISO |
Olympus E-PL3 |
52 |
20.9 bits |
10.3 Evs |
499 ISO |