Both Canon T6s and Nikon D5500 have 24.0 MP resolution sensors but Canon T6s's sensor is APS-C (22.3 x 14.9 mm ) and Nikon D5500's sensor is APS-C (23.5 x 15.6 mm ).
Since Nikon D5500'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 T6s.
One other difference between these two cameras that is worth mentioning is that Nikon D5500's sensor doesn't have an anti-alias (Low-Pass) filter. Removing anti-alias filter increases the sharpness and level of detail but at the same time, it increases the chance of moiré occurring in certain scenes.
Below you can see the T6s and D5500 sensor size comparison.
Sensor Size and Resolution Comparison image of Canon T6s and Nikon D5500 Cameras
As seen above, Nikon D5500 has a 1.1x Larger sensor area than Canon T6s. 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 T6s and Nikon D5500 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that D5500 has a better overall score of 84, 14 points higher compared to T6s's score of 70.
| Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
|
Canon T6s |
70 |
22.6 bits |
12.0 Evs |
915 ISO |
|
Nikon D5500 |
84 |
24.1 bits |
14.0 Evs |
1438 ISO |