Nikon D70 has a
6.0MP APS-C (23.7 x 15.5 mm ) sized CCD sensor . On the other hand, Olympus E-PL5 has a
16.0MP Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm ) sized CMOS sensor .
Olympus E-PL5's sensor provides 10MP more than Nikon D70's sensor, which gives a significant advantage in real life. You can print your images larger or crop more freely.
On the other hand, please keep in mind that Max sensor resolution is not the only determinant of resolving power. Factors such as the optical elements, low pass filter, pixel size and sensor technology also affects the final resolution of the captured image.
Below you can see the D70 and E-PL5 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Nikon D70 has a 1.6x Larger sensor area than Olympus E-PL5. 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. Nikon D70 and Olympus E-PL5 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that E-PL5 has a better overall score of 72, 22 points higher compared to D70's score of 50.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Nikon D70 |
50 |
20.4 bits |
10.3 Evs |
529 ISO |
Olympus E-PL5 |
72 |
22.8 bits |
12.3 Evs |
889 ISO |