Olympus E-510 has a
10.0MP Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm ) sized CMOS sensor . On the other hand, Pentax K20D has a
15.0MP APS-C (23.4 x 15.6 mm ) sized CMOS sensor .
Pentax K20D's sensor provides 5MP more than Olympus E-510'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 E-510 and K20D sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Pentax K20D has a 1.6x Larger sensor area than Olympus E-510. 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. Olympus E-510 and Pentax K20D sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that K20D has a better overall score of 65, 13 points higher compared to E-510's score of 52.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Olympus E-510 |
52 |
21.2 bits |
10.0 Evs |
442 ISO |
Pentax K20D |
65 |
22.9 bits |
11.1 Evs |
639 ISO |