Olympus E-PL3 has a
12.0MP Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm ) sized CMOS sensor and features Truepic VI processor. On the other hand, Sony A6600 has a
24.0MP APS-C (23.5 x 15.6 mm ) sized CMOS sensor and features Bionz X processor.
Sony A6600's sensor provides 12MP more than Olympus E-PL3'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-PL3 and A6600 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Sony A6600 has a 1.6x 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
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-PL3 and Sony A6600 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that A6600 has a better overall score of 82, 30 points higher compared to E-PL3's score of 52.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Olympus E-PL3 |
52 |
20.9 bits |
10.3 Evs |
499 ISO |
Sony A6600 |
82 |
23.8 bits |
13.4 Evs |
1497 ISO |