Both Panasonic S5 and Nikon D5500 have 24.0 MP resolution sensors but Panasonic S5's sensor is Full frame (35.6 x 23.8 mm ) and Nikon D5500's sensor is APS-C (23.5 x 15.6 mm ).
Since Panasonic S5'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 Nikon D5500.
Another similarity between these two cameras is that both Nikon D5500 and Panasonic S5 sensors lack anti-alias (Low-Pass) filters. Removing anti-alias filter increases the sharpness and level of detail but at the same time, it increases the chance of moire occurring in certain scenes.
Below you can see the S5 and D5500 sensor size comparison.
Sensor Size and Resolution Comparison image of Panasonic S5 and Nikon D5500 Cameras
As seen above, Panasonic S5 has a 2.3x Larger sensor area than Nikon D5500. 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 Panasonic S5 and Nikon D5500 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, S5 has scored 94, 10 points higher than D5500.
| Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
|
Panasonic S5 |
94 |
25.1 bits |
14.5 Evs |
2697 ISO |
|
Nikon D5500 |
84 |
24.1 bits |
14.0 Evs |
1438 ISO |