Both Panasonic FZ70 and Nikon D5100 have 16.0 MP resolution sensors but Panasonic FZ70's sensor is 1/2.3-inch (6.17 x 4.55 mm ) and Nikon D5100's sensor is APS-C (23.6 x 15.7 mm ).
Since Nikon D5100'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 Panasonic FZ70.
Below you can see the FZ70 and D5100 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Nikon D5100 has a 13.2x Larger sensor area than Panasonic FZ70. 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. Panasonic FZ70 and Nikon D5100 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that D5100 has a better overall score of 80, 39 points higher compared to FZ70's score of 41.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Panasonic FZ70 |
41 |
19.4 bits |
10.8 Evs |
171 ISO |
Nikon D5100 |
80 |
23.5 bits |
13.6 Evs |
1183 ISO |