Both Panasonic G5 and Pentax K-50 have 16.0 MP resolution sensors but Panasonic G5's sensor is Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm ) and Pentax K-50's sensor is APS-C (23.7 x 15.7 mm ).
Since Pentax K-50'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 G5.
Below you can see the G5 and K-50 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Pentax K-50 has a 1.7x Larger sensor area than Panasonic G5. 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 G5 and Pentax K-50 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that K-50 has a better overall score of 79, 18 points higher compared to G5's score of 61.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Panasonic G5 |
61 |
21.4 bits |
11.6 Evs |
618 ISO |
Pentax K-50 |
79 |
23.7 bits |
13.0 Evs |
1120 ISO |