Panasonic GF3 has a
12.0MP Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm ) sized CMOS sensor and features Venus Engine FHD processor. On the other hand, Pentax K-5 IIs has a
16.0MP APS-C (23.7 x 15.7 mm ) sized CMOS sensor and features Prime II processor.
One other difference between these two cameras that is worth mentioning is that Pentax K-5 IIs's sensor doesn't have an anti-alias (Low-Pass) filter. Removing anti-alias filter increases the sharpness and level of detail but at the same time, it increases the chance of moiré occurring in certain scenes.
Below you can see the GF3 and K-5 IIs sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Pentax K-5 IIs has a 1.7x Larger sensor area than Panasonic GF3. 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 GF3 and Pentax K-5 IIs sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that K-5 IIs has a better overall score of 82, 32 points higher compared to GF3's score of 50.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Panasonic GF3 |
50 |
20.6 bits |
10.1 Evs |
459 ISO |
Pentax K-5 IIs |
82 |
23.9 bits |
14.1 Evs |
1208 ISO |