Both Panasonic ZS50 and Olympus XZ-2 iHS have 12.0 MP resolution sensors but Panasonic ZS50's sensor is (1/2. ) and Olympus XZ-2 iHS's sensor is 1/1.7-inch (7.44 x 5.58 mm ).
Since Olympus XZ-2 iHS'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 ZS50.
Below you can see the ZS50 and XZ-2 iHS sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Olympus XZ-2 iHS has a infx Larger sensor area than Panasonic ZS50. 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 ZS50 and Olympus XZ-2 iHS sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that XZ-2 iHS has a better overall score of 49, 5 points higher compared to ZS50's score of 44.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Panasonic ZS50 |
44 |
20.0 bits |
11.2 Evs |
138 ISO |
Olympus XZ-2 iHS |
49 |
20.4 bits |
11.3 Evs |
216 ISO |