Both Pentax K-5 and Panasonic G85 have 16.0 MP resolution sensors but Pentax K-5's sensor is APS-C (23.7 x 15.7 mm ) and Panasonic G85's sensor is Four Thirds (17.3 x 13 mm ).
Since Pentax K-5'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 G85.
One other difference between these two cameras that is worth mentioning is that Panasonic G85'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 K-5 and G85 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Pentax K-5 has a 1.7x Larger sensor area than Panasonic G85. 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 Pentax K-5 and Panasonic G85 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, K-5 has scored 82, 11 points higher than G85.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Pentax K-5 |
82 |
23.7 bits |
14.1 Evs |
1162 ISO |
Panasonic G85 |
71 |
22.8 bits |
12.5 Evs |
656 ISO |