Both Pentax K-5 and Panasonic GX7 have 16.0 MP resolution sensors but Pentax K-5's sensor is APS-C (23.7 x 15.7 mm ) and Panasonic GX7'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 GX7.
Below you can see the K-5 and GX7 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Pentax K-5 has a 1.7x Larger sensor area than Panasonic GX7. 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 GX7 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, 12 points higher than GX7.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Pentax K-5 |
82 |
23.7 bits |
14.1 Evs |
1162 ISO |
Panasonic GX7 |
70 |
22.6 bits |
12.2 Evs |
718 ISO |