Olympus E-500 vs Panasonic FZ47

Its time to look a little more closely at the Olympus E-500 vs Panasonic FZ47, former being a Advanced DSLR while the other is a Small Sensor Superzoom by companies Olympus and Panasonic. There exists a substantial gap between the image resolutions of the E-500 (8MP) and FZ47 (12MP) and the E-500 (Four Thirds) and FZ47 (1/2.3") come with totally different sensor sizing.

Pentax 17 Pre-Orders Outperform Expectations by a Landslide

The E-500 was revealed 6 years earlier than the FZ47 and that is quite a big difference as far as technology is concerned. Each of the cameras offer different body type with the Olympus E-500 being a Mid-size SLR camera and the Panasonic FZ47 being a SLR-like (bridge) camera.

Before delving through a full comparison, below is a quick introduction of how the E-500 scores vs the FZ47 in the way of portability, imaging, features and an overall rating.

This is a sample of the gallery pics for Olympus E-500 & Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ47. The full galleries are provided at Olympus E-500 Gallery & Panasonic FZ47 Gallery.

For those who are intending to carry your camera frequently, you'll have to factor its weight and size. The Olympus E-500 features physical measurements of 130mm x 95mm x 66mm (5.1" x 3.7" x 2.6") with a weight of 479 grams (1.06 lbs) whilst the Panasonic FZ47 has specifications of 120mm x 80mm x 92mm (4.7" x 3.1" x 3.6") having a weight of 498 grams (1.10 lbs).

Look at the Olympus E-500 vs Panasonic FZ47 in our completely new Camera plus Lens Size Comparison Tool.

Always remember, the weight of an ILC will change dependant on the lens you are utilising at that moment. Following is the front view dimension comparison of the E-500 against the FZ47.

Using dimensions and weight, the portability score of the E-500 and FZ47 is 70 and 68 respectively.

Quite often, it is very tough to see the gap between sensor sizing simply by reading through a spec sheet. The visual here may offer you a greater sense of the sensor sizing in the E-500 and FZ47.

As you can see, each of these cameras offer different megapixel count and different sensor sizing. The E-500 having a larger sensor will make shooting shallow depth of field easier and the Panasonic FZ47 will give you extra detail because of its extra 4MP. Greater resolution will also let you crop pics a little more aggressively. The older E-500 is going to be disadvantaged in sensor tech.