Olympus E-500 vs Sony A550

Below is a thorough review of the Olympus E-500 vs Sony A550, former being a Advanced DSLR while the other is a Entry-Level DSLR by brands Olympus and Sony. There exists a noticeable gap between the image resolutions of the E-500 (8MP) and A550 (14MP) and the E-500 (Four Thirds) and A550 (APS-C) use totally different sensor sizes.

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The E-500 was manufactured 5 years before the A550 and that is quite a sizable difference as far as technology is concerned. Both of the cameras offer different body type with the Olympus E-500 being a Mid-size SLR camera and the Sony A550 being a Compact SLR camera.

Before getting through a step-by-step comparison, below is a concise summation of how the E-500 scores against the A550 with respect to portability, imaging, features and an overall grade.

Here is a sample of the gallery pics for Olympus E-500 & Sony Alpha DSLR-A550. The entire galleries are available at Olympus E-500 Gallery & Sony A550 Gallery.

For anyone who is planning to lug around your camera frequently, you will have to factor its weight and dimensions. The Olympus E-500 provides outside dimensions of 130mm x 95mm x 66mm (5.1" x 3.7" x 2.6") along with a weight of 479 grams (1.06 lbs) and the Sony A550 has dimensions of 137mm x 104mm x 84mm (5.4" x 4.1" x 3.3") with a weight of 632 grams (1.39 lbs).

Check the Olympus E-500 vs Sony A550 in our completely new Camera plus Lens Size Comparison Tool.

Don't forget, the weight of an ILC will vary based on the lens you choose at that time. Underneath is the front view measurements comparison of the E-500 vs the A550.

Taking into account dimensions and weight, the portability score of the E-500 and A550 is 70 and 63 respectively.

More often than not, it's tough to visualise the difference between sensor measurements only by reading through technical specs. The visual underneath may provide you a greater sense of the sensor sizes in the E-500 and A550.

As you can tell, the two cameras enjoy different resolutions and different sensor measurements. The E-500 because of its tinier sensor will make achieving shallow depth of field more difficult and the Sony A550 will give more detail due to its extra 6 Megapixels. Greater resolution can also let you crop pics far more aggressively. The older E-500 is going to be behind in sensor tech.