Olympus E-500 vs Sony W560

Its time to look a bit more closely at the Olympus E-500 and Sony W560, one is a Advanced DSLR and the latter is a Ultracompact by competitors Olympus and Sony. There is a big difference between the sensor resolutions of the E-500 (8MP) and W560 (14MP) and the E-500 (Four Thirds) and W560 (1/2.3") feature totally different sensor sizes.

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The E-500 was unveiled 6 years prior to the W560 which is quite a big gap as far as tech is concerned. Both cameras come with different body type with the Olympus E-500 being a Mid-size SLR camera and the Sony W560 being a Ultracompact camera.

Before going in to a full comparison, below is a short summary of how the E-500 grades against the W560 with regards to portability, imaging, features and an overall score.

Below is a preview of the gallery photos for Olympus E-500 and Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W560. The full galleries are provided at Olympus E-500 Gallery and Sony W560 Gallery.

For anyone who is planning to carry around your camera often, you'll have to think about its weight and proportions. The Olympus E-500 features physical dimensions of 130mm x 95mm x 66mm (5.1" x 3.7" x 2.6") accompanied by a weight of 479 grams (1.06 lbs) whilst the Sony W560 has measurements of 94mm x 56mm x 19mm (3.7" x 2.2" x 0.7") with a weight of 110 grams (0.24 lbs).

Examine the Olympus E-500 and Sony W560 in the latest Camera with Lens Size Comparison Tool.

Remember, the weight of an Interchangeable Lens Camera will differ depending on the lens you use at that time. Following is the front view dimension comparison of the E-500 against the W560.

Taking into consideration size and weight, the portability rating of the E-500 and W560 is 70 and 96 respectively.

Oftentimes, it's hard to visualise the contrast between sensor sizes only by looking at specifications. The image below will help give you a greater sense of the sensor sizes in the E-500 and W560.

Plainly, both of the cameras have got different megapixel count and different sensor sizes. The E-500 with its bigger sensor will make getting shallower depth of field simpler and the Sony W560 will give extra detail having an extra 6 Megapixels. Higher resolution will also help you crop photographs much more aggressively. The more aged E-500 is going to be behind in sensor innovation.