Olympus E-PL1s vs Sony A850

The following is a in-depth comparison of the Olympus E-PL1s versus Sony A850, former is a Entry-Level Mirrorless while the latter is a Advanced DSLR by rivals Olympus and Sony. There exists a noticeable gap between the image resolutions of the E-PL1s (12MP) and A850 (25MP) and the E-PL1s (Four Thirds) and A850 (Full frame) enjoy totally different sensor sizes.

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The E-PL1s was unveiled 8 months after the A850 so they are of a similar age. Each of these cameras offer different body type with the Olympus E-PL1s being a Rangefinder-style mirrorless camera and the Sony A850 being a Mid-size SLR camera.

Before delving straight into a more detailed comparison, below is a concise overview of how the E-PL1s matches up against the A850 when considering portability, imaging, features and an overall mark.

The following is a preview of the gallery photos for Olympus PEN E-PL1s & Sony Alpha DSLR-A850. The full galleries are viewable at Olympus E-PL1s Gallery & Sony A850 Gallery.

If you are going to travel with your camera often, you should think about its weight and proportions. The Olympus E-PL1s enjoys external measurements of 115mm x 72mm x 42mm (4.5" x 2.8" x 1.7") with a weight of 334 grams (0.74 lbs) and the Sony A850 has measurements of 156mm x 117mm x 82mm (6.1" x 4.6" x 3.2") and a weight of 895 grams (1.97 lbs).

Look at the Olympus E-PL1s versus Sony A850 in our brand new Camera plus Lens Size Comparison Tool.

Remember that, the weight of an ILC will change based on the lens you have chosen at that moment. Here is the front view sizing comparison of the E-PL1s versus the A850.

Using dimensions and weight, the portability score of the E-PL1s and A850 is 86 and 54 respectively.

Typically, it's difficult to see the difference between sensor dimensions merely by reading through specs. The picture here will provide you a far better sense of the sensor sizing in the E-PL1s and A850.

As you can plainly see, the two cameras offer different resolutions and different sensor dimensions. The E-PL1s using its tinier sensor will make getting shallow DOF more difficult and the Sony A850 will give more detail having an extra 13 Megapixels. Higher resolution can also make it easier to crop photographs a little more aggressively. The newer E-PL1s is going to have a benefit when it comes to sensor innovation.