Olympus E-PL3 vs Panasonic ZS200

Let's look more closely at the Olympus E-PL3 vs Panasonic ZS200, former being a Entry-Level Mirrorless while the latter is a Large Sensor Compact by competitors Olympus and Panasonic. There exists a noticeable gap among the sensor resolutions of the E-PL3 (12MP) and ZS200 (20MP) and the E-PL3 (Four Thirds) and ZS200 (1") boast different sensor measurements.

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The E-PL3 was revealed 7 years earlier than the ZS200 and that is a fairly sizable difference as far as camera technology is concerned. Each of these cameras feature different body design with the Olympus E-PL3 being a Rangefinder-style mirrorless camera and the Panasonic ZS200 being a Large Sensor Compact camera.

Before going straight to a thorough comparison, here is a short summation of how the E-PL3 scores versus the ZS200 in relation to portability, imaging, features and an overall grade.

The following is a preview of the gallery images for Olympus PEN E-PL3 & Panasonic Lumix DC-ZS200. The full galleries are provided at Olympus E-PL3 Gallery & Panasonic ZS200 Gallery.

For those who are planning to lug around your camera often, you will need to factor its weight and volume. The Olympus E-PL3 offers outer dimensions of 110mm x 64mm x 37mm (4.3" x 2.5" x 1.5") along with a weight of 313 grams (0.69 lbs) and the Panasonic ZS200 has sizing of 111mm x 66mm x 45mm (4.4" x 2.6" x 1.8") with a weight of 340 grams (0.75 lbs).

Take a look at the Olympus E-PL3 vs Panasonic ZS200 in our completely new Camera & Lens Size Comparison Tool.

Take into account, the weight of an ILC will vary dependant on the lens you have at that time. Below is a front view physical size comparison of the E-PL3 vs the ZS200.

Taking into consideration dimensions and weight, the portability grade of the E-PL3 and ZS200 is 88 and 86 respectively.

Typically, it's hard to visualize the contrast in sensor measurements just by checking out specs. The visual below may give you a much better sense of the sensor sizes in the E-PL3 and ZS200.

As you can plainly see, each of the cameras feature different megapixel count and different sensor measurements. The E-PL3 with its bigger sensor is going to make getting shallow depth of field simpler and the Panasonic ZS200 will show extra detail because of its extra 8MP. Higher resolution will also let you crop pictures way more aggressively. The older E-PL3 will be behind with regard to sensor technology.