Overall image quality or IQ for short

[Antonio Correia]

20D / 5D / 40D - http://wyofoto.com/40D_Image%20quality/40D_shootout.html

[ziggy53]

Thanks Antonio,

That's an interesting comparison. I think the 20D held up pretty well, considering its age. I wish I were holding up as well.

[claudermilk]

Saw that the other day. I took a closer look & agree that the 20D held up quite well. Do like I have Bibble set to automatically--hit the 20D file with a gentle S-curve to boost the contrats & saturation a bit & it'll look nearly the same. What I found interesting is the ISO1600 shots, the 40D seems to have more noise in the red & gold borders on the Cuervo label. :scratch The 40D & 5D look darn near exactly equivalent as far as noise goes.

This tells me two things: the 20D is still damn good, and Canon has been treading water on noise & pixel quality for 3 years.

So really, as far as this test goes, the 40D & 5D really only have an advantage insofar as they have more pixels to play with, thus more opportunity to smooth the noise & retain some detail.