Both Canon 1D MIV and Nikon D4s have 16.0 MP resolution sensors but Canon 1D MIV's sensor is APS-H (27.9 x 18.6 mm ) and Nikon D4s's sensor is Full frame (36 x 23.9 mm ).
Since Nikon D4s's has a larger sensor area with the same resolution, this means that it also has a larger pixel area hence better light collecting capacity for a given aperture compared to Canon 1D MIV.
Below you can see the 1D MIV and D4s sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Nikon D4s has a 1.7x Larger sensor area than Canon 1D MIV. Larger sensors give photographer more control on the depth of field and blurry background compared to smaller sensor when shot in same focal length and aperture.
DxOMark Sensor Scores
DxOMark is a benchmark that scientifically assesses image quality of camera sensors. It scores camera sensors for color depth (DXO Portrait), dynamic range (DXO Landscape) and low-light sensitivity (DXO Sports), and also gives them an overall score. Canon 1D MIV and Nikon D4s sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that D4s has a better overall score of 89, 15 points higher compared to 1D MIV's score of 74.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Canon 1D MIV |
74 |
22.8 bits |
12.0 Evs |
1320 ISO |
Nikon D4s |
89 |
24.4 bits |
13.3 Evs |
3074 ISO |