Canon 1Ds MII has a
17.0MP Full frame (36 x 24 mm ) sized CMOS sensor . On the other hand, Nikon D500 has a
21.0MP APS-C (23.5 x 15.7 mm ) sized CMOS sensor and features Expeed 5 processor.
One other difference between these two cameras that is worth mentioning is that Nikon D500's sensor doesn't have an anti-alias (Low-Pass) filter. Removing anti-alias filter increases the sharpness and level of detail but at the same time, it increases the chance of moiré occurring in certain scenes.
Below you can see the 1Ds MII and D500 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Canon 1Ds MII has a 2.3x Larger sensor area than Nikon D500. 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 1Ds MII and Nikon D500 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that D500 has a better overall score of 84, 10 points higher compared to 1Ds MII's score of 74.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Canon 1Ds MII |
74 |
23.3 bits |
11.3 Evs |
1480 ISO |
Nikon D500 |
84 |
24.1 bits |
14.0 Evs |
1324 ISO |