Canon 6D has a
20.0MP Full frame (36 x 24 mm ) sized CMOS sensor and features Digic 5+ processor. On the other hand, Nikon D5300 has a
24.0MP APS-C (23.5 x 15.6 mm ) sized CMOS sensor and features Expeed 4 processor.
One other difference between these two cameras that is worth mentioning is that Nikon D5300'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 6D and D5300 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Canon 6D has a 2.4x Larger sensor area than Nikon D5300. 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 6D and Nikon D5300 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that D5300 has a better overall score of 83, 1 points higher compared to 6D's score of 82.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Canon 6D |
82 |
23.8 bits |
12.1 Evs |
2340 ISO |
Nikon D5300 |
83 |
24.0 bits |
13.9 Evs |
1338 ISO |