The crops are taken from the originals, saved as High Quality JPEGs in Photoshop CS2 and presented here at 100%. Each number represents 100 lines per picture height (lpph), so a figure of 20 means a resolution of 2000 lpph.

As you’d expect, the 5D’s 12.8 Megapixel resolution out-resolves Nikon’s 10.2 Megapixel D200, although it’s very close and really requires technical charts like these to reveal any differences. In practice with real-life images there are virtually no differences in terms of resolving power.

The differences are even closer between the 5D and the Nikon D2X, with the latter only fractionally out-resolving it horizontally – you’d not notice any difference between these bodies in terms of resolving power in real-life shots.

Unsurprisingly the leader in this test remains Canon’s 1Ds Mark II, out-resolving its rivals, especially horizontally, although again as our examples above prove, the benefits in real-life may be much smaller than you’d expect.