This is very much a subjective matter and I personally prefer a bit conservative approach rather than the typical P&S “Contrast+3, Saturation+3, Sharpen+3” kind of approach. There is nothing right or wrong here – just a matter of personal taste, so see any claim here to be “xxxx in my opinion”

Achieving punchy and well-saturated colors on an evenly lit, high-contrast subject on a sunny day is a simple thing – even my cell phone camera can do that, but what really put a camera to severe testing is low-light shots, low-contrast scenes and high-dynamic range scenes.

The 1Ds renders very subtle and smooth colors that really appeals to my preferences in most cases. There are however situations where the results feel a bit “washed out” and/or bleaked. A bit like my inkjet pictures on the wall in front of me that have been there for a year a so. In these cases I use curves and levels and sometimes pump up the saturation just slightly. There must be a very special tonal curve for the 1Ds, I believe.

Another thing with the 1Ds is the slightly yellow-greenish cast that sometimes disturbs a bit, sometimes not. It seems like the 5D gives a more pure magenta cast that is more “dry” than the 1Ds cast.

The tonal curve seems to have been optimized for skin colors, that is something that looks really good on the 5D and I tend to think that it is the best Canon body I’ve seen so far in this respect. Winter-bleak skin color of a typical Swede can sometimes look almost pathogenic with the 1Ds and studio strobes - a farily severe minus I think.

Another thing is bleak skies, where I think the 5D renders a more deep blue color compared with a more cyan like color from the 1Ds.

So a bottom line would be: Yes - the 5D produces a more "punchy" result, yet with a magenta cast whereas the 1Ds produces more subtle bleak colors with a yellow-green cast. I'll bet my pants on that I could distinguish between these in a double-blind test...

Finally – the sRGB color space takes the punch out of any vibrant picture, but that’s another question…