White balance was performed within each RAW converter for both the 40D and 50D images. Photoshop was used to resize (i.e. normalize) the rendered 16-bit TIFF images to 4320x2820 pixels, then USM (200,0.2,0) was applied; this closely simulates what the pictures would look like if they were printed on very large "equal sizes" of photo paper.

Please note the 50D used for the vast majority of my tests outside of "this" sub-gallery was returned because the top LCD was intermittently darkening in the lower left hand corner; therefore, the 50D pictures in this sub-gallery will not necessarily correspond to what you see in other sub-galleries. Conversely, the 40D is the same camera used for all of the 40D/50D comparisons I've performed.

Measured "count" values for the average intensity and standard deviation are written in "red" for each 100 percent crop.

Note, noise reduction in all RAW converters was disabled.