Would you buy a Canon 10D with a 28-70mm f/2.8L or a Canon 1Ds with a 50mm f/1.4?

Hi Sean,

Your tutorials are an excellent source of learning. Thank you. I wonder if you, or anyone else, might offer your opinion on the following:

I am looking to purchase a Canon DSLR/lens combination, within a limited budget. I will not be doing any paid work, this will be for simple family portraits, birthdays, picnics, and such.

A friend has the following on offer, for roughly the same price, both with low shutter actuations:

Canon 10D with a 28-70mm f/2.8L USM.

or

Canon 1Ds with a 50mm f/1.4 USM.

My one question is this. All other technical details aside, is it worth giving up a zoom lens for the full frame sensor?

Focus and image noise aside, would the finer detail in a print from the full frame sensor be so minimal (compared to the same print from the 10D) that I may as well just get the 10D with the zoom lens?

I intend to use a service such as Blurb to print books, hence my gut attraction to the extra pixels offered by the 1Ds.

The zoom lens would be nice, but at the same time I would get along quite well with the 50mm prime, so it's a toss up. The 50mm would force me to pay more attention to composition and camera position, which I like. I'm fine to take one or two well composed frames, rather than dozens of snap shots.

I have no issues with body or lens size, weight, etc. I grew up with a Hasselblad 500CM, and a Canon F1, with all sorts of heavy prime lenses.

Cheers,
Jason

well I am not sure what your price range is but i'd try to find something more recent than a 10d..and the same goes for the 1ds depending on its age...the lenses sound like the best part but then again depending on thier age and the price......what would your normal price range be if you wernt buying from a freind? :)

I would take the 1Ds in a heartbeat. It's a 1Ds for heaven's sake :)

Once you shoot 1D series you won't want to use anything else! ...

... and you can easily save up for a zoom lens.