Canon 5D Classic vs 5DIV way are sever crops not pixelated?

I recently picked up a 5D, 12 mp. I have been playing with it, I pretty much always use auto ISO on my 5DIV even in M. other than in P the 5D doesn't have auto ISO. It is almost like using my old Pentax Spotmatic in a way.

Anyhow the thing I noticed that even at 12 mp and severe crops and I am AMAZED at the quality of the shots, was expecting pixelation and yet they are very similar to the 5DIV. I shoot in raw.

probably if I printed them they would be really different but all my shots are for the web and display on my monitor.

Is it the display size that matters or what?

5D Classic

Photo from Jeff USN Photog 72-76's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1062191)

Photo from Jeff USN Photog 72-76's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1062194)

another 5D classic shot

Photo from Jeff USN Photog 72-76's gallery.
Image hosted by forum (1062317)

The 5Dc was a special camera for sure especially at the time it came out. I had one for years before moving on to the 5DII and now 5DIV. One thing you don't mention is if the 5D image was cropped smaller than the output size. For instance, did you crop the 5D image to 600*400 and then scale up for display to the final image size? or are the images simply displaying a 100% crop of the image? I'm guessing the latter. The only time your going to get pixelation is if you crop really small and expand it for display. But if really interested to see the difference, take a shot of the same target with the same lens, do your cropping the same for both images and compare.

I simply cropped the image in LR and then worked the colors and setting and then used Topaz Sharpen AI to stabilize and noise reduction, no expansion or anything

Here is the original jpg (I shoot both Raw and Large Fine JPG as I like to flip through the jpg's to decide what to delete).

This is a really cool shot! Nicely done!

You will get pixelation if you crop enough. This crop is about 3% of the width of the original. You might have to click on the eyeglasses to see the effect clearly.