Objective To compare the macular imaging and measurements of patients with idiopathic epiretinal membranes (ERM) by stratus optical coherence tomography (OCT) and two different types of spectral-domain OCT. Methods Forty-six consecutive patients (46 eyes) diagnosed as idiopathic ERM in the period of August 2008 to October 2008 were enrolled in this study. The patients included 11 males and 35 females, with a mean age of (61.04plusmn;10.13) years. Twenty-one age- and sex- matched normal subjects (21 eyes) were enrolled in this study as control group. All the subjects underwent stratus OCT, cirrus OCT and 3D OCT-1000 examinations. The macular area was divided into three concentric circles which including central region with 1 mm diameter, inner area with ＞1 mm but le;3 mm diameter, and outer ring area with ＞3 mm but le;6 mm diameter. The inner area and outer ring area were divided into superior, nasal, inferior and temporal quadrants by two radioactive rays. The characteristics of OCT images and the quantitative measurements were compared among these three machines. The macular thickness of ERM group and control group was also compared. And the correlation of visual acuity and the macular thickness in idiopathic ERM patients was evaluated. Results The increased macular retinal thickness, disorder structure of inner retina, uneven surface and proliferative inner and outer plexiform layer were observed in ERM group by stratus and spectral-domain OCT. But the minor pathological changes on inner retina structure and internal surface proliferation could be observed more clearly by spectral-domain OCT than those by stratus OCT.The macular thicknesses of all the subjects measured by Cirrus OCT and 3D OCT-1000 were thicker than those measured by Stratus OCT (t=7.445-11.253,P=0.000). The correlations of measurements between three OCTs were good (r＞0.9). The flatted or disappeared fovea of ERM patient group was observed by all three OCTs. The macular thicknesses on different subfields of patients in ERM group were thicker than those in control group, especially in the 1-3 mm inner ring (t=2.477-10.139,P＜0.05). Moderate negative correlations were shown on the macular thickness and visual acuity in ERM group (r=-0.216-0.517). Conclusions Spectral domain OCT yields better visualization of the intraretinal layers than time domain OCT. The images in spectral domain OCT are more clear and fine compared to stratus OCT. Stratus OCT correlates with spectral domain OCT, but they are different, and cannot be replaced by each other.