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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 143
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A Week with the Canon 20D
Product Category: Digital camera
Manufacturer: Canon
Where to Buy: Amazon [Affiliate]
Price: $1499.99 USD (body only)
Specifications: Professional Grade Single Lens Reflex, 8.2 megapixel DIGIC II Sensor, magnesium alloy shell, Compact Flash Type I/II, 1.6x field of view crop, USB 2.0.
Pros:- 5fps for fast continuous shooting;
- Accepts Canon EF/EF-S lenses;
- Improved Auto-Focus;
- Improved image quality higher ISO.
Cons:
Summary:
In April 2000 Canon released the D30, a 3.1 megapixel digital SLR camera. Two years later they released the D60 followed by the 10D and now, the latest mid-range digital SLR, the 8.2 megapixel 20D. Each release has incorporated new technology from Canon's higher end models while remaining around the same $1500-$2000 price point. The 20D combines many base features from its predecessors with some new features from its big brother the 1D Mark II. Bob Heald has written an excellent introduction to the 1D Mark II which can be found here. For those of you interested in the 20D, read on for the full review!
Introduction
I had made up my mind to buy a Canon 10D soon after returning from a snowy winter vacation to Portland, Oregon. My 300D (Canon's entry level digital SLR) could handle ninety percent of what I needed but there were a few times where I found myself limited by the lack of features such as mirror lockup, choice of metering mode, choice of auto focus mode, flash exposure compensation, and frame rate. I bought the 300D just a few months before and the 10D had been out a while, so I decided to wait for Canon to release the next version of the 10D and then reevaluate my needs. Eight months later, I swept up the first round of 20D's from a local camera store and here are my initial impressions. There are a lot more comprehensive and technical reviews around the web so the purpose of this article is to give my overall impressions without trudging through the numbers.
Out of the Box and Into my Hands
The camera came with the typical accessories one might expect- BP511A Lithium Ion rechargeable battery;
- Battery charger;
- Neck Strap;
- Software drivers for direct connection to a Windows or Mac PC;
- Image editing software for RAW images;
- Assorted cables: video out for connection to TV, USB cable;
- Owners manual, software manual and quick reference guide (English and Spanish).
Since I already have a few lenses from my 300D, I purchased the camera without a lens. There are several 20D kits available with different lenses. The battery is a new model and is supposed to last 25% longer (around 1000 exposures at room temperature). The camera also accepts the same battery from the 10D/300D so I pulled out one of my old charged batteries and started shooting.
One of the most important features of a camera is how comfortable it feels in your hand. This one felt pretty good to me. The magnesium alloy body, which should be familiar to 10D shooters, had a much denser balanced feel than the plastic body of the 300D. The rubber curved grip fit my hand nicely. At 1.5 pounds, the camera is a near perfect balance between a weighty feel without being overly heavy.
The first noticeable technical improvement of the 20D was the power up time. I turned the switch to the on position and the camera was ready to go before I could hold it up to my face. When the camera turns itself off, after a user configurable time interval, pressing the shutter button powers it back on near instantaneously. This is a much desired improvement over the sluggish startup of my 300D.
The viewfinder appeared bright and crisp. The 20D has a new 9-point CMOS auto-focus (AF) sensor. The AF points appear in a tight diamond shape in the viewfinder. This is an improvement over the 300D/10D's 7 AF points. The camera does a reasonable job of selecting which object in the scene gets the focus. I typically prefer to override this functionality and use the center point to ensure that I get my subject in focus without relying on the camera to choose for me.
The auto focus was extremely fast and responsive with both my 17-40mm f/4.0 lens and my 400mm f/5.6 lens. Even my 75-300mm lens which at times seems to focus in slow motion appeared to move a little faster on the 20D. Canon claims the 20D will focus one stop better in low light than the 10D. This was a welcome improvement, especially given my first shooting conditions.
I picked up the camera the day hurricane Ivan was moving through Atlanta and when I got home my power was out so I had to conduct my initial exploration by candle light. I figured this was a good time to test one of the advertised improvements of the 20D, less noise at higher ISO.
A Candle in the Dark
Despite my tripod sitting two feet away from me, I decided to see how well this camera performs handheld in a low light situation. Canon claims that image quality on the 20D at ISO 1600 is comparable to the 10D shooting at ISO 400. While I didn't have a 10D to verify the difference, you can see by this photo that the 20D does do a good job.
Figure 1: These candles were shot at ISO 1600. Notice the lack of noise in the black areas. With my 300D, the black would have a bunch of colored static noise. This image was reduced from the native 3504x2306 pixels so some of the noise could be compressed down. See below for a 100% crop of the image.
Figure 2: This is a 400x267 section of the far candle in the image above which is called a 100% crop because it is the actual pixels at actual size. Notice the black area is still clean with little noticeable noise in the table or glass.
I spent the remainder of the rainy evening playing around with the camera. The built-in flash works in a pinch however, as with the 10D, 300D and most digital SLRs, an external flash is recommended for any serious shooting. The 20D is the first Canon camera to offer E-TTL II technology which basically translates to getting better exposures using a flash. Most flashes, both on-board and external, can be fooled by reflections or high contrast scenes and this new TTL, or through the lens technology, is supposed to make the flash smarter about how it interprets a scene. The main advantage is that it uses the focal length of the lens in its calculations. I did not see a huge difference with the built-in flash compared to my old camera - I'll have to do more testing once my new external flash arrives.
Rapid Fire
One noticeable difference between 20D and previous models is the shutter click. The 20D is much louder than previous models, pressing the button for a single frame emits a healthy ca-chunk. Reading through various camera forums it seems there is a mixed opinion about this. Wildlife shooters are worried it might scare the critters away, users of higher end digital and film cameras claim this is what a camera is supposed to sound like and the previous models sound like a children's toy in comparison. I personally find the shutter sound to be soothing in an abrupt sudden sort of way. I enjoy photographing birds in the early morning hours so I'll have to go out and see if it will really send them flying away; somehow I don't think it will make much of a difference.
The official spec says the camera can shoot 5 frames per second (up to 23 at a time). I was able to take about 35-40 consecutive large high quality jpeg shots before the camera stopped to breathe. That should be quite sufficient to catch the action in a variety of sports or wildlife situations. For those of you shooting in RAW or RAW+JPEG you will be slowed down to 6 frames in one burst.
I played around with the faster frame rate at a local park and took the shots shown below:
Figure 3: Capture the action frame by frame. The 20D will shoot 5fps and it can shoot and write to the card simultaneously. Although the focus is a bit off, these three shots illustrate why wildlife and sports shooters will enjoy the faster frame rate of the 20D.
The ability to shoot and write to the card at the same time is a new feature and makes the camera appear more responsive. On the 300D I often got a "Busy" message while the camera was catching up writing to the card. This problem has been alleviated with the 20D. Using a high speed CF card improves performance even more.
In addition to a faster frame rate, the 20D has a faster 1/8000 second shutter and a higher flash synch speed up to 1/250 second. Both of which provide even more creative flexibility when shooting action. Using certain Canon external EX flashes the flash will synch at high speed to the full 1/8000 of a second.
Artistic Flair
Like its predecessors, the 20D offers several parameters to adjust image contrast, sharpness, saturation and color tone. There is also a new black and white shooting mode with a few creative features.
The black and white filter effects provide the ability to apply different colored filters to the image much like using a physical screw on filter with black and white film. Yellow, orange, red and green filters all alter the image by enhancing like colors. For example, the green filter makes green objects such as plants and trees appear more vivid in the exposure.
The tone effects change the overall color of the image. It can be set to a choice of sepia, blue, purple and green to create an effect similar to chemical toning. The following images below are a sample of the toning effect.
Figure 4: These three images were shot in the black in white mode with the toning effect. From left to right they are using purple, green and blue toning effect.
Granted most people shoot in color and do their black and white conversions in an image editor, the new features provide an extra way to get creative with your camera. Black and white purists will probably find the canned effects limiting although there is a decent degree of customization available by tweaking the contrast and sharpness dials.
Conclusions
A faster frame rate, improved auto-focus, better image quality at higher ISO all contribute to the success of this latest offering. For Canon shooters wondering if the 20D is worth the upgrade from previous models it's hard to say. For me, there are many improvements over the 300D, however, 10D users might not find enough difference to trade up. For those folks out there looking to get into the digital SLR market, the 20D is a perfect blend of high end features with an affordable price tag.
Several 20D users around the web have complained about various new product bugs and glitches, such as lockups and error messages. I've been using my 20D steady all week without any problem at all. So far I'm quite pleased with my purchase. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments about the 20D.
For image samples, visit my photo blog at http://jason.aminus3.com
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