Canon EOS 20D review

Canon EOS 20D has been on the market for quite some time and I finally got to try it out some weeks ago. It's a great improvement over already good EOS 10D. Canon has listened to photographers critique and improved startup times, framerate and buffersize and also pumped up the quality, especially on higer ISOs. For owners of 10D it's surely a tough decision - should they update or not.



Compared to 10D new 20D is slightly smaller and with more rounded corners and also lighter. On the backpanel there's new navigation jog-dial which allows focus point selection or moving around the image in review mode. Other improvements are new 8 megapixel sensor, faster DIGIC II processor, 5 frames per second shooting speed and twice as large image buffer. This allows to take 23 highest quality JPGs in sequence. Huge improvement is almost zero lag on camera turn on or when waking camera from standby. With 10D it took something like 2.5 seconds, easily costing you missed shots.

I happily left usermanual in camerabox. If you've had any contact with Canon cameras (or with any modern SLR) you'll get the functions of buttons easily. The only thing I checked from usermanual was the logic of exposure compensation. You have to switch the ON/OFF switch to third option and then dial in exposure compesation using the large wheel under your thumb. But. There's a but. When you go to menu and exit by pressing menu button again then you have to tap shutter release to activate large wheel. I didn't get used to it.



Otherwise body of 20D is very comfortable to hold - big enough and weighs enough, all the buttons are in the right place so there's no need to feel around while shooting. Body material feels good and it sits firmly in your hands. Only nag I have is about top LCD display light switch that was too far for reaching with my index finger. Apparently you're only supposed to use it when your camera is secured on a tripod.

Menus we're clear and I rather like the one long meny and color-coded approach Canon has taken in its pro cameras. Custom Functions could actually have longer texts explaining their functions.



I mainly shot in RAW+JPG mode which records both RAW digital "negative" and ready-to-be-used JPG image. I could fit around 80 of those on 1GB memory card. As already said, 20D can take 23 JPGs in a row (5fps) and 6 RAW images in sequence. Very solid performance.

ISO 100 is perfeclty noise free. If you're really peeping your pixels then noise starts to ever so slightly show at ISO 400 but it will be invisible with A4 print. ISO 800 is very usable and even ISO 1600. As a reminder - noise is much more visible on computer screen and less so on prints, especially if you keep them small. Noisewise 20D is very big improvement over its predecessor 10D.



There are couple of downsides. ISO is not immediately visible and you have to push a button to see it. Small annoyance. Turning on mirror lock is major annoyance as you have to press buttons and surf the menu.

It's been said that viewfinder of EOS 20D is actually smaller and dimmer than that of 10D but I had no problems with it. It's no competitor to film SLRs because viewfinder is so much smaller but as far as half-frame DSLR go, it's very good.

Oy, there's one "ugly" bit as well

Canon kit-lens that I got with the body was really horrible. Manual focus ring was loose effectively making manual focusing at night a pain in the ass. It also draw nice rainbows around every lightsource like streetlamps, candles, moon etc. Smaller apertures only made the rainbow sharper. I haven't seen so bad kit-lens from any other manufacturer out there. Simple - don't buy EOS 20D with kit-lens, save the money and get better glass instead.



Focusing is fast, a bit slower in dimmer situations but I didn't really experience any hunting for focus. Of course usual difficult subjects as reflective smooth surfaces that lack necessary contrasty bits for the focus to work on.

I was not so overwhelmed that I had to install Canon software as my Mac would not recognise 20D with out it. Several people have pointed out that I was probably using wrong protocol for camera-computer interaction but I did actually try to read manual on this and thought I was using the right mode. So I used EOS Viewer Utility to copy images to my harddrive and even tryied RAW conversion with it but after 2 minutes decided that Photoshop Camera Raw plugin works much faster. In addition Viewer Utility takes up very much screen space and has trouble fitting into 1024x768 resolution screen.

Thumbs up to software called Photostich that comes bundled with the camera. It helps to stich together pieces of panorama is really easy to use and if the shots are taken well then gives very nice results.



Small bit of information to those who care about how much noise their camera makes - 20D is noisier than Nikon D70 for example. In shooting situations that require discreetness 20D is not very good solution.

Bla-bla-bla, what's your conclusion?

Canon EOS 20D is excellent camera with well balanced usability, picture quality and speed. I can heartily recommend it to everyone. Just remember to get some good lens to get the maximum quality out of it. If you're not willing to spend extra then rather check out Canon Rebel XT / 350D and spend money that is left over from body on quality glass. It will make much more importance in your pictures than the body. And 350D is equally capable camera but more on it a bit later.