EOS 20D - a first impression...

Last week I got my new EOS 20D, so here's a few impressions after a couple of hundred shots.

The camera handles like any EOS. This is a good thing. A quick change to Custom Function 4, setting 3 and it handles brilliantly.

There's a couple of things that I don't like about the handling:

The shutter button goes click. No big deal you might think, as it does on 99% of the cameras out there, but the EOS 3 and the professional EOS (1 series) have a hair-trigger shutter button that doesn't have a click stop. I much prefer the hair-trigger type.

The 9-way multicontroller is a bit fiddly and you can't easily and accurately select all focus points. Since I mainly use the middle point anyway it's not that big a deal and I think something that will get better with practice. It is a better system than the EOS 3 had though.

Beyond those minor points, it's an excellent camera. The output is superb and the resolution is easily on a par with film. It would be nice if the noise was a bit less, or was luminance noise rather than chrominance noise, but as it's at a much lower level than film grain I will live with it.

A couple of hugely down-sized examples...



This is Suze, a 5 1/2 month old Beagle puppy with a habit of chewing on anything or anyone... This was edited and resized from a medium fine JPG.



The hummingbird was edited and resized from a full-sized TIFF file converted with EVU.

 

Those snaps a very impresive - and hummingbirds in the back garden too

 

Global warming. You wouldn't believe how hot it gets in Oldham and Rochdale these days

 

Impressive pic's

Must say, in my entire life I don't think I've ever even seen a Humming Bird, let alone had my camera with me at the exact moment required to shoot one

 

sounds like you need to take your camera to oldham or rochdale, they have flocks of them there

 

It's the vultures you have to watch out for.

 

I picked up an EOS300D on Friday. I know nowt about photography, i feel a stiff learning curve ahead. So far i am very happy with the results.

 

I've got a Nikon F80 and initially assumed lenses would be interchangeable with Nikon D bodies - so the natural option for me (based on this conclusion) would have been the D70 or D100. However if I understand correctly these bodies require digital specific lenses.

This leaves me with the option to switch to something like the EOS 20D. Can any Canon users tell me why they picked Canon?

 

Hi Greg,
The D70 and D100 use any F mount lens.The only change is the Focal length is multiplied by 1.5 so a 50mm becomes a 75mm. Also non AFD lens do not offer all functions but then they don't on the F80 either.

 

AOS is correct, also it applies to ALL makes of lenses, not just Nikon.

 

Ah I see. So my 18mm to 80mm lens will effectively be a 27mm to 120mm? And that's the only effect?

 

I use standard nikon lenses on my Fuji s2 pro to grat effect, getting real wide is expensive due to the 1,5x magnification. Don't know why they just dont make the ccd's 35mm to avoid this (canon do on the eos 1)

 

Contax do a full (35mm) frame CCD as well but at the moment they are very expensive. The reason for the multiplying focal length is the CCDs are smaller than a 35mm frame (About the size of an APS frame, or so I've heard). I would expect to see more full frame DSLRs as the CCDs become easier to manufacture and hence cheaper. But on the other hand it makes telephotos great Sigma 105 to 300mm 2.8 for £500 anyone?

 

Some serious detail going on there BTW Isaac

 

I have to agree, I love analog gear, but those pics are more than compelling.

 

It's the 100% crop you'll want to see then....



ISO 400, 70-200 F4L @ 200 F4, 1/640th. I do like this lens... sharp wide-open.

 

Regarding cameras, lenses, etc... The D70 and D100 will use whatever F mount lenses you have for your F80 greg. The DX series lenses will work only on the D series cameras though.

Sensors.... oh so much controversy surrounds sensors in DSLRs.... CCD or CMOS? Sub-frame or Full frame? 3:2 or 4:3?

The reason that cameras like the D70 and 20D don't contain full-frame sensors is simply cost. The sensor in the 20D is around 330 mm^2, whereas the full frame sensor in the EOS 1Ds (and mk II ) is 864 mm^2. As the area goes up, the yield goes down exponentially and the price goes up more than exponentially. That's the main reason why the 1Ds costs $8000 as compared to the $1300 of the 20D (yes, the 1Ds body is tougher, weather sealed, etc, but the 1v film body has all these things and is around $1000, and the 1DmkII has the same body as the 1Ds with a smaller sensor and comes in around $4000).

Making a full frame sensor is only the start though... You have to make it perform well. Kodak made the mistake of trying to produce a full frame sensor without paying enough attention to noise performance, and ended up with a sensor that is pretty much useless beyond ISO160 and is at its best at ISO6. In an attempt to lower the cost they left out the anti-alias filter and so the camera suffers crippling moire effects.

 

could they not stitch together 2 or more ccd's to produce a 'virtual' full size one surely the joins could be fixed in software - possibly even 'offline' to improve shot speed?
or are there other considerations i don;t know about?
cheers


julian.

 

Julian - the old Kodak DCS560 and DCS760 cameras had three 2MP CCDs stitched together to form a 6MP camera. The problem was that the three CCDs could have varying performance, so one might be lower noise than the one next to it, making a noticeable change in the image at the join. That, and those cameras retailed for around 27k meant they never sold very well. Prices are continuing to fall rapidly.

 

27k :yikes: :mana:
still there should be ways round the noise issue. i guess depending on the speed of the ccd allowing for multiple grabs for one shot - not sure if this is feasable?. still if you whacked in a big ram buffer you'd not get a huge lag like you do using a memory card.
still if prices are falling it might be pointless developing clever hard / software solutions to a problem which will be non existant in a year or two.
cheers

julian.