RichardtheSane
23rd of January 2005 (Sun), 05:51
Some of you will know I traded my 10D for a 20D about six weeks ago (many of you will either not know or not remember, big forum and all).
It was with great trepidation that I sold my 10D, a camera that has served me exceptionally well and for the most part I have had no problems with. So what on erth made me want a 20D? My 10D still did exactly the same as when I purchased it and it did a grand job of it? What's the worse that could happen? I could regret the change and end up buying a 1D Mk II? My wallet hoped not.
I'll admit it. I was lured in by the 'new camera wow factor' but that was not all. The improvement in the framerate and the way writing to the CF card was handled was a serious consideration considering the photography I do. I would quite often lock the 10D out - not because of continous shooting, but becuse I would shoot many frames and the 10D would stop writing as soon as I pressed the shutter... for every 3 frames I shot one would be written.
I shoot RAW btw... and wit the 20D I find the only time I need to stop shooting is when I run out of space on my flash cards. The continous write is really a major change.
Autofocus was rumoured to be better on the 20D but the 10D AF was fantastic, certainly on AI servo which is where I spend a lot of my time so I did not take that into account. Having said that I can without question state I am getting more keepers from the 20D where the 10D AF would fail me, I am amazed! Once I have achieved lock with the centre point in AI servo it hangs on like a limpet and is more tolerant of the subject slipping away from the centre of the frame.
ISO noise (or lack of it) was the other area that seriously interested me. The noiseon the 10D was pretty much the best compared to any other DSLR out there, but I still hated going above ISO 400. The 20D was supposed to be a big improvement... initially it wasn't as big as the rumour mill and reviews led meto believe. While 1600 and 3200 were better I only saw a slight improvement at 800 and 400. However a slight change in my shooting style caused primarily by what appeared to be better metering changed this. My 10D I found I would often have to set EXP comp to -1/3 - 2/3 in order to avoid blown highlights as I had with my previous canon cameras. Not so with the 20D, If I leave the needle dead centre I get well exposed images that need no adjustments so my technique was resulting in noisier images.
So am I happy with my 20D? Yes
Would I make the same choice again? Probably
If I suddenly had £3000 to spend would I buy the 1D MkII or good glass? Good glass, definitly.
These are just the ramblings of someone who has realised a few things while shooting today. If they help in your decision to upgrade, great! If not, don't worry about it.
And for what it is worth, if a 10D came up cheap in 6 months time I would probably buy one as a backup - I just couldn't afford to keep it now.
It was with great trepidation that I sold my 10D, a camera that has served me exceptionally well and for the most part I have had no problems with. So what on erth made me want a 20D? My 10D still did exactly the same as when I purchased it and it did a grand job of it? What's the worse that could happen? I could regret the change and end up buying a 1D Mk II? My wallet hoped not.
I'll admit it. I was lured in by the 'new camera wow factor' but that was not all. The improvement in the framerate and the way writing to the CF card was handled was a serious consideration considering the photography I do. I would quite often lock the 10D out - not because of continous shooting, but becuse I would shoot many frames and the 10D would stop writing as soon as I pressed the shutter... for every 3 frames I shot one would be written.
I shoot RAW btw... and wit the 20D I find the only time I need to stop shooting is when I run out of space on my flash cards. The continous write is really a major change.
Autofocus was rumoured to be better on the 20D but the 10D AF was fantastic, certainly on AI servo which is where I spend a lot of my time so I did not take that into account. Having said that I can without question state I am getting more keepers from the 20D where the 10D AF would fail me, I am amazed! Once I have achieved lock with the centre point in AI servo it hangs on like a limpet and is more tolerant of the subject slipping away from the centre of the frame.
ISO noise (or lack of it) was the other area that seriously interested me. The noiseon the 10D was pretty much the best compared to any other DSLR out there, but I still hated going above ISO 400. The 20D was supposed to be a big improvement... initially it wasn't as big as the rumour mill and reviews led meto believe. While 1600 and 3200 were better I only saw a slight improvement at 800 and 400. However a slight change in my shooting style caused primarily by what appeared to be better metering changed this. My 10D I found I would often have to set EXP comp to -1/3 - 2/3 in order to avoid blown highlights as I had with my previous canon cameras. Not so with the 20D, If I leave the needle dead centre I get well exposed images that need no adjustments so my technique was resulting in noisier images.
So am I happy with my 20D? Yes
Would I make the same choice again? Probably
If I suddenly had £3000 to spend would I buy the 1D MkII or good glass? Good glass, definitly.
These are just the ramblings of someone who has realised a few things while shooting today. If they help in your decision to upgrade, great! If not, don't worry about it.
And for what it is worth, if a 10D came up cheap in 6 months time I would probably buy one as a backup - I just couldn't afford to keep it now.