Just Purchased EOS 20D Kit

[Lynn Lane]

Well this is my first post on this forum. I have been reading it for awhile but never really had much to say, only to learn from you guys. I'm a documentary filmmaker who uses quite a bit of stills in my work. Up till now I was either using stills captured on a Sony Cybershot (at the time was a good point and shoot) or from photos taken on my Nikon SLR and then scanned in via scanner (obviously..haha). Anyway, today I kicked down some cash and purchased online (buydig.com) the Canon EOS 20D kit with the 18-55mm lens. I paid next day shipping but it won't arrive until Monday. I ordered late in the day. I can't wait to try this baby out. I'm sure that I'll be posting on here regularly now.

Lynn Lane
Coal River Pictures

[khiemluu]

Welcome Lynn, im sure we could leanr alot from you too, hope you enjoy your stay. :D

Congrats on the purchase, can't wait for some samples.

Khiem.

[vpkb]

i ordered mine tuesday from costco.com come and it came today, i'm so excited but will have to wait until the battery is charged.

costco.com has a great price, $1399, $1299 after $100.00 rebate

[Lynn Lane]

khiemluu...thanks for the welcome. I'll see what I can share. Hopefully, I'll be able to contribute something soon regarding the new camera. I'll definitely put up some of the stuff that I shoot on it.

vpkb...I got mine for $1359 at buydig.com. After the $100 off rebate, it will come in at a cool $1259. Not a bad price, I thought. Is costco.com an authorized Canon dealer? So many of these things aren't. I would bet they are though.

[glangston]

Remember that the EOS 20D does not sharpen in camera like your Cybershot. You may need to process in Photoshop to get the sharpness you like. Single point focus is highly recommended for most shots and depth of field is more likely to affect your pictures than with the old Cybershot. Just a couple of heads-up that have been discussed here many times.

[Lynn Lane]

glangston....that's okay actually. It may solve some of the things that I don't like about the cybershot.

[jscotti]

I've been a lurker here as well and I just ordered a 20D from Adorama - I've noticed that a tracked package never moves (one of the correlaries to "A watched pot never boils"). I ordered it with the kit lens and got a decent deal on some Sigma lenses to go with. I only had about a $2K budget, so I had to go with some inexpensive lenses and decided on the 70-300 APO Super II macro lens and the 24mm f/1.8 EX DG DF lens to go along with the kit lens. When I can, I plan to get the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens and a wider angle lens, probably a 14mm or 15mm prime lens. I thought about how I use the zoom on my current camera and figured about 80% of the time, I either rack it all the way in or all the way out, so having some faster prime lenses seemed to make some sense to me.

I sure can't wait to get out and take pictures with my new 20D! It sounds like there are a number of us "rookie" 20D users who will be taking their first photos with their new toys in the coming weeks.

Jim.

[johnnybfan]

Lynn and Jim, welcome to the forums.:cool::cool: I'm sure you'll both enjoy the forums & I know you'll love your cameras. Keep on shootin'. :):D

[Michaelmjc]

Welcome to the forum, Cant wait to see some pictures. Lynn you wont be dissapointed with it.

[BottomBracket]

Welcome to the forums! Lynn, I'm glad you went with Canon instead of the Ninok route.

[Lynn Lane]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys! I have a ton of film cameras ranging from Nikon SLRs to Yashikamat TLRs even to old box cameras but now I feel that I am going to truly find a home for my photographic needs in the 20D. For what my main focus is, this is going to be great. I have been traveling around for the past year shooting this boxing documentary and have been in the press pits at a ton of fights and when I talk with the press photographers, they all love this camera. I don't think I could have gotten a better recommendation than the 20D.

[lancea]

Hi Lynn. I pre-ordered my 20D + kit lens well before a trip to Orlando last year, and watched as various rumours appeared about delayed release dates. I was very pleased to get notification from Ritz Camera a week before I left New Zealand advising me that it had been sent to my hotel (thanks Ritz!). Had to wait an extra two days (in Denver) to get it thanks to the final hurricane hitting Orlando! I'm very pleased with my purchase.

The three things I wish I'd known from the very start:
(1) Full Auto mode isn't all that useful. P mode suits the majority of situations.
(2) When you zoom in on the image displayed on the LCD it's not meant to look sharp. The display uses a small jpeg image, and not the full-size JPG or RAW image.
(3) The JPEG images are only moderately sharpened, and the degree of sharpening can be controlled by setting appropriate parameters using the 20D's menus. RAW files are not sharpened at all in-camera.

While the following document is not strictly for the 20D, it's the one I wish I'd had at the start: photoworkshop.com/canon/EOS_Digital.pdf (1.1MB Adobe Acrobat file "How to get the most from your EOS-1 class digital SLR, Tips and Techniques, Camera Handling & Maximum Image Quality").

And the thing that catches me out still: when I increase the ISO setting to 800 or beyond, I sometimes forget to put it back to a lower value. While the 20D is low-noise even at high ISO, it is noticable and can diminish an otherwise good shot.

Enjoy your new camera!

[felix21685]

wow your right that is a very interesting link..(the pdf)

is that in a sticky somewhere if its not it needs to be..

[kenyc]

Hi Lynn et. al. This is my first post / response as well. I just got my 20D (w/ EFS 17-85) a bit over a week ago and am loving it. I've done some film photography in the past (mostly landscapes/outdoors) and am re-learning. I love it so far and hope to have some pics to post soon.

Enjoy,
KAC

[Maureen Souza]

Lynn...welcome!! Look forward to seeing your future posts!

[lancea]

wow your right that is a very interesting link..(the pdf)
is that in a sticky somewhere if its not it needs to be..
I don't think it is, but yes it should be. It is quite recent, and answered lots of questions for me. There are links to it in other threads on these forums, but unless you know the title it can be very hard to find again.

[GMosher]

COngrats! You'll love it!!!!

I'm still learning the ropes on mine...well...hopefully I always will be.

[leesc_1998]

The Sigma 70-300 lens you ordered is a nice lens. I have been very happy with mine. I got my 20D almost a month ago and I'm in heaven. Now I have no excuses because "my camera doesn't do that." :)

[canon2od]

Lynn, congrats on the 20D kit, you are going to love it--have fun.

[Lynn Lane]

lancea...thanks for the welcome and the .pdf. I will be reading that today!

Thanks everyone else for the welcome. I wish the camera was here today! I have a few things that I want to shoot with it for this fundraising trailer that I want to start putting together. I guess I will have to wait.

[lancea]

Pleasure. You've probably already got the manual (and read it :) ) but just in case - you can download it from consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=DownloadDetailAct&fcategoryid=314&modelid=10464. I must read mine again too for when I get one of those "oh heck, how do I do that again?" moments.

[Lynn Lane]

lancea...I clicked on the link and when i go to download the manual, nothing happens. It just opens a blank page? Aaaargh!

[skiffnomad]

I'm looking for an advice. I just gor EOS 20d, and I had my older Sigma 28-300 which I used on Elan 7e. This lens gave me consistent Err 99, so I mailed it to Sigma for rechiping. Now Sigma claims that AF gear needs to be replaced as something is broken there at the price of $60.
I wanted to ask for opinions on the value of this lens on D20 and of it makes sense to spend the money to fix it.
Thank you all for your opinions.

[AngelaS]

Congrats! You'll LOVE it!

[Lynn Lane]

Angela...Thanks!

[mikeymike]

welcome.........i have learned soooo much from just reading on here. the people on this forum seem too have already talked about and fixed every problem i have had so far (most of my problems are caused by me of course.)

[jscotti]

The Sigma 70-300 lens you ordered is a nice lens. I have been very happy with mine. I got my 20D almost a month ago and I'm in heaven. Now I have no excuses because "my camera doesn't do that." :)

It seemed like a great alternative to the Canon 75-300 zoom lens, but I liked the idea of it being a macro as well. I sure hope it takes pictures that look as good as the lens itself looks! :D

I cut my teeth on an old Pentax K-1000, so I'm used to doing everything manually. Since I got my first digital, I've wanted more and more manual capability - I prefer to control my camera rather than my camera controlling me, and the 20D sure looks like it will allow me to do that, but also to let it do most of the work when appropriate.

Lynn, I also have a Yashicamat 124G medium format TLR - I couldn't go back to 35mm after shooting in MF, but the digital camera has re-invigorated my photography. I wore out a Fuji 2650 and just past my 10,000th shot since October on a new Canon A75.

I see the 20D as the most significant thing to happen to my photography since the day I first loaded film into a camera about 30 years ago.

Now, if my 20D will just hurry up and get here....

Jim.

[Lynn Lane]

Mikey...thanks for the welcome. This place is giving me so much info. To be honest though, I should be editing right now instead of reading this forum. I'm off to grab some sushi and then back to work, or maybe reading the forum some more!

Jim...Yeah, switching to medium format pretty much killed the 35mm thing for me. I love shooting with old TLR cameras. I haven't had the opportunity in a while because of my documentary work, but I have a real need for my own images in my projects and I think that the 20D is going to take me to another level.

[lancea]

lancea...I clicked on the link and when i go to download the manual, nothing happens. It just opens a blank page? Aaaargh!
Hmmm. I just checked and it still works for me - takes me to the Canon US download page. I then click on the Products / Software manuals link and it opens-up a new browser window. Perhaps you don't see the page because you have pop-ups disabled? If you're running Internet Explorer 6 you might see a bar appear across the top that lets you enable pop-ups for a particular web site.

My next step was to post a link that takes you directly to the manuals page - but that brings up a blank page for me! Try navigating to the page from consumer.usa.canon.com. Use the Support menu on the right of the page to select (1) EOS (SLR) Camera Systems (2) Digital EOS Cameras (3) EOS 20D.

Good luck!

[Lynn Lane]

lancea....Thanks for trying. It is just bringing up a blank page. I am on Mac OSX using Safari as my browser. I'll try my IE and see if that works.

[Lynn Lane]

That was the problem. I used my IE and I was able to download it. Thanks again!!!

[lancea]

Great! And I won't tell any other Mac users of the depths you had to lower yourself to :mrgreen:
Funny though, it works for me using the latest releases of Firefox, Opera and IE (I'm running Windows XP with Service Pack 2). Perhaps Safari is blocking the page because it's got some scripting in it. Happy reading. There will be a test ...

[Lynn Lane]

lancea...a hard copy of this comes with the camera, correct? Don't want to waste the ink printing it if that's the case.

[lancea]

Oh yes indeedy, plus a software manual, and a little "pocket reference" card. What's more, the manual doesn't have a COPY watermark on every page like the PDF version does when you print it. Don't know why they did that - it's fairly obvious it's not the original!

[Lynn Lane]

Yeah...I thought it was kind of funny that they put the ol' "COPY" watermark on there. Don't want anyone to think that they got an original in their hands. I do guess that someone could get a hold of it and print up some serious copies and sell them for people who lose theirs and make a pretty penny at it.

[NJPhotoGuy]

Welcome to the EOS20D club, Lynn!

I too was a serious 35mm film photographer for many years, but found my interest in photography totally revived once I got my 20D. In the beginning, I found that I had to digest the manual in small pieces, because it was pretty overwhelming, even just learning how to use all the controls. I'd read about a couple features and then have to go right out and shoot up a whole card's worth of pictures to try out what I'd just learned. Then once home, I'd quickly upload my shots, look over everything I did, so I could see what I did right and what needed further practice. Then I'd devour some more of the manual and go out and try more of the features. It was a bit of a learning curve, especially being new to the digital world, but a curve that I enjoyed climbing immensely.

The 20D is truly an amazing piece of equipment, and I wish you many years of enjoyment with it.:-)

Tom

[Lynn Lane]

Tom,

Thank you so much. I tend to be a bit obsessive about learning so this seems like the perfect vehicle for my obsessive tendencies. Having looked over the manual last night, I think that I will be consumed for quite a while!

[crusher420]

Well I just took the plunge too and got one of the 20D's. I love this thing...I owned a DRebel before...and this is so much more camera. I too am a newbie to these forums and I am learning so much. Thanks to everyone!

[Slaggie]

Was into 35 mm since a teenager, got into 4X5 plus color darkroom, gradually got to be too much work, not so much fun. Going to do lots when retired. Guess what, now all that gear is too heavy. Wife bought a P&S last summer, WOW what a blast, put all the fun back in, got PS, solidly hooked! Was really looking at Nikon D70 when Nikon forums started mentioning the XT and how some Nikon users were going to THE DARK SIDE. Chequed it out, found this forum and loved it and the info that is in here and the help available. Checked out the 350 and the 20D, love them both but the 20D better. I cannot afford even half of what I want, so by July, the compromise will be 20D body only nifty fifty
Should be enough to get things going and getting used to the controls. Later the 17-40, then 70-200 F4, 1.4 extender, etc etc. Yep, been reading this forum every day. :D George

[Lynn Lane]

Well, it's less than 24 hours until my camera arrives. I am sitting here editing this documentary that I wrapped shooting a few days ago. The last interview was with Michael Buffer, the voice of the ring in boxing. Even with all that is going on, I can't stop thinking about the great images I'll be able to get with my 20D. I'll include some of them in this documentary!

[Lynn Lane]

It has ARRIVED! Now the fun begins!

[drandy1]

I just received mine from Buydig.com too. Great service, etc. FYI - one thing to note, the camera's they are supplying need a software update. This is very straightforward and fully documented on the canonusa.com website. Took me 30 mins total to complete.

[Lynn Lane]

drandy1...thanks for the heads up. I will work on that tonight or tomorrow. Tonight I am editing and reading the manual.

[josh51699]

I cant wait...mine will be in tomorrow from Buydig too! I just may take a vacation day wednesday!

[Lynn Lane]

seems like buydig has done well with people on this forum in the past few days.

[vpkb]

I just received mine from Buydig.com too. Great service, etc. FYI - one thing to note, the camera's they are supplying need a software update. This is very straightforward and fully documented on the canonusa.com website. Took me 30 mins total to complete.

software or firmware?

[drandy1]

Sorry.............firmware.

[jscotti]

It has ARRIVED! Now the fun begins!

Oh, I'm envious, but not for too long - mine should be here Thursday. I just wish it could be taking pix of all the places it sees along the way: it left NY and passed through Philly along the way to Chicago where the last tracking update put it at 3:47AM this morning. I'd have caught a ballgame or two along the way passing through those cities....

Jim.

[guitarman3]

This thread looks like the 20D club, so I hope ya'll don't mind if an XTer jumps in and welcomes Lynn, Jim, and the others who are just getting their new cameras. I know you'll enjoy them. Of course, the tough part (at least for some of us) is getting the cash together to buy some nice lenses. Good luck with that, too! Hope to see you posting some shots soon.

2 to 3 days before my L arrives! I'm also working on the financing for my nifty fify!

[Jraun]

Welcome and congrats - ditto new owner of 20D after trashing my 300D nothing that can't be fixed. I too only just started to explore the vast array of options the 20D offers. Good luck and lookin forward to posts.

[josh51699]

Wow I have it I used it, I love it!!! This 20d is awesome...I took tons of pictures of flowers in the yard, some really cool, and then I had to reformat to update firmware so I lost them. Which was no big deal because I was just playing.

Ill post something in the next day or so.

[Lynn Lane]

josh51699...i wanted to work with it yesterday but I was having a meting until 11pm last night regarding my next documentary that will take place in the Ukraine. I'll definitely get some great shots whilst I am there. I think I will take the ol' 20D out today for a spin in NYC though during the capturing phase of editing. I'm a bit overwhelmed right now with this current film and I am just sitting here looking at it setting on my desk! Aaaargh!

[jscotti]

Yipee! My 20D arrived this morning. Already shot more than 130 pix with it & not getting much work done. Making plans for a sunset expedition later today on the way home. Sunset and cactus shots are high on the list. That 2G CF card doesn't seem so big anymore now that I'm filling it with 8Mpix images instead of 3Mpix images! I love how fast it focuses & getting shots of those airplanes flying overhead is a piece of cake with the 70-300 zoom. I just gotta keep from getting overwhelmed with all the options and features, taking only a few at a time and learning them one by one.

Jim.

[Lynn Lane]

Congrats and welcome to the 20D newbie club. Mine is still sitting beside me as I am editing away on this documentary. You guys are killing me Luckily I am at least editing some enjoyable stuff.I may take a break in a few to take a few outdoor shots as I walk over and grab a coffee to keep me moving forward.