So, I am shopping around for a new digital camera, and I had a chance to play with a Canon 20D for a few hours recently and I have to say I rather like it.
The main question I have is whether or not the 30D is worth the extra cost or not. Does anyone have an opinion on this? It’ll still be quite a while before I can afford a new camera, at which point I’ll no doubt be debating between the 30D and the 40D or some other nonsense, anyhow, let me know what y’all think.
I have the 30D and I love it, more than a grown man should love a camera but Gods help me I do.
In terms of picture quality, there’s nothing to choose between them; both use the same sensor and image processor. Where the improvement really lies is a spot meter, a larger LCD screen and finer-grained ISO speed selection (1/3 stops vs 1 stop).
If I had the money, I’d buy the 30D - but none of the improvements are compelling for me. I’d be perfectly happy with a 20D. It’s still a very, very good camera. I can’t deny that having a brand-new camera is a compelling thing. However, being on a somewhat tight budget, the $400-ish I would save would go a long way towards getting a nice lens - which is more important for picture quality in the end. I’d much rather have the 20D with a 17-55 2.8 lens than the 30D with the kit lens.
(From DPReview’s review of the 30D).
Zebra, have you named your camera, and do you sleep with it at night? I do, with my darling 350D, so I know how you feel. 
:eek: Does the Church know about this?!
So in short, I’ll be perfectly happy with a 20D, especially if I use the extra money for a nice lens, right?
While it would be nice to have a spotmeter, I can get by that for less-than-spur-of-the-moment pictures with some trial-and-error (yay preview screen!) or by investing in a profesional light meter (yaknow, once I have another $400 to throw into the wind), and having more incremental steps in the ISO setting really doesn’t matter much to me as long as I can hit the low points (100) and the high points (3200).
One random question, I have a Sunpak flash that I got with my Canon Rebel SII which I bought third-hand from a friend of mine. It’s designed specifically for Canon SLRs, but I’ve heard that if you use a flash designed for film cameras, it can possibly screw up a digital camera (due to the more sensitive circuitry in a digital camera), does anyone know if the older Sunpaks are compatible with newer DSLRs?
Especially if you buy a ‘used’ 20D from someone who is going to upgrade to a 30D.
If I had a 5D, I’d never leave the house.
Long-dead zombie thread, but I thought y’all would like to know that I finally came to a decision and bought a 70D, like seven years later.
Somewhere in between I was kicking around with a Rebel XTi and a couple of Olympus Micro Four Thirds cameras. Rebel and 70D take about equally good pictures, I think, but the 70D is a much smoother camera to work due to how the controls are set up (using thumb dials to adjust settings is just less work than pushing buttons, as little work as even that is).
The Olympus cameras are great walking-around cameras, much smaller and lighter than the Canon EOS line, but they suffer in low-light because of their smaller sensors.
Glass, Glass, Glass.
I covet the equipment that is just outside the end zone at football games.
Cheerleaders?
I see where you look. <veg>
Okay, make it a soccer game and look at the photodogs all along the boundary behind the goals.
Ahhhh, the GLASS* they have.
Dollar for dollar, big glass* will do more for a photographer than a camera body will. IMO…
…20D or 30D? What is this, 2006?
:: reads thread ::
Oh so it is!
The 70D is a great camera: you will love it. Can’t help you with the flash question though. And I’ve named all three of my cameras: my 5D is called the Beauty, my 7D is called the Beast, and the 5D III is called Vera.
People who refer to their lenses as “glass” get an automatic punch in the nuts from me.
I got a 20D back in 2005(?) or so and it’s still going strong. I love that damn thing. I have three lenses for it:
A 28mm f/1.8 wide-angle (which was some crazy expensive price back when I got it but they were running a sooper-sekrit special sale at B&H and I got it for something ridiculously cheap.)
A 50mm f/1.4 workhorse
A 55-250mm f/4-5.6 zoom which I just got myself for Christmas! I’m looking forward to taking that guy out for a spin.
I’m thinking of getting an external flash unit. Anybody have any recommendations? I generally don’t have much use for a flash but the built-in one is kinda meh.
I saw this thread and thought to myself… oooh, there’s a thread I could really contribute to. Then I realised I already had. 
Congrats on your purchase - great choice! I bought a 60D a couple of years ago as a (big) step up from a 350D, and have never regretted it. I was hungover and very sleep deprived in an airport duty free and a very, very attractive salesgirl kept pointing out the benefits of the 60D over the 550. What else could I do but buy it? I did check that it was a reasonably good deal, though. I’m a bit annoyed that things that were taken out in the 60D are back in the 70D - I could have used AF microadjustment and that freely rotating control knob, but on the whole, they’re both great cameras and I hope you have much fun with your new purchase!
Have you seen the Canon Professional Services equipment room at the London Olympics 2012?
Yup. That’s a lot of lenses.
I have a 430EX and can’t express my love of it sufficiently. I did think about buying one of the cheaper compatible ones (Metz, Sigma) but in the end read one too many horror stories about things not working out or - in the worst cases - destroying the camera because of camera-flash issues, and I decided to play it safe. Canon’s new small flash units are pretty neat, though - if I had to do it over, I’d probably get the 270EX because it’s smaller, less expensive and more compact, but still allows flash bouncing, which is a Very Good Thing.
I almost created a thread a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to upgrade from my T2i, and was torn between a 70D, a used 7D, or an on-sale 6D. I ended up with the 70D and so far I am really enjoying it (but only about 100 shots in, mostly due to lousy weather around here lately).
I really tried to talk myself into the 6D, but it was $400 more (just body vs body only), and I only have one compatible lens (my trusty 50mm 1.8) so there’s more expense, and realistically: 98% of what I do, even the ones I like the most, are viewed on-screen, so a lot of the benefits of the 6D would be lost on me (it is a monster for low-light, though). Plus, I’m really not very good, despite shooting SLRs for 30 years.
Only covet those if you plan to use it wide open at the fastest speeds. I have a Canon 400 mm lens. It is amazing. but it is only about $1200, it is not one of the $7000 pro sports lenses. I use it for bird watching and get great photos and the resolution when stopped down is actually better than one of the bigger lenses. And I do use it stopped down. I just up the ISO to compensate.
Oh, that is so not fair. … You’re killing me here.
Thanks for the link.
Just for friedo:
Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass
snerk
Can you splain why that is?
Are the big sport lenses not much telephoto?
They are just for fast shots with low light?
How do they get those midfield great in the air catches that we see?
Some of that stuff must be a pretty good telephoto lens??
I can’t even afford the $1200.00 one you have. ::: sigh :::: 
Canon sells at least three 400mm super telephotos. If you use them wide open at the widest aperture, usually done in sports photography, it is useful. However, the background is blurred and only the subject is in maximum sharpness. This is called bokeh in portrait photography. If that is what you need, then do that. However, I like all the area in my photos to be sharp, therefore I use the smallest aperture possible. The smallest aperture on the 400mm lenses has the sharpest resolution on the least expensive of the lenses. Probably because there is substantially less glass in the less expensive lens to distort. The less expensive lens also weighs a lot less, which is no small matter when tracking a bird handheld, which I can do with my kit.
…as Dervorin mentioned: the Canon flashes are a good place to start if you have the budget. I’ve got one Canon 580 EX II and three Yongnuo YN460’s, that I use off-camera. I wouldn’t be that wary of third party flashes: if they review well and they fit your budget and aren’t “old” then they will probably be okay. I happen to like the Yongnuo’s but most of the other ones are good. Manual flashes are cheaper than flashes with ETTL: but there is a learning curve to using Manual flash properly. (My Yongnuo’s are manual only.)
One more piece of advice to the new camera owners out there: don’t covet what you don’t have. You can do magic things with pretty much any modern DSLR and the kit lens. Push the limits on the gear you’ve got until the frustration factor is too much to bear. Then when it comes time to upgrade you end up getting the gear you need and not the gear you think you need.