It is so sweet!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Low-light response; fast shutter; continuous shooting; accurate focus, color; fast startup; dual dials+mini-joystick; low noise.

Cons: Indoor WB; lack of WB, metering feedback; craving for expensive lenses; conspicuous; tricky 2-second timer.

The Bottom Line: 
If you're ready to get serious about photography and move to a DSLR, this camera will deliver top quality for years to come. It's an absolute delight to shoot with.

Author's Review
I've just upgraded to the Canon EOS 20D, my first SLR of any kind. I'm a long-time user of Canon and Nikon digital point-and-shoot cameras -- Canon G3 and S30, Nikon 5700 and CoolPix 950. I was trying to choose between a bunch of different models for an upgrade to the G3, and was leaning towards the EOS 300D (Digital Rebel). But once I tried the 20D, I knew I had to have it. It's been a long time since I drooled over a computer or other techno-gadget, but I was drooling over the 20D.

Shooting with an SLR

The big difference about shooting with an SLR camera is that you're always looking through the optical viewfinder, not getting a live display on the back LCD. This has to do with the optics and electronics of the light passing through the camera; basically, you get a brighter view and less shutter lag. The adjustment isn't as difficult as I had thought.

(a) You never have to deal with the image being washed out in bright sunlight.
(b) The viewfinder gives a very accurate view, unlike the off-center, partial view through the eyepiece of a point-and-shoot.
(c) You can judge very precisely when the image is in focus. Coupled with the excellent visual feedback showing which parts of the image the camera is focusing on, this lets you avoid blurry and out-of-focus pictures altogether.

Displays and Feedback

The rear color LCD is used for adjusting menu settings, and the menus are very easy to scroll through and select using the rear dial. However, I would have liked some visual feedback on the rear LCD while adjusting ISO and especially white balance; these settings are only shown in the mini-LCD on top, with the white balance indicated only by very small icons.

Image Quality

How will your pictures be different with the 20D? At first glance on your screen, they might not seem all that different. Then you realize that what you're seeing is scaled down considerably for viewing, since an 8-megapixel image is way bigger than the typical screen. So that sign in the distance is perfectly legible when viewed at full-size, and you could crop out a small part of the image and still get a detailed print. Next you realize that, other than cropping and resizing, you don't need to do much else in Photoshop. Most pictures come out with colors that don't need correcting. You could fine-tune the brightness, but it would be fine as-is.

The only color problems I saw were inside, in dim lighting. Some pictures taken under those conditions come out looking very "golden". I wasn't able to adjust the white balance in the camera to fix that, especially since with the tiny icons I couldn't easily distinguish between tungsten and halogen settings. (See notes 1 and 2 below for more on white balance.)

Sample Images

I've put up a gallery of sample pictures, showing how the 20D handles some tricky conditions, here:

http://www.pbase.com/john_russell/canon_20d

Speed and Responsiveness

The real joy with the 20D is the act of shooting. The camera is instantly ready to shoot as you turn it on, no beeping or extending the lens needed. You can already have the shutter pressed as you hit the power switch, and you won't discern any delay in taking the first shot. With 5 frames per second continuous shooting up to 23 frames, you can zero in on that perfect moment when the birds are in flight or the athlete is making the winning shot. The feedback showing where the camera is focusing is excellent, and you can shift the focus point to ensure you get the right spot and the right exposure for your subject. (With the G3, the most I ever could do was look for the green square that meant it was able to focus "somewhere".)You can zoom as fast or slow as you like. If that flower swaying in the breeze or moon in the night sky isn't quite in focus, you can focus manually and see the results clearly.

Low-Light Operation

With a typical digital camera, you fiddle a lot with shutter speed and aperture, and leave the ISO setting alone because anything other than the default introduces visible noise. With the 20D, the automatic exposure is so good that you can take photos in extremely low light without adjusting the shutter speed or aperture. Instead, if it's blurry because the shutter speed was so slow, you adjust the ISO setting to compensate. Instead of cringing at the thought of using ISO 400, you can go up to 1600 or even 3200 and not worry that the picture will be too grainy. (See notes 3,4, and 5 below for more on ISO settings and noise.)

Manual and Automatic Settings

If you do want to adjust exposure settings, the mode settings like "Sports", "Portrait", and "Landscape" are more useful than on a point-and-shoot, because the shutter speed really is fast enough to stop action, and the aperture really is flexible enough to give a really shallow depth of field (i.e. blur the background) if that's what you're after. There are two other controls related to blurred backgrounds: a depth-of-field preview button that will let you check out the final aperture setting through the viewfinder, and an "Auto-Depth" mode where the camera looks at both near and far subjects and figures out the right aperture to keep everything in focus.

Flash

You aren't likely to be surprised by the flash popping out when you don't expect it, because it typically won't go off unless you pop it open using a button on the body. (See note 6 below for more on how the flash works.) The camera is very good about adjusting exposure and white balance when the flash is used, you don't have to do as much fiddling as with a point-and-shoot. The exposure compensation (the /- EV setting) adjusts the exposure as usual when the flash is closed, and adjusts the flash strength when the flash is open.

SLR Shutter

Another change from the point-and-shoot, is the shutter sound. It's not an electronic noise that you can customize and change the volume, it's an actual click from a mirror moving around inside the camera. (Think of those movie scenes with fashion photographers shooting away, with distinctive camera noises.) On the one hand, the sound makes it feel very professional. On the other, you're not likely to take pictures in a museum, church, or crowded street without people being aware of you.

Because the movement of the mirror in the shutter causes a slight vibration in the camera, there is a "mirror lockup" function where the mirror swings out of the way (and the viewfinder goes dark) before you actually take the picture. In normal drive mode, you press the shutter button a second time to actually take the picture. In timer mode, the timer switches from 10 seconds to around 2 seconds, allowing you to use a tripod or other stabilizer and go hands-off before the picture is taken. I wish the mirror lockup wasn't combined with the timer like that. To get a 2-second delay, you have to switch drive mode and delve 3 levels deep into the menus to change one of the custom settings. Then to go back to normal shooting, you have to change the menu setting back.

Metering

The one thing I'm disappointed with, shooting-wise, is the metering. Canon's DSLRs (at least in my price range) tend not to have spot meters. The 20D is close -- it has a "partial meter" covering a small part of the view -- but still not quite there. I have to say that it meters pretty well, but with unevenly lit scenes I have found cases where I just couldn't get a good exposure on certain subjects that were brighter than the rest of the scene, and this is in my first week of use. Also, I find Canon's icons for the metering mode counterintuitive, ever since the S30 and G3. It would be nice for the rear LCD to display "Evaluative" etc. in nice big letters as you rotate the control dial, but all you get it those little icons in the mini-LCD on top.

Side-By-Side Comparisons

When I tried the 20D side-by-side with the Digital Rebel, the 20D was clearly better in terms of shutter lag, startup time, and continuous shooting speed. I also felt that the 2 controls dials of the 20D were much more convenient for quickly changing settings. Several of the buttons have 2 functions; after you press (for example) the Drive/ISO button, rolling one dial changes the drive mode while the other changes the ISO setting. The rear dial, which the Digital Rebel lacks, also makes it simple to scroll through menus, confirm selections, and it's customizable to perform another function in shooting mode. (I have mine set to scroll through the image size and RAW options.) Picture quality was comparable to my eye when the pictures were scaled down to screen size, but obviously 8 megapixels vs. 6 gives a lot of extra latitude for cropping and enlarging. Every time I thought about the Digital Rebel (half as much $), I came back to the key advantages of an SLR, and realized that the 20D was enough of an improvement to justify the cost. E.g., never miss a shot because the camera is still starting up, or the continuous shooting isn't fast enough, or the resolution isn't quite enough to make out that important detail. Easily switch to smaller JPEGs when the memory card is almost full, or RAW when the setting is spectacular. And those extra shots I salvage might become poster-sized prints that bring years of viewing pleasure.

Compared with the Canon "G" series, I've mentioned elsewhere some features that have become more cumbersome on the 20D. (Clunky way of setting custom WB, have to switch into mirror lockup mode to get 2-second timer.) Everything else -- ISO, drive mode, zoom, shutter lag, viewfinder, etc. -- is miles better with the 20D, if you don't mind adjusting most settings using the mini-LCD instead of the rear screen.

I'm happy to see that the 20D charger will also charge older G-series batteries, so I presume I can use those as backups. The 20D is big enough that it won't fit in G3-sized compact cases.

Review Mode

The 20D is very fast to get into or out of review mode. The mini-joystick makes it easy to scroll around inside a magnified picture. I do wish there was some simple way to cancel all magnification, instead of pressing the "zoom out" button multiple times (and trying to avoid the extra press that will go into thumbnail view). When deleting a picture in review mode, there is an additional choice "Erase All", which is a bit disconcerting as it might get selected by accident -- you have to roll the dial from "Cancel" to "Erase" to confirm erasing one picture, and "Erase All" one position over. Haven't tested yet to see if there's an extra confirmation before erasing all images.

JPEG and RAW Settings

I never appreciated the idea of a RAW JPEG setting until I started using RAW extensively on the G3. Shooting exclusively in JPEG, I'd feel cheated that certain shots were underexposed or had color problems, and I didn't have the RAW files to tweak. Shooting exlusively in RAW, I'd feel bad that I had to go through a conversion process even for basic snapshots. With RAW JPEG (and a big memory card!) I can easily preview the JPEGs and use the ones that came out well, tweak the RAW versions for the very best shots, and delete the RAW files for those that really were just snapshots.

Lenses

The bundled lens with the 20D is fine for someone upgrading from a camera with a built-in lens. The 3x zoom isn't enough for birdwatching, but the zoom ratio is comparable to most point-and-shoot cameras, and of course with the extra resolution you'll get clear results even if you thought you didn't quite get close enough. The default setting seems more wide-angle than I'm used to with the G3. For example, I have in my head how far away to stand to capture a tree or building in a scene, but with the 20D I could stand in much closer and still fit everything in.

You can also get the 20D without the 18-55mm lens, and buy different ones or use ones you already have. The way I answer the question of whether or not to buy the kit lens, is by analogy. The 20D also doesn't come with a CompactFlash card. As a computer guy rather than a camera expert, I'm happy about that -- I already have various CF cards, I know what sort of capacity I need, I can evaluate different brands, write speeds, etc. to keep from getting ripped off or buying more than I need. If I was primarily a camera guy, I might choose a different (more expensive) lens based on an expert assessment of my needs. But for everyone else, the kit lens is a good choice to avoid getting ripped off, overbuying, or getting lenses that are too specialized for general use. It's very cheap and very light.

You'll quickly come to understand the talk about 28-135mm or 70-200mm lenses. 70-200 is only about a 3x zoom, but even at the wide end it's already zoomed quite a bit. 28-135 is about a 5x zoom, but at maximum zoom the magnification isn't as much as with a 70-200mm or 75-300mm lens. Although you hear the term "interchangeable lenses", you don't have to constantly flip from one lens to another. Chances are, you would choose whichever lens was appropriate for that day (portraits, landscapes, birdwatching, nighttime, street scenes) and leave that on the camera the whole time. You might stick with the bundled lens forever, or buy one other big zoom lens, or really get into it and spend a considerable portion of your disposable income on lenses. Of course, if you already have some Canon EF lenses, you are ahead of the game.

Battery Life

Battery life is good, especially since the battery doesn't have to power the rear LCD all the time, and isn't involved with extending or retracting the zoom lens.

More DSLR Differences

The 20D does lack some things you might be accustomed to from P&S cameras -- no movie mode, no panorama stitch mode, no voice recording. Since all of these except voice recording are lacking from all DSLRs to my knowledge, I don't consider that a problem. (See note 7 below.)

Happy shooting!

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Notes:

1. For example, taking a picture of the lights on my Christmas tree in a dimly lit room, the white balance was off with automatic, tungsten, and halogen settings. When I used the flash, the colors were realistic, but the flash drowned out the lights on the tree. I got similar results, although not quite as pronounced, shooting a scene lit by candlelight. This is one situation where I might shoot in RAW, even for casual snapshops. (I might re-shoot the Xmas tree lights in RAW, then try to color-correct the original shots in Photoshop, and compare the results and amount of work.)

2. The 20D has pro-level white balance features that allow you to set the WB in terms of color temperature, or do "white balance bracketing". The idea of color temperature makes sense once you have started doing conversions from RAW and seen how that setting can affect the balance of all the R,G,B channels at once.) I'm sure I could have gotten correct WB even in low light by some research and experimentation, but I figure even a typical "prosumer" might find that cumbersome.

After a couple of weeks of shooting, I have figured out more about the white balance, even if I haven't mastered it:

- There is no button to press to evaluate a custom white balance. (This is another G3 feature I miss.) Instead, you take a picture, then set "Custom WB" in using the buttons and dials, then go into the menus and select "Custom WB", then select the picture that represents a white or grey subject. Too many steps! This might work fine for a pro or patient amateur who spends a lot of time setting up, or needs to flip between several different custom settings. But for me it's slower, e.g. when shooting a parade between 10AM-1PM, it's handy to just point at the pavement periodically and press a button to get a new white balance reading as the light changes.

- The "Color Temperature" white balance requires similar planning: select that WB setting with buttons and dials, then go into the menu to choose the actual temperature. Again, if I'm patient, this will work. (Shoot in similar light 2 days in a row, and in between learn which color temp works best for some sample RAW files. Or use an expensive light meter.) But my actual impatient self would prefer the color temp number to reflect my last preset or custom WB value, so I could get a rough suggestion from the camera and just tweak it slightly.

3. For example, I took a shot of my office complex at night, just to see what kind of error the camera would give when it was too dark to figure out the settings. Instead, it gave a perfectly exposed, perfectly sharp picture (with 5-second exposure and ISO 100). Something like the G3 would have been flashing red warnings all over the place, even at maximum sensitivity.

4. In the documentation for a P&S like the G3, you'll see notes to the effect that the camera will automatically adjust the ISO in certain modes, but when you check the pictures, you're unlikely to ever see a non-default ISO setting. The 20D will actually adjust the ISO setting as needed in creative modes like Landscape and Portrait, so as not to use too-long exposures.

5. My test shots using ISO 1600 and 3200 were of Christmas displays with some parts under floodlights, some illuminated by reflected and diffuse light, and others in shadow. Even at 100%, I'm still not seeing any noise, just slight halos around bright light sources. (And I've been very conscious of noise on the G3, for example setting the camera on ISO 400 at night and leaving it that way the next day, or shooting at ISO 200 inside a stadium.) I'd predict that if you do see some noise in a full-size image at 100%, it won't be a problem scaled down to screen size or printed at moderate size.

6. The flash can pop up automatically and go off in the modes that have the little icons on the mode dial, however even there I wouldn't expect many surprises. (Landscape mode = flash will never fire, Night Portrait mode = flash will always fire, haven't yet tried regular Portrait or Sports modes.) When the flash is up, sometimes it will act like an auto-focus assist beam by firing a bunch of short pulses which can take your subject by surprise.

7. When I do a sound recording with a P&S, it's usually to capture nature sounds, conversation, or a song playing in the background, rather than to say the names of people in a group shot, or the picture's location. So I shoot a short movie rather than using voice annotation.