300d Vs 10d

[Widowmaker]

I just wanted to throw in a few first hand observations that might help someone who is debating between these two cameras. First you should go read the review on each at dpreview.com. I am only pointing out a few things. I own both and I'm about to sell the Rebel (300D) simply because the 10D gives you more control over metering and faster/more burst. The things I want to point out are just some deciding factors.

There are two things that I like about the 300D over the 10D. The first is the playback (review) of images. The 300 D displays your capture image a bit faster and at full quality. The 10D is a bit slower and displays the image at a lower quality and builds up to full, sort of like a progressive jpeg loading on a webpage. This really does not bother me either way because I disable review. The second is the write time of the image. The 300D seems to write to the card a bit faster.

I have heard some people comment about the quality of the 300D compared to the 10D. One was the CF Card Door being plastic on the 300D and seeming cheap. My comment on that is that the 10D also has a plastic type door in the same place as the 300D. This should not be a concern for anyone. One cosmetic difference here is that the 10D CF read/write light is right behind this door and they put a hole in the door for the light to shine through. The door does not really seal tight so the red light actually comes through the crack in the door. The hole points out to the side and is really useless but with the placement of the light they really had no choice. The 300D has the light in a different area and it is more visible. Overall the feel of the 10D is of course more of a quality feel but I dont see the 300D as being less durable. Lets face it, you drop either one something is likely to go wrong rather it be internal or external.

The 10D won me over with its burst capacity, more control and overall look/feel.

EDIT: I removed my last comment here pertaining to burst mode. Please read my next post below for more details on the burst mode of each camera.

[el_supremo]

Thanks for the info Widowmaker. Although the continuous mode on my G2 is slower than the 10D or 300D, I can often get a burst of 5 and sometimes as many as 7 (using high-quality JPG). A fixed upper limit of 4 in the 300D would be a real drag.

[Chuck A. Walla]

Yes thanks. You confirm my own thinking. I have decided to try and go for the D10. Do you shoot RAW much? What kind of frames/sec performance do you get in RAW? Is it much differant then the 300D?

bob

[Widowmaker]

Yes thanks. You confirm my own thinking. I have decided to try and go for the D10. Do you shoot RAW much? What kind of frames/sec performance do you get in RAW? Is it much differant then the 300D?

bob

Hi Bob...
First let me say that the RAW setting has no effect on frames/sec. As soon as I saw your post I started a little test on both cameras. These numbers are not exact, just a reference. Both cameras set on raw, same ISO, same lens, shooting same scene, same settings and same CF Card. I think the 10D is 3fps while the Rebel is 2.5.

10D completed writing of 9 raw burst images in approximately 40 seconds. The camera was ready to take 9 more bursts within 20 seconds. I would estimate that within 10 seconds it was ready for about 7.

300D completed writing 4 raw burst images in approximately 20 seconds. I would estimate that it was ready to shoot 4 more shots in about 13 seconds.

Canon uses some type of smart buffering that works very well. You do not wait for images to complete writing before burst mode is ready to go again. I did another test at highest jpeg quality on the 10D. I did a 9 shot burst and kept the button pressed. The camera shot an additional 11 shots at a decreased rate of about 2 fps. By some standards you could consider that a 20 shot burst.


The 3FPS and 9 shots on the 10D was a welcome increase over the Rebel to me. My advise is if you have the extra $$, get the 10D. I have already found more items that I like better about it such as the second dial. The Rebel has one dial that sometimes requires you to press a button and turn the dial at the same time.[U]

[Chuck A. Walla]

Yes, that's what I was asking for. I knew that the Nikon 4500 would take more frames while still processing the first burst but it wasn't clear to me from the reviews that the Canons were doing the same thing.

I would call that a twenty shot burst. I'm always pushing my Nikon for more shots. To be fair though I did read that the 300D could be pushed to eight shots this way.

Not sure how much RAW I'll end up shooting. Most of my JPGs come out close enough but I tend to push the envelope trying for high shutter speeds and it seems RAW might give me more elbow room. I prefer to do as much processing on my computer as possible.

Thanky

bob

[bcurrie]

Hi Widowmaker,

Have enjoyed and appreciate your information sharing. One question I have is that Canon is known for their superior JPEG in SF, and that while RAW can be better manipulated with white balance in particular, many a user has chosen to bypass the RAW (partly due to that it is not worth it to them for the conversion process compared to what you get out of JPEG). I would appreciate your thoughts as to the quality of the JPEG vs. RAW specifically on the 10D, speaking of coming right out of the camera. (Of course, anyone else is welcome to chime in.)

[Widowmaker]

Hi Widowmaker,

Have enjoyed and appreciate your information sharing. One question I have is that Canon is known for their superior JPEG in SF, and that while RAW can be better manipulated with white balance in particular, many a user has chosen to bypass the RAW (partly due to that it is not worth it to them for the conversion process compared to what you get out of JPEG). I would appreciate your thoughts as to the quality of the JPEG vs. RAW specifically on the 10D, speaking of coming right out of the camera. (Of course, anyone else is welcome to chime in.)

Hi Brian..
I do not know how qualified I am to discuss it :) I have taken some shots in RAW format but I have never really studied them. Now if you are just asking me to compare two identical shots (ie. same settings, lighting, etc.) with the only difference being one in raw and one in jpeg, I can certainly do that.

What I did after reading your post was set the camera up on a tripod and shot a subject in the same lighting and camera settings, except one taken in high jpeg and the other in raw. I converted the RAW image, without any processing, into an 8bit Tiff. I compared the jpeg and the tiff and saw no difference. I zoomed in down to pixels and still saw nothing different. I dont know of anyway to compare the actual raw with the jpeg without converting it first. The fileviewer that comes with the camera lets you view both but I cannot put them side by side. If you have a suggestion let me know.

[bcurrie]

Hi Widowmaker,

No, you did exactly what I was asking (I knew you would!). And your results are what I expected. Canon just has such a good reputation for the JPEG that for the average enthusiast it is not worth it to use RAW IMHO (certain conditions may change this, but I am talking "as a whole"). I know people who have totally converted over to RAW with their new Canon, and the additional time they spend in conversion is doubtful to be worth it. Thanks for the experiment!

[Widowmaker]

Hi Widowmaker,

No, you did exactly what I was asking (I knew you would!). And your results are what I expected. Canon just has such a good reputation for the JPEG that for the average enthusiast it is not worth it to use RAW IMHO (certain conditions may change this, but I am talking "as a whole"). I know people who have totally converted over to RAW with their new Canon, and the additional time they spend in conversion is doubtful to be worth it. Thanks for the experiment!

Oh yes I agree completely. I did this about 4 different times and I just could not see what benefit it would give me. Maybe if I knew a little more about the processing advantages it might.

[Al Downie]

Theoretically, a 16-bit image contains more information than an 8-bit image, therefore the tonal range should be greater. In practice, you're going to have to convert to 8-bit eventually, but the idea is that you can be selective about what information you discard by adjusting levels etc BEFORE you do the conversion.

In normal lighting conditions, with a well-exposed image, I don't think anyone could tell the difference between a picture which originated from RAW and and one which was captured as a JPEG. Some will say they can, of course, rather than admit that it's a feature they don't need, but I reckon they're just techno-snobs.

Cheers,

Al

[jvhigbee]

On the raw/jpg question. I used raw from late march when I got the camera until december when I got too busy to keep up and switched to highest quality jpg. I now feel I used a lot of time AND storage space that I didn't need to. I now save the jpg as a read only file and process in photoshop saving the time spent converting. I should note that I have a raw processing file that is much faster than canon's. But the only thing I miss isn't the ability to adjust white balance but the adjustment I could make to exposure on the raw file. It has seemed to me however that the exposure setting with jpg is a little different and almost seems to be less prone to blow the lights.

[Chuck A. Walla]

While still using film I never scanned to JPG. After getting the Nikon 4500 I used JPG exclusively and I think I can blame most of my problems on my own technique. I have the feeling that I'll likely be drawn to JPG with the Canon if only for the speed. I wonder what percentage of the people here that have RAW capability use it?

bob

[Widowmaker]

While still using film I never scanned to JPG. After getting the Nikon 4500 I used JPG exclusively and I think I can blame most of my problems on my own technique. I have the feeling that I'll likely be drawn to JPG with the Canon if only for the speed. I wonder what percentage of the people here that have RAW capability use it?

bob

I was going to start a poll and find out. The forum FAQ says you can start your own polls but I have yet to see it.

[peteh]

Just to carry on this topic of raw v jpg.
I have a 10d and tried shooting in raw yesterday for the first time ever.

I will never go back to jpgs (unless i need desperately need a record shot and have to fire off a ton of pics).
RAW gives you much more control when post processing
being able to try out different exposure compensations back at the pc is brilliant!!
Also the noise at 100% (compared to a jpg) is none existent.
I feel the options you have when you are post processing plus the quality of the image far outweighs the storage size problem.
Pete.

[CJW]

And how are you going to store all these RAW files when you are in Scotland later this week Pete?

[Robert_Scanlon]

My tuppence worth: jpeg is very convenient in terms of the smaller amount of space it takes up, be it on the CF card or the PC, and it is undoubtedly perfectly adequate for personal record shots or web publication. Where it would fall down IMHO is in printing at A3 or bigger size, or even A4 with a cropped image (which with bird photography means most images). On top of this you have a bit more flexibility when converting (developing if you will) the RAW file, especially when using a very capable program such as Capture One's RAW converter. I have never shot in JPEG, except for the odd family shot, and I can't help feeling that having shelled out £1200 for the body alone, using it at anything but its best setting would be short-changing myself.

[stevo]

I have the 10D & to be honest the only time I would switch to jpeg is when I am short of memory.I have to say though that Canon own file viewer utility which enables you to convert raw files & enhance them is useless,I only use breezebrowser which speeds things up no end.Well thats my view anyway.
Regards Steve.

[peteh]

I have noticed alot of people saying bad things about Canons fvu. I used it yesterday as I have no other program to convert the raw files and thought it was quite good. What am I missing?
Cheers
Pete.

[Robert_Scanlon]

Pete,
My limited experience with Canon's software confirmed what I had read before I bought the camera, that it was very slow. Not a problem if you are only processing a few shots, but a major pain if you have a lot to do.

There are people who say the results are better than those given by the other software available, but I have been happy with the one I use, Capture One's converter, and it allows all adjustments to be previewed instantly before processing (exposure, sharpness, stauration, levels etc etc). Andy Rouse reviews the pro version on the warehouse express site, and there are few if any major differences for the average EOS10D user to be worried about between that version and the "lite edition", which was about £100 or so when I got it if I remember correctly.