Canon EOS 20d (Official as of today)

[Scott67]

See

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0408/04081909canon_eos20d.asp

and for a hands on field and bench test ( admittedly a pre production version)

http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/camera/20d-part1.shtml

Time I think to give up the film bodies....

[peteh]

wow..
Time to trade in the 10d then :)

[Adey Baker]

I knew there was something making me hold off from buying a 10D!

Now the leading questions will be: how long before we can get one, 'Emma Chizzit' and what price will 'old stock' of the 10D drop to?!

[desgreene]

DP review say "fastest shutter speed up to 1/8000th second". When you look out the window on a day like today you have to smile!

Des.

[Scott67]

Luckily I'm in a position to switch to Digital so the 20d is very appealing especially looking at the 0.2 second start up time and the fact that its no noisier than a 10d.

If I was a 10d owner though I'm not sure I would trade up, the 10 is a mighty fine camera from all accounts.

pity the 20d is still 1.6x crop though, 1.3x would have been nice, too close to a 1d mk11 though I suppose.

Rumours (dont you love em) are that Canon are going to launch an eos 3D to bridge the gap bewteen the 10/20d and the 1 series Cameras, And as Photokina is at the end of this month it might be worth waiting a little longer....

[peteh]

30 improvements over the 10d I read somewhere..
That sounds a good enough reason to upgrade!

Have to convince my other half though .... hmmm that might be a bit tricky :)

[gusford]

Any offers for my 1 year (ish) old 10D? If the battery grip dopesn't fit a 20D that can go as well.

[stevo]

Hi all

Members might find this link helpful too. www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/eos20d/index.html (http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/eos20d/index.html)

Regards Steve.

[Geoff Brown]

Keeping my 10D It works perfectly well and does all that I need it to do in digital photography. Like the look of the 75-300DO EOS lens though, now that is something that I aspire to. Steve I am a Number 1 Canon EOS fan also. |:d|

[peteh]

"Canon is promising that, because of the newly-developed noise processing and other sensor design changes that 20D noise levels at ISO 1600 will roughly match the 10D at ISO 400"

If that is true that is going to be unbelieveable!!

[gusford]

Keeping my 10D It works perfectly well and does all that I need it to do in digital photography. Like the look of the 75-300DO EOS lens though, now that is something that I aspire to.


Is it f3.5 to 5.6 or quicker?

[Geoff Brown]

Is it f3.5 to 5.6 or quicker?

Sorry got that wrong should be 70-300mm DO IS f/4.5 - 5.6. Its half the size(and weight)of the "old" 75-300mm but twice the price. ;)

[Gajo]

http://www.canon-europe.com/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_20D/index.asp?ComponentID=221256&SourcePageID=164046#1

Its on the European sight, but not UK

Gary

[Ragna]

The 20d was on display on the Canon stand at the Birdfair yesterday looked very nice 8 million pixels same as 1d,tried it with a 100-400 zoom handled superbly same price as 10d.I think the'll sell shed loads.

[Adey Baker]

It fitted my hands like a glove at the Birdfair today!

As the only digital SLR that I had handled beforehand was the hefty Canon 1Ds I was amazed just how compact and light it was - somehow I'd imagined that it would be much bigger.

My wife was completely underwhelmed, though!

[Ragna]

Adey most of us have one of those aswell,when i mentioned that i would like to get a 20d and 100-400zoom my wife replied well i'll have 2grand to spend as well.

[peteh]

Blimey, I must have done well to persuade my other half!!
Just got to wait for it to go on sale now!!
(and not run out of stock in 2 seconds as well.)

Hurry up mid-september :)

[CJW]

I think I may have a buyer for your 10D, Pete - speak to you tomorrow.

[spuggie]

Sorry got that wrong should be 70-300mm DO IS f/4.5 - 5.6. Its half the size(and weight)of the "old" 75-300mm but twice the price. ;)

Dont bother Geoff, I bought one when the first came out earlier this year and returned it 2 weeks later. Its not half as sharp as Canon like to make out though it is smaller and lighter. I had to stop it down to at least f11 to get any decent sharpness which makes having the IS a little bit of a waste of time. Compared to the older 75-300 IS the image quality is not that much better. It does do a good job with the chromatic abberation and I was impressed with that but overall, not anywhere near worth the money.

Spuggie

[Geoff Brown]

Dont bother Geoff, I bought one when the first came out earlier this year and returned it 2 weeks later. Its not half as sharp as Canon like to make out though it is smaller and lighter. I had to stop it down to at least f11 to get any decent sharpness which makes having the IS a little bit of a waste of time. Compared to the older 75-300 IS the image quality is not that much better. It does do a good job with the chromatic abberation and I was impressed with that but overall, not anywhere near worth the money.

Spuggie
Thanks Spuggie, You could have saved me making an expensive mistake.

[edenwatcher]

The 20d was on display on the Canon stand at the Birdfair yesterday looked very nice 8 million pixels same as 1d,tried it with a 100-400 zoom handled superbly same price as 10d.I think the'll sell shed loads.
I also tried that combination at the Birdfair on Friday. Think it could be time to go digital.

Rob

[peteh]

Has anyone preordered a 20d yet?

[Glen Tepke]

Has anyone preordered a 20d yet?

I put my name on a list at the local shop, but the pros who spend more there than I do will get their's first. Glen

[peteh]

aye, depending on the amount of people on the preorder list at the shop im going to,
will decide whether I put in a preorder today.
Have you heard of a release date yet?
One shop ive seen is saying mid september another is saying late september.

[Glen Tepke]

Have you heard of a release date yet?
One shop ive seen is saying mid september another is saying late september.

The person at my shop wouldn't even venture a guess. Glen

[peteh]

Well im now on a preorder list too but the shop wouldnt say how many were on the list.
Only that 'good' numbers had preordered..
Fingers and toes crossed then :)

[138mph]

Keeping my 10D It works perfectly well and does all that I need it to do in digital photography. Like the look of the 75-300DO EOS lens though, now that is something that I aspire to. Steve I am a Number 1 Canon EOS fan also. |:d|

It seems to me, as 10D user, that the near instant start-up from off makes the upgrade look tempting. The only obvious downside, apart from cost, is that I will need a larger CF card - its just a shame they haven't fixed the viewfinder to give a decent view (as on the expensive cameras).

Hugh

[peteh]

The near instant start up, less iso noise and better af servo was enough for me :)

[malgos]

Whats the price?

[peteh]

1279 pounds

[peteh]

Ive seen someone mention the 20th September as a shipping date.
Whether that is shipping from Canon or shipping from the shops Im not sure.

[alibenn]

I pre-ordered a 20D last week from the US. A store in Canada are saying Canon will ship them on the 10th September and many of the online stores in US are predicting shipping in 1-2 weeks.

My wife said I could get one if she could have my 10D....done deal :)

Alister

[peteh]

Blimey! U lucky ******. :)

Yeah the latest ive heard is around the 15th September.
So now I have my fingers crossed that I am high enough on the preorder list :)

[nigelblake]

I have been told that they will be available on 15-18th Sept, and I am at 16 on the list, fingers crossed.

[peteh]

OOOooo
where have you preordered yours from Nigel?
Where I have ordered mine from wont tell me! :(

[nigelblake]

OOOooo
where have you preordered yours from Nigel?
Where I have ordered mine from wont tell me! :(

Heres a Blatent plug for the best photo shop to deal with in my estimation ........Walters Photovideo at Merthyr in Wales.
http://www.waltersphotovideo.co.uk/

Tell them I said so!!

[alibenn]

I'm not going to make any friends here, but the price of the 20D in UK seems to be about 1280 Sterling, that's US$2278. In the US they are going for $1500.

[peteh]

I had gone with Park cameras for my preorder since they are a Canon Pro dealer.
I am hoping this means they will get more 20Ds on launch day :).
I got my 10d from there too and they were very helpful so I stuck to what I knew.
Ill will keep an eye on that Walters place though. Cheers
Pete.

[Adey Baker]

I'm not going to make any friends here, but the price of the 20D in UK seems to be about 1280 Sterling, that's US$2278. In the US they are going for $1500.

Nothing unusual there, unfortunately!

The £1280 is the 'full' price and after the initial rush the price should settle down at about the same level that the 10D had been selling at (prior to the announcement of the 20D) - I hope.

[avifauna]

Nothing unusual there, unfortunately!

The £1280 is the 'full' price and after the initial rush the price should settle down at about the same level that the 10D had been selling at (prior to the announcement of the 20D) - I hope.

From the Norwegian Scene:
Lowest Webshop price for house only as of today (noone can give exact delivery date of course): NOK 13550 = EUR 1630 = USD 1965 = GBP 1100

[138mph]

Eur 1350.76+ P&P of Eur 28 from directshopper ( about £1000 )http://www.directshopper.de/canon-eos-20-d-gehaeuse_digitale-slr-kameras_p 2 year warranty which should be Europe wide.
Us google's translation tools if necessary.
They expect payment by bank transfer say £30 and post using dpa (Deutsche Poste/DHL I think) on receipt of payment - I have just purchased a lens from them (but not a 20D as yet), only hiccough was their labelling program didn't like my post code.
Obviously I don't guarantee anything I just happened to come across them when searching on Google for the lens at a low price.

Hugh

[Art Thorn]

I'm hearing late September in Canada. I'm on the list, so we'll see what happens.

[Scott67]

Well after starting this thread, its took until now to convince my wife that I absolutely HAVE to buy a 20D.

and she agrees...a little too readily if you ask me..hmmmmm.

Any way I think I might wait until after Christmas, that way we can get past any initial QC issues as well as any firmware updates that will no doubt be in the pipeline already !

Heres hoping for a 20d + 17-40L ( assuming the rumors are'nt true about this lens being discontinued already !) for about £1500.00 come early Jan 05 !!!!
;)

[alibenn]

Hi Scott67,

The 17-40L is a really nice lens. I've only had mine for about 6 months, but it's tack sharp and on the 10D/20D no fading off at the edges of the frame.

I have heard no rumour about it being discontinued and would be very surprised as they sell like hot cakes...

Cheers,

Alister

[Scott67]

Well it is only a rumour !!
All be it a strong one, judging by the chatter on various Photo forums,

apparantly it stems from the fact that the lens has disappeared from a few Canon sites, and as such is being deemed as discontinued, I suppose with Photokina only 2 weeks away the thought is theres a new one on the way, maybe with IS or perhaps a greater focal range ( Say 15-50 ???)

Hope not though as I've read nothing but good reports about it.

Scott.

[peteh]

Hi Scott,
On the issue of initial Qc problems.
After reading other forums,they seem to be of the opinion that on other camera releases, the problems have occured in the second batch of cameras. Probably due to the company trying to rush manufacture to fill the high demands.
According to these other forums this was the case with the focusing probs on the 10D as the batch of 10D's on launch day were 100% problem free and the probs started appearing quite a few months later.
Obviously though, all it takes is for a tiny batch of duff components to get through and then a whole pile of cameras could be knackered. This could happen at any point though so I think it will be just a matter of buying one whenever and crossing your fingers its a good un :)

[peteh]

Has anyone got their 20d yet?
I've noticed a few people in USA have received the camera.

[ArtMachine]

Has anyone seen the ISO noise comparisons on the 10D vs the 20D?

[peteh]

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1019

have a look on there, that seems to have the most posts about the 20D.

Regards
Pete.

[wookie7062]

I preordered from camera depot and have been told the uk release date is 15th Sept. I got my 10D from them and it arrived the day after the official release date. Fingers crossed I get it in the next few days. for your information their price is £1049 including postage the cheapest UK price I could find. When I bought my 10D from them it was the same price and it took a year for any reputable shop to beat that from what I remember. They have already shipped in the States.

[Adey Baker]

I wonder what Canon will have up their sleeves for the big Photokina exhibition in Germany at the end of September?

It's quite normal nowadays for companies to announce items in advance of Photokina but the 20D will be on dealers' shelves (however briefly!) before the event so there will be nothing to look forward to handling on the Canon stand.....unless they've got something else, held back as a surprise.

An up-datd 1Ds with the faster Digic11 processor would hardly be much of a surprise, unless it had a 15Mp or more sensor, of course!

More likely would be a newer 8Mp version of the 300D - as the 300D uses the same sensor as the now-discontinued 10D, then using the same one as in the new 20D would make much sense.

[peteh]

I would have thought a 1Ds mkII would be the more likely as thats now the oldest model in the range.
A 1ds mkII with 15mp and a faster fps I will put 50p on. :)

[peteh]

My 20D arrived just now.
First impressions are its small! :)
I will post some pics as soon as the battery is charged.

[peteh]

I took the 20D out for a few hours in the glaring afternoon sun today and these are my early observations.

The focusing is alot quicker than the 10D even with a slow lens.
I was able to lock on to House Martins alot easier than before.
(birds were too far away to get a decent picture though).
The 0.2 second start up is excellent.. I was leaving it on 1min sleep and when I saw a bird flying past I hit the shutter and the camera was waking up before I could get it to my eye. That should help preserve battery life even though I think this new battery is supposed to last 1.5 times that of the old 10D battery. (the old 10D battery works in the 20D too).
The 5fps is a bit of a shock ( a good shock though). Its like having a machine gun in your hands (dugga dugga dugga). I've put the camera back on single shot though for the moment as 25 shots of a Black-headed gull flying along is not too clever. :)
I havent been able to do a straight iso noise comparison but the attached house sparrow was at Iso400 and to me its looks better than the 10D did at iso400.
I wasnt able to check how good the Af servo is either but I will try that tomorrow.
Right I better go read the manual now :)

Pete.

[Scott67]

Looking Good Pete,

Whats the viewfinder like, some reports of it being a little dark to look through ?
Also are you shooting RAW ? if so whats the write to card speed like ?

Now I'll have to sit down and stop the voices in my Head

You must not buy one until the new year....
You must not buy one until the new year....
You will go and order one on Monday....
You must not but one until the new year....

[peteh]

The viewfinder is definately different to the 10d.
Its made up of tiny dots.. so when you are looking at something white you can see all these little dots... its a bit wierd after using a 10d but its supposed to give a sharper view. It certainly didnt make me go urghghg thats dark and I seemed to have the shots in focus more often than not. (I've put that down to the better focusing rather than a sharper viewfinder though)

and yes I am shooting Raw. The write speed felt quick. I could look at it on the lcd screen instantly, the shot appeared straight away with no pause.
I didnt hit the buffer though the maximum Raw I did was 3.
I will have a go tomorrow and fill the buffer and see what happens.
I forgot to mention the software earlier on. I am loving DPP. My pc is not the quickest but with DPP it displays RAW images really quick I would say maybe a few seconds.
(I still havent read the manual yet!.. whoops)
Bedtime reading I think :)

[peteh]

Right I had a play with the 20D this morning.
As for the write speed. I took 7 raws in one go and then counted to see when the write light went out.
It was around 3-4 seconds. You are able to carry on shooting while that happens if you want. I just stopped to time the emptying of the buffer.

The AI focus is really good. I hardly ever used that on the 10D prefering to redo the focus every few seconds myself. But on the 20D it was able to follow birds flying past quite easily and keep them in focus without switching to the background or foreground.
Attached is 2 from today using AI focus. (There not great pics or anything as the birds were a bit further out than I would have liked and it was overcast but at least you can see they are in focus)

Pete.

[tracker]

Pete, these shots don't make the wait for one of these cameras very easy at all. The shot above of the Pipit is excellent, and those flight shots, well, theyre the kind of shots i really want to be taking. All taken hand held? Whats the weight like of this gear together?

Thanks for taking the time to share your findings............ :t:

Tom

[peteh]

Ta
The camera on its own is lighter than the 10d (due to its smaller size I would assume.) But when you slap on the 100-400L it weighs a bit and you dont notice any difference in weight between the two.
I would hate to carry one of those 600L's it must weigh a ton!
Yep they are all handheld as my tripod spends most of the time in the boot of my car!
I can never be bothered carrying it with me. :)
The IS on the lens does such a good job I only make myself use a tripod when its poor light or I know I am going to be at one place for many hours. (This is bad photography skills I know, I really should use a tripod at all times but I like to walk about take a shot... walk some more take another..etc. travelling as light as possible.)

Right I'm off to read some more of the manual :)

Cheers
Pete.

[tracker]

but I like to walk about take a shot... walk some more take another..etc. travelling as light as possible.

Thats exactly how i like to be. Thanks for the added info Pete.

Tom