EOS 20D - a few rambling thoughts + samples

A couple of weeks ago I did what a year ago would have been

unthinkable (to me)... I sold my EOS 3 (along with my D30, 20 F2.8 and

24-85) and bought a 20D (and 17-40). Several things prompted me to do

this; the falling value of the bodies I had, the excellent results my

father has had from his 20D and the wild decline in quality of D&P

work now that digital is taking the business away. Many of the rolls

of film I've shot over the past two years has been scratched, colour

casted and so badly mistreated that the negatives are not scannable

(even with ICE).

<p>

So here's a few thoughts on the 20D, starting with the things that

annoy me.

<p>

1) The shutter button goes click. It does this on every consumer EOS,

and once you've got used to the hair-trigger soft shutter buttons on

the professional EOS it's rather irritating. Minor point, but noticeable.

<p>

2) The joystick thing is fiddly. And I have small hands and work with

extremely small objects in my day job, yet I still find it fiddly. I

do wonder how the larger handed, less dextrous out there could cope at

all with it.

<p>

3) SET button function while shooting. Why oh why oh why did they

remove ISO as one of the options for this? The top button is nothing

like as convenient, and even the D30 allowed you to do this. I'm still

used to changing ISO that way from the D30, and I'd like to have that

option back.

<p>

Perhaps, however, you've noticed that my annoyances with the camera

are really quite minor. It's a very good camera... it has the

responsiveness that was so lacking in the D30. Maybe not quite EOS 3

speed, but very very close. I've not had a chance to test out AF

tracking performance yet though.

<p>

So, what's good?

<p>

The pictures. Film is dead, it really is. The images produced are

clean and with a little unsharp mask they are incredibly crisp. Noise

levels... well, ISO 400 does have noticeable noise and it increases

with higher ISO but it absolutely walks on ISO400 film.<p>

 

I'll just put one sample in here, and a few links.<p>

 

<img src="http://www.askisaac.com/images/vulturec.jpg">

<p>

ISO 400, 70-200 F4L @ 200mm F4, 1/640th. 100% crop, 80% USM radius 1,

threshold 0, saved jpg 9 (pse2). <p>

 

Since there's single-pixel detail there I don't think that the lens

needs to be any sharper (wide open). There is some noise in the

background from using ISO400, but it's not objectionable. Full image

(well, it's cropped) <a

href="http://www.askisaac.com/images/vulture.jpg">here</a><p>

 

<a href="http://www.askisaac.com/images/suzes.jpg">Suze</a> is a 6

month old beagle puppy. 50mm F1.8 @ F1.8, ISO 400, 1/125th. 100% crop

with no processing <a

href="http://www.askisaac.com/images/suzec.jpg">here</a><p>

 

And here's a <a

href="http://www.askisaac.com/images/hbird.jpg">hummingbird</a>. ISO

100, 70-200 F4L @ 200 F7.1, 1/400th. Similar post-processing to the

first image. <p>

 

All in all, I'm deeply impressed. It won't be long that I'll hold out

before ordering that canon iP8500 printer...

<ol>

<li>Having never used a pro body (other than briefly playing with some of them at photo shows), I didn't even know there was a difference. Like you say, not a big deal.

<li>Yup. Why oh why will Canon not produce a DSLR with ECF? I put my new 20D to its first real use (as opposed to just taking a bunch of pictures to play with it) this past weekend, and missed ECF; I've been using an Elan 7E for the last few years. Auto focus point selection worked some of the time for me but sometimes I had to jam a finger between my cheek and the body to use the joystick. It works, but yes, fiddly is a good word for it.

<li>I didn't know the SET button used to do ISO as well, but even without knowing that, <a href="http://www.stevedunn.ca/photos/writings/eos20d.html">I had the same complaint</a>, along with a number of other ISO-related complaints. Despite all their experience at designing digital cameras, some of Canon's engineers are still stuck in the film paradigm, where ISO isn't something you fiddle with very often.

</ol>

I never got on too well with ECF on my EOS 5 or EOS 3. I think canon could improve the operation of the controller by making it 4 rather than 8 direction. Yes, it would then take 2 presses rather than 1 to get to any point from any other, but since it seems to take 2 goes or more to get the right point anyway I don't see that this will be a big loss.

 

I don't agree with your point about the E3 remote, but then I already had the N3 for my EOS 3 and later the D30 used it too. The reason for it is that when the D30 came out it cost about the same as a 1DII does now, so most of the people buying them already had professional EOS of some sort and would want to use the same remote. Thus the replacement for the D30 had to have the same one, and so it carried on down the line. Just be thankful that the T3 connector from hell is gone...

I can't really see ECF working with such a small viewfinder, especially with 9 focus points. I could never get it to work anyway and that was a film camera, I think a 1.6X DSLR would be a no go for ECF.

I turned the ECF off years ago on my Elan IIe and never use it. I don't miss it on the 20D, it gave me fits on the IIe as it was.

Nice shots! Film is dead for most of us. For documentation work though film will always be necessary. Digital pictures are not admissible in court. However, film can be use as evidence in a court of law.

What about canon's data verification kit? Doesn't that make the photos admissable?

Excellent pics!

I obviously have to improve my technique ;-)<p>

I once had a roll of Ektachrome scratched by Kodak during processing, there were some excellent pics ruined.<p>

As for:

<em>For documentation work though film will always be necessary. Digital pictures are not admissible in court.</em><br>

Actually the 20D can do this; pg 146 in the manual - requires an optional s/w package (Data Verification Kit DVK-E2) to verify that the image is original.

1) Having never used a 1-series, can't comment on it. Don't have any problem with the shutter-release button though.

2) Absolutely true. The joystick works, but the diagonals are a bit awkward to use. Main problem I have with it is that when you accidentally (and that happens to me a lot) press the joystick to a vertical or horizontal position, it doesn't respond anymore when pushing it towards a diagonal.

Another problem with the joystick is that you can't use it while holding the vertical grip.

3) True, but since you have to look at the top LCD to see the ISO settings, I don't mind to press the top-ISO button. Using the set button would be truely nice if the ISO was displayed in the viewfinder.

Please, Canon, make it a CF to have the ISO displayed instead of the buffer-capacity! (1, 2, 4, 8, H(igh), U(ltra high) fit in 1 digit)

 

Great camera in any other respect...

I'd love to have ECF on my next camera. It worked great on my EOS30 and I do miss it with the 20d.

Hi I share your sentiments with the ISO button, 1st time I used the 20D on a job , twas dark changed ISO nope darn timer on instead, still use D30 till it dies. eye control is a PITA to me, did a section of the olympic torch bearers jogging backwards , everytime I looked to see if I was going straight focus kept heading for pretty girls on the sidewalk. Nice start with the pics, enjoy the new medium.

Hi Jim, not sure where you are, I`ve just had one of our social pics used in a court here in Australia. a digital image, they just wanted a print with a copy of the exif, to prove a persons whereabouts in a serious assault charge. the data gave the exact time taken.things are changing.

If you've only had one roll destroyed during processing you're doing good. I have had about 10-15 poorly printed and damaged so badly that nothing could be done with them (and one roll of provia that was over-developed so shadow areas were breaking through to the red substrate).

Clearly, the film developers are putting themselves out of business. Maybe that's intentional, so they can focus all their resources on digital printing.

 

(By the way, Isaac, excellent images!)

I still alternate between fine grained slide film in an Eos 3 and digital with a D60. Your 20D is a couple generations ahead, but I doubt D60 images are that far behind. I don't think film is completely dead. For some things I prefer the look of film, for others I go with digital.

<cite>I`ve just had one of our social pics used in a court here in Australia. a digital image, they just wanted a print with a copy of the exif, to prove a persons whereabouts in a serious assault charge. the data gave the exact time taken.</cite>

 

<p>I wouldn't want to be tried in a court of law in which the mere prescence of EXIF data was taken to mean that the picture had not been edited. I just spent several hours earlier this week editing the pictures I took at my nephew's birthday party. All of the edited pictures have EXIF data showing when the picture was taken (and the usual collection of other EXIF tags). As it happens, I didn't add or delete anyone from any of the pictures, but if I were so inclined, and had the Photoshop skills, I certainly could have. Yet the EXIF info would still be there. And there are utilities which allow EXIF data itself to be edited; with such a program, I could (for instance) "prove" that one of the people in the picture was in that location on a date other than when the picture was actually taken.</p>

 

<p>As for the data verification kit, certainly, if Canon has done its job properly, this should satisfy a court that a given digital image is authentic. Not all courts have moved into the 21^st century, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are still courts somewhere which would refuse to admit a digital image as evidence even if the verification kit says it's an original. Still, things are at least headed in the right direction.</p>