To buy the 350D or 20D ?

[andrewmoore]

Good day fellow photogs,

 

My budget is around 1000 pounds at the moment.

Items i am looking at:

 

EOS 350D ( 600 pounds on pixmania.co.uk )

OR

EOS 20D ( ebay.co.uk for the EOS 20D on digitalrev around 900 pounds )

Bonus items if i can afford:

extra battery

battery grip

17-85mm f4-5.6 is/usm lens

 

QUESTION:

What is your opinion?

 

If i am to be more pro, do i buy the "EOS20D"

 

OR

 

the "350D" + allowing me extra cash for battery grip and battery or

17 - 85mm lens.

 

i dont see much difference between the 350D and the 20D. I assume the

20D perhaps has better build quality and the extra .2 megapixels.

The size i am not bothered about.

 

At the moment the 350D seems like the best choice, so if anybody has

had hands on experience and use of both cameras to give a fair

opinion on a photgrapher who is looking to get the best camera with

the best price.

 

Any comments greatly appreciated.

 

THANKYOU !

Andrew

[chiswick_john]

Wait till some side by side reveiws/tests come out if you can. If the 350D had the same sensor as the 20D it would be like the old 10D vs 300D question. The 350D has a different sensor and the 20D has problems with the way noise is formed in bands at high iso. If the 350D sensor is better you may want to go for a 350D. I have a 20D and if the 350D sensor has no banding noise I'm going to trade my 20D in!

[andrewmoore]

Thankyou john for your reply!

 

You are correct to advise to wait for reviews, one of which i have found on the famous www.bobatkins.com website:

 

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/digital/eos_digital_rebel_xt_vs_20d.html

 

If anybody else sees any more comparison reviews between the 20d and 350d, then please post here!

 

THANYOU!

Andrew

[phil vaughan - yorkshire u]

I think it's largely a handling issue, the camera is smaller, has less bespoke buttons and lacks the rear control dial. After the 300d the 350d is a much more 'complete' camera.

 

It depends on your experience and expectations, at UK prices I would definitely buy the 20d again. I will now only replace the 20d when I can have ECF OR a full frame sensor (reasonable cost) OR the 45 point AF system (reasonable cost).

[terry_smith2]

You might seriously consider shopping around in Germany or Luxembourg. Try Topvision in either country. There are other German shops on line as well. You might get the body, grip AND lens in Germany for th UK price of body and grip only. Good Luck.

[jim_larson1]

Honestly. . I would await a review that has actual image comparisons. There is no telling (yet) the quality difference between images taken by these two cameras.

[bobatkins]

I have a 350D under test right now. I expect to post at least part of a review by the end of the week here on photo.net.

 

I can say that preliminary tests show that the difference in image quality (sharpness and noise) between the 20D and 350D at ISO settings of 100 and 1600 are negligible. Maybe rigorous scientific testing will show a difference, but at 200% in photoshop I couldn't see any differences worth commenting on in the 6 test shots (in sunlight) I've taken so far.

 

I can't give any more info because I haven't done any other tests yet. When I have more I'll post it in a review.

 

The 350D feels more "plastic" and it's on the verge of being too small to comfortably hold (for me, 6ft male). I prefer the 20D on almost every count, except for the price of course!

 

Solely on the basis of image quality between ISO 100 and ISO 1600, I'd have no problems at all shooting with the 350D.

[._._z]

Based solely on ease of shooting, and manual focusing, the larger, brighter finder of the

20D makes it a better choice.

 

You need to put the bodies in your hands and see how the cameras work for you. In a

recent article, Michael Johnston referred to the finders of the less expensive DSLRs as a

'prison window' viewfinder -- like looking at a postage stamp at the end of a tunnel. I

agree.

[bobatkins]

It very much depends on your standards. For example I'd think anyone coming from any of the consumer digicams would regard the Digital Rebel XT viewfinder as a real step up.

 

On the other hand coming from an old manual focus SLR with a 1x finder, the XT viewfinder seems small. But then to that person, the viewfinder of an EOS-3 or EOS 20D would seem small.

 

In my opinion, the XT viewfinder is entirely adequate for what it does, i.e. allow you to point the camera at what you are looking at. It's smaller than that of the 20D, but not really any dimmer. One reason that it's smaller is to compensate for the greater light loss of the pentamirror system and so retain brightness.

[henry_minsky1]

I have had the 20D since it came out, and the 300D before that for a year.

 

I played with the new 350D in the camera store today. It was very compact, with the 17-85 IS lens on it. I liked it a lot, but my hand felt kind of cramped after only a short time holding it.

 

I like the heft of the 20D more, but the 350D is so much smaller, with a small lens on it, that I feel like it would be easier to take more places, to stick in a jacket pocket or a backpack (assuming you don't baby your equipment too much).

 

Ideally I would get both :-)

 

I think I will wait another year and a half or so, until the successor to the 350D, and then get it as a small portable DSLR.

 

What I am really waiting for is a full frame DSLR under $2000. I will buy that in an instant.

[patricks]

if you cannot come up with a reason by yourself as to why you prefer as well as need the 20d, and budget is an issue, do yourself a favor and pick up the 350/XT. Used correclty it will produce great files.

 

I recently picked up a 20D, but I must say I'm on the fence due to the size/weight and most of all noisy shutter. Half the battle is having the camera with you in the first place IMO. And it is a lot easier to carry around a 350/XT it seems...

[shawngibson]

I'll chime in FWIW. For years I shot Nikon F3s, F4s and a couple of Pentax 6x7s mostly. Then I went digital after a hiatus, and settled on the 10D. This was my 'smallest real' camera to date. It was, however, stolen, and my finances left me with little more than enough to get the 300D to replace it, or a 20D if I really thought it was worth it, but the only things I wanted out of the 20D didn't seem worth the difference in $. However, for the very short amount of money now needed to jump to those differences, I'd say, without handling it, the 350D is going to be a great camera.

 

USB2, better high ISO, they say, Custom function 4, and an extra few pixels...for less than I paid for the 300D...

 

To be taken with a grain of salt...

 

Shawn

[david_carstairs]

Jessops and Jacobs are doing refurbished EOS D10 at around ?575

 

It has a much more proffesional feel to the body than the D350 and at 6.2 MPIX it is probably enough for most uses.

[yakim_peled1]

I think that more money should be invested in lenses. Hence, for a limited budget, I'd opt for the 350D.

 

OT: Instead of the 17-85 I'd opt for 17-40/4.

 

HTH.

 

Happy shooting,

Yakim.

[jim_larson1]

<i>It very much depends on your standards. For example I'd think anyone coming from any of the consumer digicams would regard the Digital Rebel XT viewfinder as a real step up. </i>

<p>

Viewfinder? One does not use the viewfinder on a consumer digicam. You use the nice, big LCD screen. :)

<p>

Compared to that. . the 300D (have not seen the 350D) viewfinder is vastly inferior.

<p>

(I use a digicam and a 10D in tandem routinely)

[andrewmoore]

Thanks to all! for your comments so far..

 

I did not expect so many responses, i am very warmed to see how supportive and engaging this community is.

 

After some consideration I believe that i will be happiest with the 20D, mostly for its more rugged professinaly built body, + the extra 300 pounds to me seems worth the price for all the extras it has contributing to its ease of use and reliability for the "long run" of time.

+ the satisfaction i know i have a decent semi-pro camera.

As for the lens, yes iv been reading reviews and like the look of the 17-40mm L lens better.. (compared to the 17-85mm.is.usm). It has a good price for an L lens.

I saw a good deal on www.digitalrev.com (ebay) for the 20D + 2 batterys + battery grip for 950 uk pounds.

 

 

Thanks to all.. i will be posting more in the near future.

 

bYe

Andrew

[micheleberti]

<p><i> In a recent article, Michael Johnston referred to the finders of the less expensive DSLRs as a 'prison window' viewfinder -- like looking at a postage stamp at the end of a tunnel</i></p>

<p>To me It depend where u come from. If u used to shot a lot with a compact P&S camera u won't appreciate this point, while if u come from an high end camera looking into the viewfinder of a camera like the 10d or 20d or the worsen (in the sense of viewfinder size) 350D would be a great step back :-( </p>

[._._z]

Flea-infested food is a great step up to someone starving, too.

[pjmeade]

I haven't seen the 20d yet, I may yet have to save some more of my hard earned cash.

However, the The 350 viewfinder seemed perfectly fine. I'm currently using a finepix 6900z and that viewfinder is more like looking at a bowl of coloured rice pudding at the end of a tube. The 350 is smallish but not impossible. Picking up my cameras this morning, I noticed that I hold them all with the second and ring finger, with the little finger curled underneath. That included the metal bodied K1000 (which has a view finder like open french windows). So I don't think ergonomics will be much of a problem.

Getting a new DSLR passed my wife, now that's a different matter.

[._._z]

If you're used to manual focusing, the low-end DSLRs from Canon/Nikon are near-

impossible to use. A step up from digital finders, sure, but not what I'd be happy using

for a long period.

[jeremy_inglis]

Which of these two cameras has the fastest AI servo autofocusing? I`m a wildlife photographer, and do a lot of photography of fast-moving things, such as birds in flight. Will these cameras be able to keep up?!

[marcus_erne]

If I was building up a new system, I would start with a budget body like the 350D/XTRebel.

It leaves more money for the lens lineup and with 8MP it offers sufficent quality already!

The 350D incorporates now all the shortcomings of the 300D and offers even slightly higher fps.

 

As for lenses, it all depends on what your interest and habits are. I personally find the 17-40L too short to be attractive for my working style.