Canon EOS 20D - is this review fair?

Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

"Unfortunately, exposures are not quite as accurate or reliable as we
might expect from an EOS camera. The 20D is prone to slight
underexposure, particularly with wideangle lenses."

Autofocus: "the camera occasionally appears to disagree with the user
about what is the subject and we found the best way of working is to
switch off the auto AF sensors and select our own using the new toggle
control."

"...the extra pixels do make a difference to the potential image
quality, but they also mean that users will have to put a bit more
effort into making the potential image quality the final image
quality. Although it is possible to obtain acceptable results simply
by using in-camera controls for sharpness and contrast, it really is
worth taking the time to process your image post-capture in a decent
software program. If you do this, you will find that the 20D is
capable of quite remarkable results."

FOR: very fast start up; high resolution; massive amount of control.

AGAINST: mirror action noisy; B&w filters not effective; no
spotmetering.

Overall Specs 28/30
Build 18/20
Handling 18/20
Performance 27/30

Total: 91%


The 350D got 88% with complaints of image softness "It may be better
than the processor infested 300D but not better than the clarity of
image produced by the 10D".

I can't decide which camera. Comments, please.

"Peter Guest" wrote in message
...
Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

"Unfortunately, exposures are not quite as accurate or reliable as we
might expect from an EOS camera. The 20D is prone to slight
underexposure, particularly with wideangle lenses."

Haven't observed this, my self, but I've only used Sigma 17-35 f2.8-4 and
Canon 16-35 f2.8L, no fixed focal length wide angles. What I have seen is a
tendency to underexpose in ambient light situations with Speedlites and less
that f2.8 lenses.

Autofocus: "the camera occasionally appears to disagree with the user
about what is the subject and we found the best way of working is to
switch off the auto AF sensors and select our own using the new toggle
control."

Again, haven't observed this, either, except when I press the shutter button
repeatedly. The camera seems to say, "Ok, you didn't like that subject or
focus pattern, let's try this one!" It keeps changing what it is focused on
until you decide it is properly done. I, too, have turned off the auto
sensors, but I did that as a matter of course in the beginning.

"...the extra pixels do make a difference to the potential image
quality, but they also mean that users will have to put a bit more
effort into making the potential image quality the final image
quality. Although it is possible to obtain acceptable results simply
by using in-camera controls for sharpness and contrast, it really is
worth taking the time to process your image post-capture in a decent
software program. If you do this, you will find that the 20D is
capable of quite remarkable results."

Very true.

FOR: very fast start up; high resolution; massive amount of control.

AGAINST: mirror action noisy; B&w filters not effective; no
spotmetering.

Mirror seems to be a little on the noisy side, louder than my D30, for
instance, but quieter than my old 1n film camera. Not sure what they mean
by B&W filters not effective, if they mean add on filters in front of the
lens, maybe. I haven't really tried to shoot through a red filter, and
convert to B&W in Pshop. If I shoot in color, I just use the channel mixer
in Pshop when I convert to B&W. If they mean the built in software based
"filters," then I disagree. I've found them to work pretty well, though not
as well as a 25 red on Plus X. The black and white mode on the camera, set
with the yellow filter, does an admirable job of emulating Ilford XP-2.
No spot meter nearly kept me from buying the camera, but I needed two, and
couldn't afford to get two 1D mkIIs... I do miss having a spot meter for my
portrait and figure work, but, otherwise, the camera is very capable.

Overall Specs 28/30
Build 18/20
Handling 18/20
Performance 27/30

Total: 91%


The 350D got 88% with complaints of image softness "It may be better
than the processor infested 300D but not better than the clarity of
image produced by the 10D".

I can't decide which camera. Comments, please.

I have no experience with the 350D, so I can't comment on that one...

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Guest"
Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 5:34 PM
Subject: Canon EOS 20D - is this review fair?


Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

"Unfortunately, exposures are not quite as accurate or reliable as we
might expect from an EOS camera. The 20D is prone to slight
underexposure, particularly with wideangle lenses."

Canon engineers chose to err on the side of underexposure as blown
highlights are truly blown and that's a good decision.

Autofocus: "the camera occasionally appears to disagree with the user
about what is the subject and we found the best way of working is to
switch off the auto AF sensors and select our own using the new toggle
control."

Manual focus is an option on the 20D.

"...the extra pixels do make a difference to the potential image
quality, but they also mean that users will have to put a bit more
effort into making the potential image quality the final image
quality. Although it is possible to obtain acceptable results simply
by using in-camera controls for sharpness and contrast, it really is
worth taking the time to process your image post-capture in a decent
software program. If you do this, you will find that the 20D is
capable of quite remarkable results."

Post-processing is accepted as normal for cameras of this ilk.

FOR: very fast start up; high resolution; massive amount of control.

Agreed.

AGAINST: mirror action noisy; B&w filters not effective; no
spotmetering.

It is a noisy camera (mechanical ... shutter release). In-camera B&W
settings are not often used by most users (again, post-processing). Right,
no spot meter.

Overall Specs 28/30
Build 18/20
Handling 18/20
Performance 27/30

Total: 91%


The 350D got 88% with complaints of image softness "It may be better
than the processor infested 300D but not better than the clarity of
image produced by the 10D".

I can't decide which camera. Comments, please.

"Charles Schuler" wrote:


----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Guest"
Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 5:34 PM
Subject: Canon EOS 20D - is this review fair?


Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

"Unfortunately, exposures are not quite as accurate or reliable as we
might expect from an EOS camera. The 20D is prone to slight
underexposure, particularly with wideangle lenses."

Canon engineers chose to err on the side of underexposure as blown
highlights are truly blown and that's a good decision.


In other words, the *real* Canon ISO is not as high as it appears,
meaning that claims of low noise at high ISO are baseless.

To be fair, the same is true of the Nikon D70.

Peter Guest wrote:

Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

"Unfortunately, exposures are not quite as accurate or reliable as we
might expect from an EOS camera. The 20D is prone to slight
underexposure, particularly with wideangle lenses."

Autofocus: "the camera occasionally appears to disagree with the user
about what is the subject and we found the best way of working is to
switch off the auto AF sensors and select our own using the new toggle
control."

"...the extra pixels do make a difference to the potential image
quality, but they also mean that users will have to put a bit more
effort into making the potential image quality the final image
quality. Although it is possible to obtain acceptable results simply
by using in-camera controls for sharpness and contrast, it really is
worth taking the time to process your image post-capture in a decent
software program. If you do this, you will find that the 20D is
capable of quite remarkable results."

FOR: very fast start up; high resolution; massive amount of control.

AGAINST: mirror action noisy; B&w filters not effective; no
spotmetering.

Overall Specs 28/30
Build 18/20
Handling 18/20
Performance 27/30

Total: 91%


The 350D got 88% with complaints of image softness "It may be better
than the processor infested 300D but not better than the clarity of
image produced by the 10D".

I can't decide which camera. Comments, please.


The report is about as fair and objective as any you will see.

The magazine you quoted is "Amateur Photographer". Most of the
magazine's advertising income is derived from display adverts from
dealers selling new and (mostly) used equipment. Adverts by
manufacturers take up far less space, so the magazine is not in any
way beholden to any manufacturer of new gear.

Amateur Photographer's reputation of fairness in reviews goes back
many years. Its Editor is prepared to listen to any (rare) accusations
of bias (usually the result of the review sample being out of
specification) and revisit reviews accordingly. One example is the
review of the Olympus E-300 where the performance rating was increased
when the camera was re-tested with new firmware.

The review you mention is part of a special feature on DSLRs at or
below the £1500 price point.

Two cameras deserved the highest rating given, which was 95%. One
(which strictly speaking should not have been included because of its
price tag being somewhat in excess of three times the £1500 limit) was
the Canon EOS 1Ds Mk II. No surprise there. The 1Ds Mk II was there
to benchmark the others by showing just what could be achieved with a
24 x 36mm 'full frame' sensor.

The other DSLR achieving the highest 95% rating was the Olympus E-1,
which gained very high marks for performance. The extremely high
image quality, and the realism of those images, drew the highest
praise. Of course that is no surprise to those of us who use the E-1,
who have known all along that this is one very special camera.

Peter Guest wrote:
Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

"Unfortunately, exposures are not quite as accurate or reliable as we
might expect from an EOS camera. The 20D is prone to slight
underexposure, particularly with wideangle lenses."

Depending upon the scene being captured, I've seen a slight
underexposure occur at wide angles. Shrug ... nothing that can't be
tweaked in Photoshop. Blown whites, which may occur with any digital
camera is what bothers me and the 20D tends to try and offset that
condition. Sometimes to overcome that situation one may try resetting
the camera exposure settings or as I often do, resort to using
graduating filters (but sometimes I don't have my bag nearby to get at
the filters). In extreme cases, I'll take two shots at two different
exposures and layer them in photoshop. Using that method depends upon
how much of the shot is overblown and the importance of the shot. If the
area is small and inconsequential I might chose to ignore it. (If it
sounds like chimping, that's what it must be)


Autofocus: "the camera occasionally appears to disagree with the user
about what is the subject and we found the best way of working is to
switch off the auto AF sensors and select our own using the new toggle
control."

The camera is designed to do a search focus (generally, it focuses at
the closest image) but if that's a problem to the user, then the camera
can be set to have only one focus point, just about wherever the user
wants to set it. Most users that I know center the focus point if they
don't like the search. As for me, I use both methods depending upon the
scene. In people shots, most of the time I'll center the focus point. In
still life and sometimes in sports, I like the floating focus feature.

I'm surprised the camera wasn't faulted for not having Canon's eye control.


"...the extra pixels do make a difference to the potential image
quality, but they also mean that users will have to put a bit more
effort into making the potential image quality the final image
quality. Although it is possible to obtain acceptable results simply
by using in-camera controls for sharpness and contrast, it really is
worth taking the time to process your image post-capture in a decent
software program. If you do this, you will find that the 20D is
capable of quite remarkable results."

Yup. But there are times, when the user may plan on printing on the spot
using one of the portable 4x6 printers being marketed. That's what I do
at family and friends gatherings. Everyone wanting pictures gets to go
home with them. Then camera controls should be used to adjust for
contrast, brightness, or sharpness 'cause ya ain't gonna do much for
those things in a small portable printer. The 20D has presets that seem
to workout fine.


FOR: very fast start up; high resolution; massive amount of control.

AGAINST: mirror action noisy; B&w filters not effective; no
spotmetering.

Mirror action noisy? That may be, but the action is music to my ears.
I'm from the old school and I'm used to hearing the mirror/ shutter
action. Hearing that noise is like getting a transmitted signal that
says 'Gotcha.' For "sneak" shots I'll use a different camera, probably
my Olympus 5050 with the electronic shutter sound turned off.

As for the built in color filters normally used in B&W , they do appear
ineffective. Lets just say, though they help in a minimal way, they are
not as effective as using conventional filters, so ... use conventional
filters. No spot metering .... that's true, yup it sure is. Strange as
it may seem, in a couple of situations where I thought I wish I had spot
metering, by adjusting the exposure or just bracketing I've worked
around not having that feature. When you place limitations upon your
thinking apparatus, you've indeed placed limitations upon your capability.


Overall Specs 28/30
Build 18/20
Handling 18/20
Performance 27/30

Total: 91%


The 350D got 88% with complaints of image softness "It may be better
than the processor infested 300D but not better than the clarity of
image produced by the 10D".

I can't decide which camera. Comments, please.

I would venture a guess that the 20D is the second successful marketing
digital SLR camera that Canon has in its inventory. I'm just guessing
mind you but it sure looks that way to me. The Rebel seems to be the
leader of the pack. However, between the two, I'll take the 20D any day,
and twice on Sunday.

Interesting stuff...
When I posted opinions like these about a month after the 20D was released,
I got howled down by the disciples of EOS. Whenever I even suggested the
hallowed 20D might not be all it's cracked up to be, I get accused of
posting "non scientific" tests. OK...
The 20D is an absolute crap camera from wedding photography when compared to
Nikon and Fuji cameras. Canon's answer to my complaints is to buy a 1D MkII
or 1Ds because these are "the professional" cameras. That's OK too except I
bought a 1D MkII last Christmas when the second 20D died and it is very
little different to the 20D. Certainly not $6000 better, if better at all.

Ho, hum... No one cares so why do I? Because it's my livelihood and I'm fed
up with the bull**** from Canon and all their puppets. I care that skin
tones are not supposed to look like everyone is suntanned. I care that when
I rely on the camera's metering, it needs to work. I care that the $800
Speedlight, heralded as "smart" can't even get the flash duration right most
of the time... I'd settle for some of the time if it was predictable.

Thursday last, I jumped ship. True! I ordered up a new Nikon D2X with enough
glass and a new speedlight to ensure I'll never be able to afford to replace
my car this year (again). I used a demo model for several hours, side by
side with my 20D and 1D before deciding this is "The Camera" worth the cost
of changing over to Nikon. It even feels like a real camera instead of a
pretend one like a 20D with "Grip". What a joy that the speedlight actually
meters properly. How bloody magnificent that a model with one arm, 3 stops
away in shadow is the same colour and actually looks like the colour of her
skin as well.

I better stop slamming canon stuff if I'm to recover any of my
(considerable) investment in it. Yeah... Canon is really fantastic stuff.
Their 25 year inks that last 3 months are well suited to their cameras which
have a shutter life so short, you really do need to replace the things every
year for reliability. "Canon Pro Paper" the box said. I know now any product
with "Pro" in it's name is aimed at the wannabe market. Yes... I bought a
new r 2400 Epson printer too. It'll go nicely with the new camera.

--
Douglas...
"You finally make it on the Internet
when you get your own personal Troll".
Mine's called Chrlz. Don't feed him, he bites!


"Peter Guest" wrote in message
...
Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 18:45:53 -0400, "Charles Schuler"
wrote:


----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Guest"
Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 5:34 PM
Subject: Canon EOS 20D - is this review fair?


Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

"Unfortunately, exposures are not quite as accurate or reliable as we
might expect from an EOS camera. The 20D is prone to slight
underexposure, particularly with wideangle lenses."

Canon engineers chose to err on the side of underexposure as blown
highlights are truly blown and that's a good decision.

Autofocus: "the camera occasionally appears to disagree with the user
about what is the subject and we found the best way of working is to
switch off the auto AF sensors and select our own using the new toggle
control."

Manual focus is an option on the 20D.

"...the extra pixels do make a difference to the potential image
quality, but they also mean that users will have to put a bit more
effort into making the potential image quality the final image
quality. Although it is possible to obtain acceptable results simply
by using in-camera controls for sharpness and contrast, it really is
worth taking the time to process your image post-capture in a decent
software program. If you do this, you will find that the 20D is
capable of quite remarkable results."

Post-processing is accepted as normal for cameras of this ilk.

FOR: very fast start up; high resolution; massive amount of control.

Agreed.

AGAINST: mirror action noisy; B&w filters not effective; no
spotmetering.

It is a noisy camera (mechanical ... shutter release). In-camera B&W
settings are not often used by most users (again, post-processing). Right,
no spot meter.

If you were taking a shot of something dark on a light background,
would you just guess and tack up the exposure to compensate?
This is the one thing that might prevent me from buying one.
It's good that the camera seems to underexpose to preserve
hightlights, but in certain sun-shadow situations, the exposure
difference can be up to 9 f-stops so blowing highlights to obtain
detail in something dark may be the only choice, but you have to be
able to expose for the darker object.
-Rich

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com
"Zed Pobre" wrote in message
...
Skip M wrote:

"Peter Guest" wrote in message
...
Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine:

"Unfortunately, exposures are not quite as accurate or reliable as we
might expect from an EOS camera. The 20D is prone to slight
underexposure, particularly with wideangle lenses."

Haven't observed this, my self, but I've only used Sigma 17-35 f2.8-4 and
Canon 16-35 f2.8L, no fixed focal length wide angles. What I have seen
is a
tendency to underexpose in ambient light situations with Speedlites and
less
that f2.8 lenses.

I have pretty much the same experience. Exposure is generally correct
on the jpg for non-flash situations, which is often about a third of a
stop less than where I actually want it in the RAW, but I have my
580EX set pretty much permanently to +1EC, because every single shot I
take with it is otherwise underexposed.

We just bought a 16-35 f2.8L and 24-70 f2.8L and guess what? All of our
flash exposures are spot on with EX flashes. What I've found is that the
camera goes to 60th sec and maximum aperture. If the max ap isn't large
enough for a proper exposure, oh well. I checked it out with my 28-135
f3.5-5.6 IS, at 70mm, it would read 1/60 @ f4.5, the same lighting with the
24-70 would be 1/60 @ f2.8. No flashing readouts, nothing.


Autofocus: "the camera occasionally appears to disagree with the user
about what is the subject and we found the best way of working is to
switch off the auto AF sensors and select our own using the new toggle
control."

Again, haven't observed this, either, except when I press the shutter
button
repeatedly. The camera seems to say, "Ok, you didn't like that subject
or
focus pattern, let's try this one!" It keeps changing what it is focused
on
until you decide it is properly done. I, too, have turned off the auto
sensors, but I did that as a matter of course in the beginning.

I *have* observed this, both on my 85mm f/1.8 prime and on my 75-300
IS. The 75-300 is particularly bad about it, and since it has only a
first generation USM, it's *really* slow when it decides to hunt.
This is only true using all points for autofocus; if I use a single
point, and don't screw up my own aim, it's fine. It's also fine if at
least two autofocus spots cover your target. If you have a target
small enough that only one dot would cover it, and you use all points,
it will pick different spots at different times, and sometimes drive
you batty.

On the other hand, I've never used a camera that didn't have this
problem, and it's not hard to work around.

That's why I disabled the multiple points right off the bat. I've never had
a camera with multiple point that guessed right more than 50% of the time.
And the 20D is better than the others I've tried.
The 75-300 seems to be, by all reports, rather slow, no matter what you do.

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com
"pixby" wrote in message
...
Interesting stuff...
When I posted opinions like these about a month after the 20D was
released,
I got howled down by the disciples of EOS. Whenever I even suggested the
hallowed 20D might not be all it's cracked up to be, I get accused of
posting "non scientific" tests. OK...
The 20D is an absolute crap camera from wedding photography when compared
to
Nikon and Fuji cameras. Canon's answer to my complaints is to buy a 1D
MkII
or 1Ds because these are "the professional" cameras. That's OK too except
I
bought a 1D MkII last Christmas when the second 20D died and it is very
little different to the 20D. Certainly not $6000 better, if better at all.

Ho, hum... No one cares so why do I? Because it's my livelihood and I'm
fed
up with the bull**** from Canon and all their puppets. I care that skin
tones are not supposed to look like everyone is suntanned.

Lower the in camera saturation. Or stop shooting Australians, who, like
Californians, have a rather permanent tan... ;-)

I care that when
I rely on the camera's metering, it needs to work. I care that the $800
Speedlight, heralded as "smart" can't even get the flash duration right
most
of the time... I'd settle for some of the time if it was predictable.

If you use this with your f2.8 L lenses, you might find that it works just
fine. And it was predictable, otherwise, always 1-1.3 stops off.

Thursday last, I jumped ship. True! I ordered up a new Nikon D2X with
enough
glass and a new speedlight to ensure I'll never be able to afford to
replace
my car this year (again). I used a demo model for several hours, side by
side with my 20D and 1D before deciding this is "The Camera" worth the
cost
of changing over to Nikon. It even feels like a real camera instead of a
pretend one like a 20D with "Grip". What a joy that the speedlight
actually
meters properly. How bloody magnificent that a model with one arm, 3 stops
away in shadow is the same colour and actually looks like the colour of
her
skin as well.
Good, now maybe you'll stop bitching about Canon stuff, and go take some
pictures.

I better stop slamming canon stuff if I'm to recover any of my
(considerable) investment in it. Yeah... Canon is really fantastic stuff.
Their 25 year inks that last 3 months are well suited to their cameras
which
have a shutter life so short, you really do need to replace the things
every
year for reliability. "Canon Pro Paper" the box said. I know now any
product
with "Pro" in it's name is aimed at the wannabe market. Yes... I bought a
new r 2400 Epson printer too. It'll go nicely with the new camera.

--
Douglas...
"You finally make it on the Internet
when you get your own personal Troll".
Mine's called Chrlz. Don't feed him, he bites!


"Peter Guest" wrote in message
...
Excerpts from a review of the EOS20D from a leading UK magazine: