Canon 20D: Raising the Bar for Prosumer Digital SLRs
by Stephen Caston on November 11, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Digital Camera
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Canon is shaking up the digital camera community with the release of its newest affordable SLR. The 20D features an additional 1.9 megapixels over its predecessor, yielding a large 8.2 megapixel output. The camera design is a bit different as well with support for EF-S lenses that can provide a wider angle of view. The 20D has a new 9-point auto-focus system compared to the 7-point system seen on the 10D. The 20D promises to provide lower noise than the 10D at higher ISO settings as well as a large speed improvement.
In our review, we found the Canon 20D to be a great performer. Compared to the 10D, it is much faster in several ways. The camera is able to start up in just 0.23 seconds compared to the 10D's 2.39 second time. In many of our other timing tests, the 20D continues to outperform the 10D by a large margin. The 20D raises the bar by allowing continuous shooting at 5 fps for 20 frames in JPEG (Large/Fine) mode compared to 3 fps for 9 frames on the 10D. Although general image quality on both cameras is very similar, the 20D has a huge advantage when it comes to high ISO performance. At ISO 3200, the 20D produces images that are low-noise and rich with detail, while the 10D produces images with a large loss of detail and discolored pixels. Read on to see all the details of our review of the Canon 20D.
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maxusa - Thursday, November 11, 2004 - link
This is a professional DSLR, not prosumer. The only prosumer attribute of the 20D might be price of the body. But even this is highly questionable if one factors in lens(es). I recommend you change this misleading assertion.Mday - Thursday, November 11, 2004 - link
Hmm, I would have liked to see an accessory list:"All" EF lenses
EF-S lenses
flashes
battery grip
Overall, dpreview forums provide much better insite into the camera from users of cameras.
Without a forum attached to digital imaging, questions and comments to anandtech forums are lost to the billions of posts in general hardware.
stephencaston - Thursday, November 11, 2004 - link
Thanks for the comment and good suggestion. We will include this info in future reviews.Gatak - Thursday, November 11, 2004 - link
Nice article =) the D20 is cirtanly on my wishlist.There are things I'd like to see for future photography /image quality tests. You should mention the colour profile and gamma settings for the images that you use.
A uncalibrated CRT monitor (the default Windows and Linux user) will use a gamma close to 2.5 instead of the sRGB of about 2.2. Unless the user has compensated the gamma shift on their system using tools like Adobe Gamma or xgamma these pictures will look much to dark.
I have illustrated the difference on this image: http://moment22.mine.nu/20dcc-gamma-compare.jpg
It should be viewed on a sRGB monitor or in a application that can simulate sRGB on your monitor (like Photoshop)