Canon 20D: Raising the Bar for Prosumer Digital SLRs

Final Words

With the 20D, Canon has taken a great camera and made it even better. The 20D shares a very similar look to the 10D in a slightly smaller and lighter body. The new camera features a 1.9 megapixel advantage over the 10D and has an EF-S lens mount that accepts Canon's new wide angle EF-S lenses as well as a plethora of existing EF lenses. Other than some minor updates to the controls and body, the real improvements are in its performance.

In our review, we discovered that the 20D is much faster than the 10D. From the moment the power switch is flipped, the 20D is ready to shoot. The new 9-point auto-focus system proves to be speedier than the 7-point system on the 10D. Despite producing larger average files than the 10D, the 20D is able to clear its buffer to the flash card at significantly faster speeds. The 20D improves on the 10D's continuous drive capability as well. The 10D can shoot 9 JPEG files at 3 fps while the 20D can shoot approximately 20 at 5 fps. We found that the most significant advantage of the 20D is its ability to clear its buffer quickly. When we filled each camera's buffer, the 20D was able to clear it in 14.2 seconds while it took the 10D 59.9 seconds. After shooting with the speedy 20D for a while, going back to the 10D seemed almost painfully sluggish. The 10D will not allow you to view previously taken pictures or change menu settings until all images have been cleared from the buffer. In contrast, the 20D gives priority to user input.

The 20D's white balance performance is very similar to the 10D. Both cameras show a bit of a yellowish cast with Auto WB in tungsten light, although the 20D is just slightly better. Also, the 20D seems to produce images that are a bit brighter than the 10D. In sunlit shots, both cameras prove to have outstanding color reproduction. One downside of the 20D is that we found it to underexpose images taken with the built-in flash compared to the 10D. However, this can always be worked around with some exposure compensation. We would have like to see the 20D provide a larger dynamic range than the 10D. Unfortunately, if it does have a larger dynamic range, it is a fairly small difference as we were unable to notice it.

For anybody looking for a good reason to get into the digital SLR scene, the 20D is an excellent choice. At a price of $1500 for the body and an extra $100 for the kit lens, the 20D is an amazing value. The question of whether to upgrade becomes a very hard question for current 10D and Digital Rebel owners. Regarding image quality, the biggest advantage is the 20D's ability to shoot low noise images at ISO 3200. This provides the opportunity to handhold indoor and low light shots without using a flash. The other really big advantage of the 20D is its super fast performance. If you find the "busy" screen on the 10D and Digital Rebel as annoying as we do, it just might be worth the upgrade. Until full frame Digital SLRs become much more affordable, it's not going to get much better than this.

Pros	Cons
Large 8.2 megapixel output image Great resolution performance Almost instant startup time Very fast write times 5 fps continuous drive Decent overall white balance Very low-noise in high ISO shots Faster auto-focus system with 9 points EF-S mount accepts new wide-angle lenses Amazing battery life New WB Shift/BKT setting	No noticeable improvement in dynamic range Average auto WB in tungsten light Underexposed flash images

Thanks again to Newegg.com for loaning us the Canon 20D Kit for review.