Canon 20D Vs. 30D

STLMach1 · May 21, 2006

Hello there everyone! :wave

After reviewing a bit of information regarding the Canon D20 & D30, I'm still not sure I understand the primary differences or advantages of one over the other. Is there a relatively brief answer to this question as to which might be superior to the other? I would greatly appreciate any information anyone could provide.

Thanks and have a great day!

Michael

Mongrel · May 21, 2006

Hi there,
Well, the first thing I'd mention is that Canon calls these models the 20D and 30D .

This link will take you to the review comparison at dpreview:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos30d/

That will give you a side-by-side comparison feature by feature and an in-depth review of the 30D.

As far as which one is 'superior', well, it's generally understood that the 30D offers some nice refinements over the 20D. Two things that immediately come to mind are the addition of a spot metering mode and a larger LCD panel. Depending on how tight your cash is, most people would recommend the 30D without hesitation over the 20D. I have the 20D and haven't actually used a 30D so I can't really give you any help there.

Hope this helps...

STLMach1 · May 21, 2006

Well, the first thing I'd mention is that Canon calls these models the 20D and 30D

... Uhm, Oops! That's what I get for posting this shortly after getting out of bed this morning...

Many thanks for the information! I will look at this shortly and see what I can find. I JUST bought a 20D and now Best Buy has the 30D for the same price I just paid for my 20 and the 20 is now $200 less... In roughly 1.5 - 2 month's time. Needless to say I wasn't thrilled with this... If the 30 is the superior camera, I may try to go back to them and see if I can't somehow get the 30 in place of my 20, especially since I haven't even shot 2 dozen pictures with the 20D thus far. Work's been too busy to allow me to work with the camera.

Thanks again and should anyone else have any information to share, please do,

Michael

patch29 · May 21, 2006

STLMach1 wrote:

... Uhm, Oops! That's what I get for posting this shortly after getting out of bed this morning...

I fixed the thread title to reduce confusion.

I recently bought a 30D. I have never had a 20D, but the 2.5 LCD is very nice and the multicontroller on the back is handy too.

Chase · May 21, 2006

I have both of these cameras with grips, and the 30d IMO is just much nicer to use.....my only quibble with it so far is that the LCD seems to have very inaccurate color representation....I have heard an updated firmware fixes this, but I havent done it yet.....

Jacksmyname · May 22, 2006

I also have both, and recommend the 30D. Along with the additions/improvements, the 30D aquires and locks focus better (and my 20D is quite good).

Jack

leebase · May 23, 2006

I have a 20D and bought at 5D to go with it. Love my 20D, it's still very much in service even though I love my 5D more.

HOWEVER -- many of the things I like about my 5D are features also found in the 30D.
- Larger LCD
- Spot meetering
- improved AF for sports

I'd not get another 20D at this point personally. The larger LCD, if it were the only improvement I'd still go for the 30D. It's so nice for chimping and for showing other people the photos while you shoot.

Also the 30D is alleged to have a longer shutter life. I say alleged because the shutter life of the 20D was never published. Well, now it is and it's likely because it's been improved.

30D, though not a new sensor or digic chip -- is still the newer camera and Canon will have improved things in ways that don't make "bullet points" in comparison.

Lee

STLMach1 · May 23, 2006

Thanks so much for all of the information everyone! I really appreciate it. After locating my receipt for my 20D, I found that I bought it on March 11th which is a bit further back than I recalled. I have my doubts Best Buy will work with me at all on exchanging for the 30D but I will still probably try this weekend. Sounds like the 30D is the clear winner here.

Thanks again and take care,
Michael

Matthew Saville · May 24, 2006

SOMEone's gotta play devil's advocate!
Hi Michael,

You may want to wait until a little more dust settles around the 30D. There are some really weird accusations against the camera, including:

- It can produce large ammounts of grain / noise at low ISO's.

- The 1/3 ISO steps are "faked" by pushing or pulling whole ISO stops, resulting in large ammounts of image data damaging even to RAW files.

Phil Askey's review of the 30D seems to give no ground to these accusations so it very well might just be pixel-peeping mischief, but if I were you I would at least do extensive testing versus your 20D to draw your own conclusion.

Other than that, personally if I were just entering the Canon DSLR market now I would without hesitation buy a used 20D simply because they are fire-selling at well under $1,000, while the "newcomer" is sitting at it's newcomer price of $1400 which will probably drop $100-200 in the coming year. Considering how close the features are, and how satisfied I am with the 20D's performance anyway, I couldn't pass up $400-500 in savings. Especially with that oh-so-sweet 17-55 f/2.8 IS tempting me!

In your situation, my first argument (sub-$1000 for used 20D) is moot because you already own a 20D. But my second reason (30D price will drop $100-200) should apply directly to you because you already have 95% of what the 30D has. If you possibly can, wait half a year or a year and then upgrade to the 30D when it's just $1200 or $1300. And by then you should also have a more solid answer concerning whether or not the ISO noise claims are true or false.

This is just my opinion! Bottom line: You shouldn't "exchange" your 20D for a 30D if you have to spend more than the difference in what you paid. (Such as if they try to charge you a restocking fee for your 20D.)

Take care,
-Matt-

SeattleYates · May 24, 2006

Consensus on some other boards I frequent seems to be that the 30D is simply a new, improved version of the 20D, and that if you already own a 20D, the 30D probably isn't enough of an advance to warrant upgrading, but that if you don't own either one, definitely buy the 30D instead of the 20D.

My wife uses a 20D, and she will likely wait until the next (with more major improvements) model -- something between the 30D and 5D -- before upgrading. In your case, if you can get them to take back the 20D and buy the 30D for roughly the same money, it's obviously worth doing. If not, however, and you're going to have to fork over a bunch of money, it's probably not worth it. The 20D really is a GREAT camera in it's own right.

jimf · May 24, 2006

Matthew Saville wrote:

Hi Michael,
- It can produce large ammounts of grain / noise at low ISO's.

- The 1/3 ISO steps are "faked" by pushing or pulling whole ISO stops, resulting in large ammounts of image data damaging even to RAW files.

Where did you hear this? (I'm not trying to be accusatory, I've never heard this before and I'm curious.)

FWIW I have not seen evidence of either. I have been shooting extensively with a 30D for the last two months. While I rarely shoot in the ISOs between 400 and 1600 and as a result it's entirely possible that I might never have seen any actual defects there I can say flat out that I've seen no evidence whatsoever of noisy low-ISO pictures. In my experience the 30D has been an exceptional body overall with very clean low-ISO pictures.

Other than the limited wide-angle that results from the 1.6x cropping factor I have been extremely happy with the 30D and wouldn't hesitate to recommend one. (Although, if you don't have existing Canon lenses and can pop for the difference, I would suggest the Nikon D200 instead.)

The only complaint I have is that I would really, really like a split prism and/or microprism viewfinder. But this failing isn't even close to unique to the 30D.

Matthew Saville · May 24, 2006

Hi Jim,

The accusations come from the good 'ol DPR forums, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were rubbish. I'm just pointing them out because the so-called test images that users posted looked VERY convincing- their copy of the 30D produced ammounts of noise at ISO 100 that I would mistake for ISO 400 or 800... At the moment there are no topics I can find on these subjects, but if you do a search I'm sure you can find them...

But again like I said, I must disclaim these accusations because they come from DPR pixel-peepers.

I too would love to see a split prism viewfinder, I really enjoy it on the cameras I own that do have it. Especially trying to manually focus a fast-apeture lens in these small, dark holes that are passed off as DSLR viewfinders, lol.

So, we need to either see the rebirth of the spit prism, or we need a 1.5x magnification standard in all APS-C DSLR's...

Take care,
-Matt-

STLMach1 · May 28, 2006

Update!

)
Hello there fellow Grinners!

First let me extend my thanks for all the insiteful information that's has been shared here. As an update, I have spoken with the manager of the Best Buy photo department and he agreed to let me to exchange the 20D for the 30D (plus the difference of course). I'm pretty excited about it and will take the 20 back tomorrow morning. Again many thanks for everyone's input and I look forward to being able to soon share some photos here once my work schedule slows in a month or so. I'm sure I'll have many more questions to pose through the course of my digital eduction...

Thanks again!
Michael

Canon 20D Vs. 30D

Comments