Canon 10D V's 20D V's Nikon D70s

[Jim Last]

I have placed 2nd thread in the Nikon SLR's for comments on the D50, D70 & D70s but have posted this here as my main aim is to fine out views on the Canon 10D & 20D. Therfore I don't feel this is a duplicate post. Please let me Jeff:)

I am looking at entering the DSLR arena and have spent the day trying camera and from that in terms of feel these three are my current favourites for my budget.

My question is how does the 10D fair against the newer 20D and also is the 20D due for replacement soon?

Because the Nikon D70s is 6MP I thought that the 10D might be a more comparable start point and also better value than the newer 20D thoughts?

I know that this onlty the start and that lens choice is paramount. I have looked at the D70s kit lens the 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 DX which seems a lot better than the canon kit lens. But purchasing the body only and then lenses will remove this issue. Possible a wide prime and a general/macro prime to start with.

I am also looking to add an external flash, which Canon flash works well with these cameras and also offer value for money, I want to make sure it has the required power but in the same way it needs to be small enough for travel.

I intend to shoot in the following situations:

Low light - indoor children, museums and churches
Moving subjects - running children and animals
Architecture and buildings as well as some landscapes

I will mainly use these images on the web and upto A4 but on occation may wish to reproduce at A3/A2.

Any help and suggestions will be greatfully received.

[suemccartin]

I've never held or used a 10D I've got an original Rebel 300D which is pretty much a stripped down 10D. I shot with that for a year, it's an ok camera but for fast action.....SORRY the buffers are just plain TOO SMALL for fast action like the karate I shoot all the time and it lacks too much functionality to really be anything but a beginner body.

I just bought a 20D in August, yeah the bugger costs a month's salary but the 20D is a cadillac while the old rebel is a Yugo, the difference is just unbelievable if you ask me. From what I understand there have been a lot of improvements to the newer Rebel XT, again have never held one but I'll bet you $$$ the internal buffers are still not as big as they are on the 20D. If you cut quality down to 4 mp mode (which is all I need) you get something like 20 shots in the buffer and if you couple that with a FAST cf card like the sandisk extreme series or lexar's 80x series you NEVER suffer buffer bog where the camera is locked up writing to the cf card. The 20D is soooooo much faster and more responsive than my old rebel I had to reprogram my shutter finger to avoid taking 3 pictures when I only wanted one. The 20D offers three types of focusing available in all modes (maybe not AUTO, not sure don't use AUTO mode) and can shoot in 3200ISO where the rebel can only go up to 1600ISO. On the rebel 1600 is grainy, 3200 is about as grainy on the 20D but both can be made perfectly acceptable with a product such as Noise Ninja--much better than such fast iso with a 35mm film camera--I do 8X10 a lot and they are fine. The 20D is also processing the shots internally to a degree to cut noise, while the Rebel doesn't. The rebel has a LCD screen on the back to tell you what the camera is doing while the 20D has it on the top right of the camera--much handier there if you ask me.

My biggest complaint with BOTH cameras has to do with white balance in mixed lighting situations, I shoot a lot under mercury vapor or sodium lighting in gymnasiums and the backgrounds keep coming out this horrible deep yellow color no matter what I do. I've taken to setting a custom white balance when shooting under flourescent lighting with flash (thus the mixed lighting issue) and I also use the stof-fen green colored omni bounce on the flash in an effort to make the flash light the same color as the surrounding light. This problem can be easily corrected with photoshop LE but several hundred shots that have to be corrected one by one (you have to pick a white/black point on every shot) is just a big pain and time I don't have. I find that sodium lighting is less of a problem because it's closer to daylight--custom white balances seem to lean a tiny bit to the magenta under sodium light but all the other colors look right. Yes, I know RAW mode lets you play with white balance after the fact but only 6 frames fit in the buffer on the 20D when shooting in RAW so RAW will not be an option for fast action shooting and the jpeg files stay frigging huge so that's just too much work for me to have to cut all that down when I do this as a favor to my karate school and not for pay. (not to mention a lot of RAW shots will FILL my hard drive up a lot faster than jpeg).

Weight: The 20D has a metal body which is nice but when you add in the camera grip (2 battery packs) and mount a 550EX/580EX on top that is a fairly heavy camera to be moving around quickly in a 2 hour shooting session--get a monopod or a chest tripod setup.

Other stuff: the rebel has no "weatherproofing" on it at all from what I've read, don't know about the XT, the 20D and up have some protection from the elements but I still don't think I'd use it in the rain without some protection over it like one of those bag things or a good umbrella.

Lenses:
Most of the canon consumer glass is slowwwwww, indoors available light there is the excellent 50mm 1.8 (the plastic fantastic) for really cheap or for more you can get a 1.4 version. If you can afford L glass more power too you, I sure can't.

Walk around lens, I love my 28-135 IS, this is a great lens and the IS system is really exceptional but at 500 bucks it's an investment and relatively slow at 5.6 in the higher magnifications. If you don't want to spend that much I've heard the sigma 17-125 is not a bad lens or there's also a 20-200 available too.

High end zoom: the canon 75-300 is not a bad lens but if I had it to do again I'd pay the extra for the IS version because it's kinda hard to hand hold and get sharp images if you don't have bright sunlight.

Despite everyone's complaining about the kit lens 18-55, I really like this lens, you need a wide angle lens for close up on the 20D because of the C-sized receptor (1.6 higher magnification factor because it's smaller than 35mm film frame).

Flash: The built in flash on both cameras is adequate for a few snaps, you want a 550EX or 580EX to shoot fast action and even those really need a good external battery package (i.e. jackrabbit or similar) if you're shooting really fast action. I just bought the ST-E2 and I'm going to experiment with a dual slave flash setup, two units sharing the load should be faster than one trying to do it all itself.

If I had to do it again I would not have wasted the money on the Rebel but it is nice to have a backup and a good camera that I don't mind so much lending to trusted friends (the 20D doesn't leave my sight). Hope this helped.