The Laughing Wolf

Product Review: Canon 20D

Life has had its ups-and-downs of late, and while mostly up, one thing very difficult was done. While I am not ready to discuss it yet, that event pushed me to do something nice for me. That nice was the purchase of a Canon 20D digital SLR. I have been wanting to get back into serious photography for a while and knew that digital was the way to go.

Yet, the purchase of the Canon was a major step in more than just price. All of my 35mm film work was done on Nikon, and I was a member of the Nikon Professional Society for a few years. Nikon was in my hands as I photographed the first Shuttle launches, covered stories ranging from plane crashes to dance recitals, and trekked into the wilds. My first digital camera(s) were Nikon, both at work and at home, and I have taken my CoolPix 990 literally around the world. I had thought that Nikon was pretty much untouchable in terms of lens and camera quality, but I was wrong.

The last couple of months have given me the chance to check out a number of systems and do some evaluation. When it comes to digital cameras, I have decided, the people to watch are Canon. The quality of the optics is top rate, and the lens technology superb. The cameras consistently beat the competition at almost every level, and the user interface, while daunting in complexity, is extremely user friendly. For those not interested in truly serious work, you can set the 20D to do auto everything and just snap away. Or, you can choose from 11 other major settings and do as much or as little as you like.

Right now, I am using it primarily in auto while I learn the camera and system. The results are very good:

Here is Ayla with a twinkie she found during the Easter Egg Hunt yesterday at Wolf Park. The image is degraded for the Web, but still shows the level of detail captured by the system. As for that pastry, it was not eaten but cached for later.

Here is a shot I took this morning of my Thanksgiving cactus, which has decided to bloom yet again. Apparently the move and changes in light/climate have it a tad bit confused.

Again, this is not a high-quality image shown, but one saved and trimmed for the Web. Yet, an impressive level of detail is still clearly visible.

So far, the largest drawback to the system is memory. During the events yesterday I shot enough images to almost fill a 1 Gb memory card. I foresee more cards and more external hard drives in my future.

I will keep you up to date on how things go with the camera, but so far it is safe to say that I am very pleased and impressed with the system. More as it develops...

LW