Reviews
B
y fusing Moore’s Law and pho-
tography, Maximum PC has
known for a while that every
successive generation of digicams is
guaranteed to offer far more for far
less money. Canon’s 20D is living
proof of this corollary. The 20D’s
8.2-megapixel and 5-frames-per-
second performance is outdone by
only one other professional camera—
which costs three times as much. (See
page 15 for another interesting take
on Moore’s Law and digicams.)
As the name implies, the 20D is a
much improved version of the EOS
10D that’s been on the market for just
shy of a year now. The 10D received
high marks when released for its
image and build quality, but there
were nagging concerns about its auto-
focus accuracy and its pokey speed
when writing to the memory card. It
didn’t help that, shortly after the 10D
shipped, Nikon introduced the awe-
some D70, which many considered
better and cheaper than the 10D.
The 20D erases most of these
issues. The new body uses a high-
precision AF module that provides
greater accuracy when using lenses
of F/2.8 or faster. Canon increased
the number of focusing points from
seven to nine, and each is notice-
ably smaller now, so you can more
precisely hone in on a specific point.
Auto-focus tracking—something
the 10D received below-average
marks for—has been improved to
the level of the company’s 1990s-era
pro camera, the EOS 1n. In short, it’s
pretty good, but not outstanding.
We have very few complaints
about the 20D’s write performance.Even though the camera has a gen-
erous 23-frame buffer for JPEGs, the
camera writes to high-speed CF so
fast you’ll rarely wait to take your
next picture. Shutter lag—the time
between pushing the shutter button
and the picture being captured—has
also been improved.
In practical use, the magnesium-
body 20D feels amazingly responsive
and fairly solid. The AF snaps into
focus quickly, and focus tracking on
moving objects is also faster, although
not in the class of today’s professional
(and much more expensive) cameras.
While the focusing may not be in
the same league of the EOS 1D Mk.
II, the 5-frames-per-second buffer is.
For production cameras, only Nikon’s
pro-class 4MP D2X and Canon’s EOS
1D Mk II offer more fps. Unless you
shoot professional sports, we can’t
imagine why you’d need more.
The imaging sensor
is a Canon designed
and fabbed APS-C-
sized CMOS chip that
demonstrates Canon’s
aptitude and expertise
at minimizing image
noise, or “grain.”
Generally, as you
increase the pixel count
in a sensor, you increase
the noise. That’s why
5-megapixel point-and-
shoot cameras withsmall sensors generate such grainy
images at ISO speeds over 200. Canon
is able to keep the noise at amazingly
low levels, making ISO 800 and even
1600 quite usable, even top-notch.
One irritating bug that Canon
overlooked causes the camera to
occasionally lock up when a lens is
removed while the camera is asleep.
Canon has since corrected the issue
with new firmware that can be
installed in five minutes, but this
never should have made it out of
the factory.
So which should you buy: Nikon’s
D70 or the Canon 20D? The simple
answer is that the two cameras don’t
really compete directly. The D70 gets
chewed up by the 20D in many cat-
egories, but the 20D costs $500 more.
With that said, it’s clear that the 20D
is at the head of the class in the DSLR
category, and we’d gladly fork over
the extra bucks for the privilege of
using it.
SPECS —GORDON MAH UNG
Resolution 8.2 megapixel (3520x2344 pixels)
Lens compatibility Canon EF and EF-S system
Shutter 30 sec. to 1/8000 (including bulb)
X-sync 1/250
Weight 24.2 ounces (body only)
Continuous shooting 5 fps
Burst rating 23 JPEGS at ISO 100 (6 in RAW mode)
Storage Type I and II Compact Flash
Auto-focus system 9 AF points at 0.5 to 18 EV
Battery Li-Ion (good for 500 shots with 50 per-
cent flash)Canon EOS 20D
Performance and speed on a (prosumer) budget
Get some: The EOS 20D lets you snap up to 23 pictures at 5 frames
per second. Not many camera’s are faster than that.5fps and smooth, beautiful, high-ISO images.SUMMERWINTER
Initial firmware bug, and no color meter.$1,500 (body only), http://www.canon.comMA XIMUMPCVERDICT 9
100 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2004