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Canon 30D Comparison with the EOS-20D

User Report

In my 20D review I opened by saying, "Too many digital camera purchase decisions are based on pixel count." When I said that in late 2004, the 20D's 8.2 megapixel sensor was actually ahead of most digital SLRs in the pixel race. My point then was the same as it is now: one or two million pixels in either direction don't have as much effect on image quality as does the sensitivity and accuracy of those pixels. Megapixel-oriented consumers are disappointed that Canon didn't increase the count to answer rivals like the Nikon D200, but Canon maintains that it is pixel size, not pixel count, that makes the sensor, and until they can increase the sensor's ability to gather light more efficiently, the 6.4 micron pixel pitch was the right size to maintain for good high ISO performance.

Just like the 20D, every aspect of the 30D is focused on one purpose: to help photographers make excellent images. Our tests indicate that the 30D's images are just as good as the 20D, which is high praise.

The shape, size and weight of the 20D and 30D are similar enough that without both at your disposal, it's hard to see the differences. The grip is different, but only a little, with a lip just below the shutter release that increases the camera's overall thickness by 2mm. On the front, where the camera badge is mounted, it looks like they took a little bondo to fill in the hard edges for a more futuristic effect. They also removed the word "DIGITAL" from the front of the camera; perhaps a sign that its no longer necessary to make the distinction, but it could be because their new taper removed the flat surface for the pad printer to lay down the ink.

It's only from the back that you get a different feeling, reminding one more of the 5D than the 20D. It's that big 2.5 inch screen that does it, and it pushes all the controls and buttons out to the left and down. I never thought there was anything wrong with the 20D's 1.8 inch LCD until I started working with the 5D and 30D. First, the menus look gigantic, making menu operation that much easier, especially in sunlight. Of course, image review is also better, in more ways than just size. The new TFT has a 170 degree angle of view, whereas the 20D's image disappears from certain oblique angles. That means you can chimp with more people than ever before, without having to turn the camera every which way.

Canon redesigned the raised area around the LCD, and they enlarged and modified the eight-way joystick somewhat. I'm not seeing a huge difference from the 20D's joystick in performance, however. Both seem to work pretty well.

The one slight indication of glitz appears on the Mode dial, whose knurls are slightly finer and the icons are ringed with a chrome band, bringing to mind the Mode dial of the Digital Rebel XT. Otherwise, as was the 20D, the 30D is all business. A black body with black buttons and black wheels with silver and blue words and icons. It is a tool, and as such it has only and exactly what's needed to get the job done.

Mostly due to the larger LCD, the 30D is around 20 grams heavier than the 20D. It's noticeable, but only just. The larger screen is worth the extra weight.

Another addition is the Print/Share button appearing on every new camera in Canon's vast array. It shines blue when connected to a computer or PictBridge printer to signify that it's ready for uploading images. It works as advertised, and opens up a new world of camera to printer capabilities. My favorite is the ability to make an old-style contact sheet, straight from the camera, complete with fake film notches above and below the images.

Where the 30D gets more exciting than its practical, tuned EOS exterior is when you go inside its magnesium alloy and stainless steel construct. There you'll find much of what lies in the 20D: Canon's speedy DIGIC II processor, the same low pass filter, the nine-point AF sensor array, a magnesium alloy body with a stainless steel frame, and a five frame per second shutter mechanism.

But that shutter is where the differences begin. The 30D's shutter can run at two speeds: five frames and three frames per second. They added the lower speed for those who didn't want to fill the buffer so fast, but still get a variety of shots off. I also like it because it decreases the likelihood that I'll fire off two shots when I only wanted one, something the 20D does all the time when in continuous mode. Another enhancement is the way the shutter button itself works. With the 20D and Rebel XT, you press the shutter halfway to focus and set exposure, then press it all the way to trip the shutter. To take another shot in One Shot mode, you have to release the shutter button completely; the camera then re-focuses and re-meters and you can shoot again. It still works that way in the 30D, with the exception that you can fire again without releasing completely, thus maintaining your focus and exposure settings shot after shot. If you time it right, you can roughly equal the five frames per second, but if you re-press the shutter too quickly, nothing will happen and you'll have to press again.

Canon updated the shutter in the 20D significantly from the 10D, but they never specified an expected life. The 30D's shutter life is declared to be at least 100,000 cycles, just like the EOS 5D. Viewfinder blackout time has been slightly improved over the 20D's 115 milliseconds, with the 30D measuring 110 milliseconds, according to Canon.

The EOS 30D starts up in 0.15 seconds according to Canon (0.1 according to our own timing), a minor improvement over the EOS 20D's 0.3 second startup time. This difference is hardly discernible.

There are actually four metering modes on the 30D compared to the 20D's three. Evaluative, Partial, and Center Weighted have been joined by a Spot metering mode that measures 3.5% of the viewfinder area. The circle you see in the viewfinder delineates this zone, which is smaller than the circle on the 20D. Partial metering measures a 9% area. A true Spot metering mode is a welcome addition.

Also welcome is the 1/3 stop adjustment for ISO settings. Whereas the 20D offered only seven settings (100, 200, 400, 600, 800, 1,600, and 3,200), the 30D offers 14 (100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1,000, 1,250, 1,600, and 3,200).

One of the only disadvantages to the EOS 30D is the lack of an AF assist lamp. AF assist is only possible when the built-in flash is deployed. The camera uses a rapid set of flash pulses to momentarily illuminate the scene. Both the pop-up and hotshoe-mounted flashes use Canon's new E-TTL II for better flash performance, using lens focus data to determine distances of objects in the frame.

The new Picture Styles menu is an improvement of a feature that I didn't think needed improvement; turns out it did. I think the naming of styles makes more sense: Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, and Monochrome are more clear than Parameter 1 and Parameter 2. I also like that there are nine steps for Contrast, Saturation, and Color tone rather than just five, and eight settings for sharpening. Greater resolution in these settings had been requested for some time, so it seems like Canon really was listening.

Shooting with the 30D is nearly identical to the 20D. It is fast, nimble, and produces satisfying images. It's just slightly more capable with the addition of the features mentioned. The big display does make it hard to go back to the 20D's smaller screen, the 3.5% spot meter is attractive, and the ability to view the ISO in the optical viewfinder is also a nice addition (one that could probably be applied via firmware to the 20D). I like the inclusion of the low speed continuous mode, and the improved handling of files to increase the buffer slightly is also welcome. And the ability to store nearly ten thousand frames in a single folder makes so much more sense than having only 100 per folder.

So the story isn't a brave new camera that blasts through new barriers of performance. The 20D did that already; and unlike other companies, Canon didn't really need that. But it is a refinement of an already stellar performer, bringing it up to date with later competing designs from other manufacturers that include many of the features now seen in the 30D.

The Canon EOS 30D is good news for both existing Canon 20D owners and those looking to upgrade. There are enough improvements to move to, but you don't have to feel like your formerly superb 20D is now an obsolete hunk of black magnesium. I agree with those who say that Canon could have badged this camera the "20D N" or "20D Mark II," given its evolutionary design. The unfortunate name of 30D will probably fool some eBayers into mistakenly buying a D30 thinking they got a real deal. (The D30 was the original 3.25 megapixel Canon dSLR from way back in the year 2000). So buyer beware.

The EOS 30D is impressive. We'd call it a carefully planned amalgam of speedy components, refined imaging, tuned design, taking the banner from the 20D as the best Canon currently offers for the price of a mid-range digital SLR. Image quality is superb and the performance can't be beat for the money. Its main rival is the Nikon D200, and some would say the Canon 5D. But there's no question that many millions of professional images will be created with the 30D in the years to come.

Design

Canon's latest in the entry level professional EOS line of digital cameras, the EOS 30D, will be familiar to photographers already accustomed to other EOS cameras, film or digital. With a body-only weight of 1.78 pounds (28.57 ounces; 810.5 grams) with battery and card, the weight has gone up just a bit from the 20D's 1.75 pounds (28.1 ounces; 796.8 grams) with battery and card, most likely due to the larger LCD screen. The 30D is well-balanced, and certainly a lot lighter than the "industrial strength" Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II and 1D Mark II, and lighter than the full frame 5D. The EOS 30D is practically identical in dimension to the 20D, with a minor exception for a slight retooling of the grip, which adds a 2mm lip above the grip, right below the shutter button. Body dimensions of the 30D are 5.7 x 4.2 x 2.9 inches (144 x 105.5 x 73.5 millimeters).

The front of the camera features a Canon EF/EF-S lens mount, indicated by the presence of both red dot (standard EF) and white square (EF-S) alignment marks for the two different styles of lens. There's also the lens release button, a depth of field preview button (on the lower left of the lens mount as viewed from the rear), a flash head pop-up button (on the upper left of the lens mount) and the redeye reduction lamp/self timer lamp (the frosted window at upper left in the view above). Nestled in the inside bottom of the handgrip, but just about visible in this picture, is notch through which the DC coupler cord hole emerges, when using the dummy battery of the AC adapter.

The top of the camera features the Shutter button, Mode dial and a small status display panel that reports most of the camera's settings. An LCD Illuminator button next to the redesigned status display panel backlights the display with an orange glow for better viewing in dark shooting conditions. Also on top are the Main dial and several control buttons (AF Mode / White Balance, Drive Mode / ISO Speed, and Metering Mode / Flash Exposure Compensation). The top of the camera also contains a hot shoe for mounting an external flash unit. The hot shoe has the usual trigger terminal in the center, as well as four other contacts for interfacing to Canon EX Speedlight flash units, and a hole for a locking pin to prevent rotation of the speedlight. Fixed neck strap eyelets are located on both sides of the top panel as well.

The top-panel data readout conveys a wealth of information about the current status of the camera and its settings, and has only a few new features since the 20D. One is the addition of the H for High Speed Continuous mode, and the other is not really a change to the LCD, but to its function. Instead of three stages of alert, the battery indicator offers four: a solid battery icon, a 1/3 indicator, a flashing 1/3 indicator, and a flashing empty battery. It's not a huge improvement, but offers a little more warning before complete battery failure. Here's an illustration showing all possible segments and icons and their interpretation:

The opposite side of the camera features a hinged rubber flap covering the digital (USB) and Video Out sockets. Below this are two more sockets, likewise protected by a rubber flap. Forward of these sockets is a standard PC flash sync terminal, while the rear socket is for an N3 remote control. This picture also shows the Depth of Field Preview button (bottom) and Flash Pop-up button (top) on the side of the lens mount a little more clearly.

The rear panel of the EOS 30D is home to the bulk of the camera's controls, as well as the much improved LCD screen. Most controls are in their same relative positions, but have been nudged around a bit to make room for that big LCD. One new button has been added, the Print/Share button that brings up the PictBridge menu. It shines blue when the camera is connected to a computer or printer. Beneath the LCD monitor's lower right corner is the main power on/off switch, with an additional setting that turns on the Quick Control dial. Lining the left side of the LCD monitor are four buttons: Menu, Info, Jump, and Playback. Underneath the LCD screen is the Delete button, and to the right of the screen is the Quick Control dial, in the center of which is the Set button. The Set button in the center of the Quick Control Dial acts as a menu selection button. At the lower right of the Quick Control Dial is the Access lamp, which indicates when the memory card is being written to. Upper right of the LCD is the Multi-Controller, introduced on the 20D, an 8-way "joystick"-style controller located at the top right corner of the LCD display that also functions as a button when pressed directly inward. On the top right corner of the optical viewfinder is the diopter adjustment knob, recessed slightly to prevent accidental changes, and featuring a ridged surface to give grip. Finally, the top right corner of the rear panel features the AE/FE Lock / Index / Reduce and AF Point / Enlarge buttons.

The very flat bottom of the camera reveals the metal tripod mount, as well as the cover for the BP-511A Lithium Ion and CR2016 button battery chamber. Like the 20D, the 30D places both batteries (the latter of which is used for keeping the date / time) in the same chamber, the button battery being held in a little tray that slots in next to the main Lithium Ion battery. No coin is needed to open the battery compartment for the button battery, although that isn't a task that needs to be performed often. The main battery compartment cover is removable, necessary when installing the optional vertical battery grip (BG-ED2) on the camera. A small latch lever at the outside edge of the battery chamber cover unlocks it so that it may be opened. The battery compartment cover is far enough from the tripod socket that you should be able to swap batteries without removing the camera from your tripod mount. The large surface area of the camera's bottom provides a stable mounting surface for use with a tripod, even with fairly large lenses attached.

Viewfinder

Nearly identical to the 20D's viewfinder along the bottom, the 30D's optical viewfinder is excellent, providing a wealth of information and great accuracy. A new addition is the viewfinder's ISO display (available when you press the ISO button on the top panel). Lining the bottom of the display is a strip of information reporting everything from aperture and shutter speed to flash status and the maximum number of burst shots available, with the addition of the new White Balance Correction indicator. While I don't have a formal test for it, the "eyepoint" of the viewfinder seemed fairly high, making it usable with eyeglasses, although I had to press the lenses of my glasses up against the eyecup to see the full viewfinder area. (Courtesy Canon USA, Inc.)

It's important to note in discussing the 30D's viewfinder system is that the rear-panel LCD display is not usable as a viewfinder. Instead, the optical viewfinder uses a mirror to intercept the image on the way to the shutter and the sensor. Thus, when the camera isn't actively taking a picture, the light from the lens is directed only to the optical viewfinder, and so isn't available to the sensor to drive a live viewfinder display on the LCD. With the exception of the 20Da (made specifically for astronomy), the Fujifilm S3, and the Olympus E-330, all current digital SLRs operate in this fashion.

While not strictly a viewfinder function, the capture-mode Info display shown on the rear-panel LCD screen deserves mention here. The optical viewfinder carries quite a bit of information about camera status as shown above, but there's even more available on the rear panel, just by pressing the Info button. Rather than the exposure settings shown in the optical viewfinder, this display shows date/time, Picture Style selected, Color space, White Balance shift/Bracketing, selected sleep time, type of auto image rotation, flash exposure compensation, color temperature, remaining memory, and the selected ISO. Between this screen, the optical viewfinder display, and the LCD data readout on the camera's top, the 30D offers no shortage of information.

Optics

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With most digital SLRs we test, there's not a great deal to report in the "optics" section of this review. That's mostly true here as well, except that the Canon EOS 30D accepts both standard EF lenses and the newer Short back-focus lenses, or EF-S lenses. These are specially designed to create a smaller image circle for the Rebel, Rebel XT, 20D, and 30D's smaller APS-C-sized imager. Key features of the Canon EF lenses and most of the EF-S series are models with the exceptionally fast, silent "ultrasonic" focusing mechanism (a coreless motor built into the lens body itself), and the exceptional range of optically stabilized models that permit hand-holding way beyond light levels that would normally require the use of a tripod. Unlike the 20D, the 30D will only be available in two packages: body only for $1,399 and bundled with an EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II lens for $1,499.

Like most digital SLRs, the sensor in the EOS 30D is smaller than a 35mm film frame. This means that the "effective" focal length of your lenses will be 1.6x their normal values on 35mm cameras. Just to be clear, nothing's changed about the lenses or their behavior, it's just that the CMOS sensor is effectively cropping a smaller area out of the lens' coverage circle. The net result is that shooting really wide angle photography is tough with digital SLRs using regular EF lenses. This has all changed, now that the wide angle 10-22mm USM lens is available. At the other end of the scale though, it's like having a 1.6x teleconverter on your lenses with no cost in light loss or sharpness. Thus, a 300mm telephoto has the same "reach" as a 480mm on your 35mm film camera. And of course, an f/2.8 300mm is a lot cheaper than a f/2.8 500mm!

Two professional lenses were introduced and will likely ship at the same time as the 30D: The EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM and the EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM. Canon says that the 17-55mm lens will approximate L-series performance. We've been told that Canon will likely never designate any EF-S lens as "L," but last year's EF-S 10-22mm and this 17-55mm would easily qualify. Equivalent to a 27-88mm lens on a 35mm camera, the new lens has a very wide aperture, which is further assisted by an image stabilization mechanism, which should make it an excellent low light performer.

The second lens is a redesign of a very fast lens that first appeared in 1989, an 85mm portrait lens with an astonishingly large aperture of f/1.2. The update includes a fast CPU, a ring USM drive, and more modern lens coatings. The new design provides distance information to the camera, useful for calculating flash exposure with E-TTL II.

Neither lens is cheap, however. The EF-S 17-55mm will retail for $1,149, and the EF 85mm comes in at $2,099.

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Like all the other EOS digital SLRs before it, the 30D provides as little or as much exposure control as you could want. Standard exposure modes include the usual Program, Aperture-Priority, Shutter-Priority, and full Manual modes, as well as some "Image Zone" (scene-based preset) modes, and one of the most unique (and useful) modes I've yet seen, an Automatic Depth-of-Field mode. The "Image Zone" exposure modes include Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, Night Portrait, and Flash Off modes. These modes preset a variety of camera parameters to make it easier for non-expert photographers to obtain good exposures in a variety of standard shooting situations. The Flash Off mode simply disables the flash and external Speedlight (if attached), and puts the camera under automatic exposure control, effectively forcing the camera to make its best exposure without flash. The full Auto mode takes over all camera functions, turning the 30D into a very easy to use point and shoot camera, albeit a very capable one.

The Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority modes work much the same as on any other camera, allowing you to adjust one exposure variable while the camera selects the other for the best exposure. A Custom menu setting enables a "safety shift" option, which automatically adjusts the primary variable (aperture or shutter speed) in Av or Tv modes, if the setting you've selected won't permit a good exposure under the current lighting conditions. This could come into play if you were shooting in shutter-priority mode to achieve a motion-blur effect, but the light suddenly got brighter, pushing the required aperture value beyond what the lens could provide. In this situation, the camera would automatically boost the shutter speed the minimum amount needed to achieve a good exposure. Program mode keeps both variables under automatic control, while Manual mode gives you control over everything.

The Automatic Depth-of-Field mode (A-DEP) uses all nine autofocus zones to determine the depth of field in the active subject area. Once it has determined the range of focusing distances present across the nine zones, it automatically computes the combination of aperture and shutter speed needed to render the nearest and furthest points in sharp focus. This is a remarkably useful feature, even for professional photographers. In many situations, you want to keep several subjects in focus, while at the same time trying for the highest shutter speed (largest aperture) that will permit that. In practice, faced with such situations, I've usually resorted to just picking the smallest aperture feasible and hoping for the best. With the 30D's A-DEP mode, the camera takes the guesswork out of this process and gives you the fastest shutter speed it can manage while still keeping things in focus. (In playing with this, I was often surprised by how large an aperture in fact would work. I frequently would have chosen a much smaller aperture to stay on the safe side.)

Metering modes include the usual Center Weighted and Evaluative, but the old Partial has been replaced by a 3.5% Spot metering mode. A few photographers might upgrade for this alone.

Introduced on the 10D and continued here is an ISO speed extension, which increases the 30D's maximum ISO speed to 3,200. New to the 30D is the ability to set ISOs in 1/3 stop increments. Steps include 100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1,000, 1,250, and 1,600, plus 3,200.) For adjusting the exposure, the 30D's Exposure Compensation setting increases or decreases overall exposure from +/-2 EV in either one-half or one-third EV increments. The default step size is 1/2 EV, but you can set an increment of 1/3 EV via the camera's Custom menu. (Frankly, I've always found that one-third EV compensation is just about ideal for digicams. One-half EV steps are just too broad to set critical highlight exposures accurately.) Automatic exposure bracketing on the EOS 30D lets you set the total exposure variation (across three shots) at anywhere from +/- 1/2 or 1/3 EV all the way up to +/- 2 EV. The nice part is that the automatic variation is centered around whatever level of manual exposure compensation you have dialed in. Thus, you could set positive compensation of 0.7EV, and then have the camera give you a variation of +/- 2/3 EV around that point. Whatever EV step size is set through Custom menu also sets the bracketing step size.

I really like the amount of information the 30D gives you about its exposure, not only in terms of the settings it's using, but in the form of feedback on how pictures you've captured turned out. You can select an "Info" display mode when viewing captured images on the rear-panel LCD screen, which produces the display shown at right. Notable here is that you not only can see all the exposure parameters, but you get excellent feedback on the tonal range of the image itself. One form of feedback is the histogram display at upper right, which shows how the tonal values are distributed within the image. A new RGB histogram can be selected for this view as well. Histogram displays are useful for directly seeing how the overall exposure turned out in an image, but I've found them to be of limited usefulness for making critical judgments about highlight exposure.

Digital cameras need to be exposed more or less like slide film, in that you need to zealously protect your highlight detail. Once you've hit the limit of what the sensor can handle, the image "clips" and all detail is lost in the highlight areas. The problem is that it's quite common for critical highlights to occupy only a very small percentage of the overall image area. Because they correspond to such a small percentage of the total image pixels, the peak at 100 percent brightness can be very hard to distinguish in the histogram display. To handle such situations, the 30D blinks any pixels that are 100 percent white on its screen, alternating them between black and white. This makes localized overexposure problems leap out at you, making it very easy to control the critical highlight exposure precisely. (The sample image shown in the display above is a pathological example, chosen to show how the feature works. In practice, you'd probably never overexpose an image that badly.)

Besides the above-mentioned exposure information and feedback, the 30D's playback options include a thumbnail index display, normal full-frame viewing of captured images, and a zoomed view, as shown at right. There's also a "jump" mode, activated via the Jump button on the rear panel of the camera. Jump mode lets you very quickly move through images stored on the memory card, jumping 10 shots at a time. The EOS 30D's image playback can be zoomed in very small steps anywhere from 2-10x. Once you've zoomed in at any level, you can scroll the zoomed window all around the image area, using the large rear-panel control dial and one of the rear-panel buttons to control direction and movement.

Custom Function 17 enables a new auto zoom feature that displays a zoomed image onscreen for quick focus checks.

Another feature deserving comment is the 30D's separation of the autoexposure and autofocus lock functions. In consumer-level digicams, half-pressing the Shutter button locks exposure and focus simultaneously. You can use this to deal with an off-center subject by pointing the camera at the subject, locking exposure and focus, and then reframing the picture before finally snapping the shutter. The only problem is that you sometimes need to perform a more radical recomposition of the subject in order to determine the proper exposure. For instance, you may want to zoom in on the subject, grab an exposure setting, and then zoom back out before taking the picture. Situations like that require locking the exposure independently of the focusing, and the 30D provides for just such eventualities by way of a separate AE lock button on the back of the camera, right under your right thumb. (The "*" button.) A very handy feature indeed, for those times you need it.

If you press the AE lock while in Evaluative metering mode and use Automatic AF point selection, Auto exposure will be set based on the AF points that are chosen by the system. Likewise, if you are using Manual AF point selection, that selected point is also used for exposure.

While on the subject of what happens when you half-press the shutter button, the 30D has another new enhancement that appears on the 1D-series and 5D. You no longer need to release the shutter from the halfway position to capture another image when in One Shot drive mode. Just release partway and press the shutter again. The camera will continue to use the same exposure and focus information until you release the shutter fully.

The EOS 30D offers a full range of White Balance settings, including six presets, an Auto setting, Custom setting, and Kelvin temperature setting. The six presets include Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Flash. The Custom setting bases color balance on a previous exposure, meaning you can snap an image of a gray card and base the color temperature on that image. This setting can range from 2,000 to 10,000. The Kelvin temperature setting lets you get even more specific, and offers a range of temperatures from 2,800 to 10,000 degrees Kelvin.

Color Space can be set at sRGB to Adobe RGB. The latter offers a wider gamut of colors, but your computer program needs to be properly set to take advantage of this wider range.

The EOS 30D offers a new Picture Style menu to replace the older Parameters option. The new setup makes each "Style's" settings more obvious. You can go in and change any of the settings by pressing the JUMP button, but the setting that's been changed will appear as blue rather than white text. Each of the settings--Sharpness, Contrast, Saturation, and Tone--can be set with higher resolution than was offered on the 20D. While the 20D offered a total of five settings for each item, the 30D's Picture Style offers seven for Sharpness and nine for Contrast, Saturation, and Tone. Styles include Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, Monochrome, and User Defined 1, 2, and 3. You can either directly modify the User Defined styles, or modify an existing Style and save it to a User Defined space. In the Monochrome Style, you can choose from an array of filters and tones to modify your monochrome output. Filters include Yellow, Orange, Red, and Green. Tones include Sepia, Blue, Purple, and Green.

One of the 30D's more unique features is its two-dimensional White Balance Shift/Bracket control. Conventional white balance "tweak" adjustments are generally limited to adding blue or red, or perhaps just shifting a color temperature setting that's calibrated in units of degrees Kelvin. The problem is that controls of this sort treat color as if were a one-dimensional entity, when it's really three-dimensional in nature. I've often been frustrated when trying to adjust a camera's color balance, for instance wanting to shift it toward green, when the camera offers options of only blue or red.

On the 30D, Canon offers a two dimensional adjustment for tweaking white balance, as shown above right. The current color balance is represented by a white cursor floating in a grid representing color space. Moving the cursor up or down results in a shift toward green or magenta respectively, while moving it left or right produces a shift toward yellow or blue. Each adjustment step in the yellow/blue direction corresponds to five mireds worth of color conversion filter, and green/magenta steps are of a similar magnitude, although the green/magenta axis doesn't translate to the color-temperature shift units of mireds.

At first glance, you'd think that a two-dimensional color adjustment tool still wouldn't cover a three-dimensional color space, Canon's approach actually does just that. To understand the control, it's important to remember that color (hue and saturation, as opposed to brightness) in an RGB image is determined by the relative amounts of red, green, and blue present, not necessarily by the absolute values of each color channel. The 30D's color shift display lets you control the green channel with either positive (green) or negative (magenta) adjustments, and the blue channel with either positive (blue) or negative (yellow) adjustments. By adjusting two of the three color channels up or down, the relative amounts of all three channels can be controlled. I suspect that the actual operation on the file is more complex than we've been discussing, but one way of looking at it would be to consider the red channel to be fixed and the blue and green channels to be adjustable against the constant red level. Canon's color adjustment tool thus lets you dial in any white balance shift you'd like to make, even though it's only a two-axis control.

The Bracketing aspect of the White Balance/Bracketing control comes into play when you turn the Quick Control Dial right. This expands the single cursor dot into a horizontal row of three dots, with slightly variable spacing. These represent the successive color values that will be used for a set of three shots that bracket the white balance. You can thus set whatever basic color balance you want, and then bracket with more or less red, or more or less blue, depending on where you are in the color space. Not enough? Turning the quick dial back left switches the set of three dots from a horizontal to a vertical array, letting you bracket with more or less green/magenta, rather than red or blue.

About the only possible remaining option would be the ability to rotate the set of three dots to arbitrary angles, but I guess the Canon engineers had to stop somewhere. Regardless, the EOS 30D's white balance adjustment control goes far beyond anything we've seen on any non-Canon digital cameras, regardless of price point. (The same color control first appeared on the Canon EOS 20D and is also found on the new EOS 5D.)

Low Light Capability & Image Noise Performance
When operating the camera in full-manual exposure mode, the EOS 30D offers a Bulb exposure setting for very long exposures. Normally, exposure times are limited to a maximum of 30 seconds in Aperture- or Shutter-Priority modes, but in Manual mode, you can expose for as long as 999 seconds by selecting Bulb mode and holding down the Shutter button for as long as you want the shutter to remain open. Obviously, 999-second exposures aren't a practical reality, as sensor noise will totally swamp the signal long before that point is reached, but the 30D does seem quite able to take very long exposures with very little image noise resulting.

A full discussion of image sensor noise is beyond the scope of this review, but the simple story is that the most obvious and objectionable noise you'll see in long digicam exposures is so-called "fixed pattern" noise, caused by variations in "dark current" between sensor pixels. "Dark current" is just what it sounds like. Current (a signal) appears even when the sensor isn't being exposed to light. When you look at a long time exposure shot with a digital camera, you'll often see very bright pixels, where minor manufacturing defects have resulted in unusually high "dark current" levels. Often called "hot pixels," these flecks of color are very distracting visually.

The normal way to deal with hot pixels is to take an exposure with the camera's shutter closed, immediately after shooting the subject. If this "dark frame" is exposed for the same time as the subject was, you can largely eliminate the hot pixel problem by subtracting the dark frame information from the actual exposure. In practice, this works fairly well, but has the disadvantage that you have to wait for the dark frame exposure to be taken, requiring an appreciable amount of time in the case of long time exposures. (If you shot a one-minute exposure for the photo itself, you'll have to wait another minute for the dark frame exposure to be made.)

While most other high-end digicams on the market use a dark frame subtraction method to deal with image noise, previous d-SLRs using Canon's CMOS sensor technology apparently did something quite different, as there was very little delay between the end of the primary exposure and the writing of the image file to the memory card. There was clearly no "dark frame" exposure involved. I suspect that this advanced noise reduction processing was another consequence of the "active pixel" CMOS technology Canon developed internally. Having active circuitry associated with each pixel in the sensor array allows lots of fancy processing that would be impossible otherwise, and it looks like Canon's noise reduction system takes advantage of this.

In the EOS-30D though, while apparently still using the sophisticated on-chip noise reduction processing we saw in the 10D and the conventional dark-frame subtraction we saw in the 20D, Canon has added an Auto option as well. Accessed via Custom Function 02, the "Long exposure noise reduction" seems to operate just the same as dark-frame subtraction on other cameras we've seen. The new Auto mode allows the camera to decide whether the scene and the accompanying noise needs dark frame subtraction applied. Both Auto and On do their work only on shutter speeds of 1 second or longer.

Flash

The EOS 30D's built-in flash has a guide number rating of 43 feet (13 meters) at ISO 100, translating to a range of about 15 feet at ISO 100 with an f/2.8 lens. (Reasonably powerful, but not dramatically so.) The 30D gives you a great deal of control over flash exposure, allowing you to adjust flash and ambient exposure independently of each other, in one-half or one-third EV increments. This makes it very easy to balance flash and ambient lighting for more natural-looking pictures. The 30D also uses E-TTL II control for both the built-in and compatible external flashes (according to Canon this includes the older 550EX flash, as well as the current 580EX), a new standard that promises better, more balanced exposures. Custom Function 14 turns this mode off and returns to an average metering system. E-TTL II is only available with the built-in flash or when the camera is paired with either the 550EX or the new 580EX flash.

Another nice touch is the Flash Exposure Lock button, which fires the flash under manual control before the actual exposure, to determine the proper exposure setting. This struck me as very handy, akin to the more conventional autoexposure lock function for handling difficult ambient lighting conditions. A Flash Exposure Compensation feature controls the flash exposure +/- 2 stops in 1/2 or 1/3-stop increments.

Several of the more impressive features of the Canon flash system depend on the dedicated 550EX or 580EX speedlight. Among these are true FP (focal plane) flash sync, flash exposure bracketing with external flash units, flash modeling, and E-TTL II exposure control. FP sync requires a flash unit to provide uniform light output for a relatively long period of time, long enough for the focal plane shutter curtain to fully traverse the sensor plane. On the 30D, this requires a flash duration of 1/250-second. Uniform, long-duration flash pulses like this permit use of shutter speeds as high as the 1/8,000-second maximum that the 30D is capable of. This can be invaluable when you want to exclude ambient light from the exposure. (FP sync mode is referred to as "high speed" mode on the Canon 550 and 580 flash units.)

Here's the rundown on Canon Speedlights and their compatibility with the 30D:

You'll note the references to "E-TTL remote" capabilities in the table above. Canon's Speedlight system permits TTL flash metering with multiple remote units, and even allows you to set differential power ratios between the slaved units, over a six-stop flash exposure range.

The "Flash Modeling" feature of the 550/580EX speedlights is quite useful. With a F550/580EX connected to the 30D, pressing the camera's Depth of Field Preview button causes the speedlight to fire at 70 flashes per second for about one second. This creates the illusion of a constant light source for your eyes, letting you preview the lighting on your subject when the flash fires. VERY handy, and likely to save lots of shoot/check/reshoot time!

As alluded to above, the "X-sync" speed of the 30D is 1/250-second. (This is the maximum shutter speed that can be used on the 30D when working with a non-dedicated, FP-capable speedlight.) When used with higher-powered studio strobe systems, Canon recommends a maximum shutter speed of 1/125-second or slower, to accommodate the variable time/intensity profile of such units. Finally, via a Custom menu setting, you can program the 30D to use a shutter speed of 1/250-second in Aperture-Priority exposure mode regardless of ambient light levels. (I guess this is useful, if you know you're going to be hopping in and out of flash mode, but other than a convenient preset for the shutter speed, it's little different from simply using Manual mode to set both shutter speed and aperture simultaneously.)

Another benefit of the dedicated Canon speedlights is that they carry powerful autofocus assist illuminators that can extend the range of the built-in AF assist light of the 30D significantly. As an example, the AF assist beam on the 550EX is rated as good to about 50 feet, versus the roughly 13 feet of the lamp on the 30D itself. (Note that the ST-E2 wireless sync transmitter can also be used for AF assist during non-flash photography, a handy trick.)

20D with E-TTL II

Digital Rebel without E-TTL II

Two Continuous Shooting Modes and a Self-Timer
Among digital SLRs currently on the market, the 30D is above average in terms of shooting speed, very competitive with units it'll be stacked up against in the marketplace. The Continuous Shooting mode is rated by Canon at five frames per second, a number that matched exactly the 5.0 frames/second that I measured in my own tests. This actually exceeds the ability of most d-SLRs, which typically come in at about 3.0 frames per second, but it's nonetheless slower than the blazing 8.5 frames per second of Canon's own EOS-1D Mark II. Professional sports shooters will doubtless want more (they being a primary target of the 1D Mark II), but for most situations, I expect that the five frames per second of the 30D will be plenty fast enough. The 30D also has an unusually "deep" buffer, as it's able to capture up to 31 large/fine JPEG images or 12 RAW or 9 RAW+JPEG ones before having to pause for the memory card to catch up. The 30D also has a new 3.0 frame per second mode for those shooters who want greater buffer depth despite the loss of speed. The 30D also seems well-able to take advantage of fast memory cards, as its buffer-clear time is only 19 seconds with a Kingston 100x 2GB CF card, and only 12 seconds with a SanDisk Extreme III 1GB (Large, Fine JPEG). The maximum burst in RAW mode is 11 frames, with a 17 second time to clear with the Kingston card.

The camera's Drive setting also accesses a Self-Timer mode, which opens the shutter 10 seconds after the Shutter button is pressed, giving you time to dash around in front of the camera.

Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests

When you press the shutter release on a camera, there's usually a lag time or delay before the shutter actually fires. This corresponds to the time required for the autofocus and autoexposure mechanisms time to do their work, and can amount to a fairly long delay in some situations. Since this number is rarely reported on (and even more rarely reported accurately), and can significantly affect the picture taking experience, I routinely measure both shutter delay and shot to shot cycle times for all cameras I test, using a test system I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the Canon EOS 30D.

Without a doubt, the EOS 30D is an impressively fast and responsive camera. Cycle times are very impressive, whether in single-shot or continuous mode. A nice tweak is the mode found on the EOS-1 series, that lets you shoot faster in single-shot mode if you only half-release the shutter button between shots. Buffer capacity for JPEG images is excellent: Using a low-compressibility color-noise image as the subject, we consistently shot 28 large/fine JPEGs (depending on subject detail) before having to wait for the card to catch up; and at about a second per image, post-buffer-fill cycle time was excellent as well. Shooting in RAW mode cut the buffer capacity to 10 frames, regardless of the subject matter, and slowed both the post-buffer-fill cycle time and buffer recovery rate as well. - But the cycle time for those first 10 frames is still very good, and you don't have to wait for the buffer to clear entirely before shooting another series.

From a practical standpoint, while the 30D doesn't approach the speed of the 1D Mark II N, the combination of 5 frames/second and a JPEG buffer depth of 28 frames (or 9 frames for RAW+JPEG shooters) makes a huge impact on the sense of speed and responsiveness we felt with the camera, compared to the lower-end Rebel XT. I'm sure that sports shooters and some fashion photographers will still lust for the speed and buffer depth of the 1D Mark II N, but for the vast majority of photographers, the performance of the 30D will more than suffice. Big kudos to Canon, on the performance score!

Operation & User Interface

The 30D's user interface is very similar to that of a traditional 35mm SLR film camera, and very similar to that on the EOS-20D. Current users of Canon EOS SLRs should immediately feel at home. The large monitor does make menu navigation quite a bit more comfortable than on the 20D. I really appreciated the fact that the basic exposure controls are adjustable through the external camera control buttons and dials, greatly reducing your dependence on the rear-panel LCD menu system. The ability to program the Set button for quick changes of menu items such as image review, image quality, and parameters even further reduces reliance on the LCD menu. When you do venture into the menu system, all of the camera's playback and setup options are available in all shooting modes, now in a scrolling mode that is almost identical to the "single menu" design of the original D30. I found the 30D's user interface straightforward and efficient.


Power Switch: Located below the lower right corner of the LCD monitor, this switch turns the camera on or off; switching it to its third position activates the Quick Dial for more functions than just navigating the menu.


Mode Dial: Positioned on the left side of the camera's top panel, this dial sets the exposure mode. Exposure modes are divided into three zones (of which two overlap), the Image, Basic, and Creative zones. The Image Zone encompasses the Flash Off, Night Portrait, Sports, Close-Up (Macro), Landscape, and Portrait exposure modes. The Basic Zone includes all of the previously mentioned exposure modes, plus the Full Automatic exposure mode. Finally, the Creative Zone refers to the Program AE, Shutter Speed Priority AE, Aperture Priority AE, Manual, and Auto Depth of Field Priority AE exposure modes.


Shutter Button: Located on top of the right hand grip, this button fires the shutter when fully pressed, and sets focus and exposure when halfway pressed in Automatic exposure mode. Halfway pressing this button also puts the camera into an "active" mode, which allows the rear-panel quick control dial to adjust exposure compensation. (You don't need to keep the shutter button half-pressed while working the quick control dial, but you do need to have pressed it within the preceding six seconds.) Pressing the shutter button in any state other than direct printing (for example, when in a menu or reviewing an image) will return the camera almost immediately to readiness for image capture.


Lens Release Button: Located on the front of the camera this rectangular button located just to the left of the lens mount (as viewed from the back) unlocks the lens from the mount when pressed. The lens can then be removed by rotating it about 45 degrees right to disengage the bayonet mounting flanges.


Flash Button: Located on the left side of the prism housing, above the lens release button and just below the popup flash compartment, this button releases the popup flash into its operating position when the camera is on. (The popup flash cannot be raised when the camera is turned off.) With the exception of the landscape, sports and no flash modes, the flash will also pop itself up automatically if the camera determines it is needed in any of the Basic Zone modes.


Depth of Field Preview Button: Positioned on the side of the lens mount housing, just beneath the lens release button, this button lets you preview the depth of field by stopping down the lens aperture to the current setting in any of the Creative Zone exposure modes. (Like most modern SLRs, the 30D normally focuses and meters with the lens wide open, stopping down to the selected aperture just as the picture is being taken.) When an external flash is connected, this button also fires a rapid series of flashes for one second, so that you can check shadows, light balance, and other effects, allowing the flash to be used as a modeling light. (This feature requires use of a Canon dedicated speedlight that supports this capability, such as the model 550EX, or the new 580EX.)


Main Dial: Resting on top of the camera on the right side (as viewed from the back), this ridged wheel adjusts some of the camera's basic settings in any of the Creative Zone exposure modes. (That is, in non-programmed exposure modes such as Aperture- or Shutter-Priority and full Manual mode.) When used in conjunction with the appropriate control buttons on the camera's top, the Main dial also controls the autofocus mode, metering mode or drive mode. In Aperture-Priority and Shutter-Priority modes, this dial sets the lens aperture or shutter speed. In Manual mode, the dial sets the shutter speed.


Metering Mode / Flash Exposure Compensation Button: Just off from the top right corner of the small LCD display panel on top of the camera is the shiny black Metering Mode / Flash Exposure Compensation Button. Pressing this button while rotating the Quick Control Dial sets the flash exposure compensation from -2 to +2 in one-third EV increments, for both the built-in flash and any Speedlight EX external flash unit. (Flash exposure compensation cannot be used in any of the "Easy Shooting" modes.) Through the Custom Function menu, you can change the flash exposure compensation adjustment step size to one-half EV increments. Pressing this button while turning the Main dial cycles between the three metering modes: Evaluative, Spot, and Center-Weighted Averaging.


Drive / ISO Speed Button: Located to the left of the Metering Mode / Flash Exposure Compensation button, this button controls the camera's drive mode when pressed while turning the Main dial, cycling through Single Shooting, Continuous Shooting, and Self-Timer drive modes. When pressed while turning the Quick Control dial, this adjusts the ISO setting to 100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1,000, 1,250, 1,600, and H (3,200) equivalents. The H option is only available when Custom Function 08 is set to On.


AF Mode / White Balance Button: To the left of the Drive / ISO button, this button controls the autofocus and white balance modes. Pressing the button while turning the Main dial sets the autofocus mode to One Shot, AI Focus, or AI Servo. (One Shot is for still subjects, while AI Servo is better for moving subjects, since it causes the camera to focus continuously. AI Focus automatically switches between the two modes.) Pressing this button while turning the Quick Control dial sets the white balance to Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy / Twilight / Sunset, Tungsten, White Fluorescent, Flash, Custom (manual), or Kelvin mode, to match a variety of light sources. The Kelvin temperature setting is adjusted through the settings menu, with values from 2,800 to 10,000 Kelvin in 100K increments. Both functions are only available in the Creative Shooting Zone.

LCD Illuminator Button: Diagonally up and to the left of the AF Mode / White Balance button, this button illuminates the status display window with an orange backlight for six seconds.


Diopter Adjustment Dial: Located outside the top right corner of the viewfinder eyepiece, this dial adjusts the optical viewfinder's focus to accommodate eyeglass wearers, across an unusually wide range of -3 to +1 diopter. If this much adjustment isn't enough, one of Canon's ten different optional dioptric adjustment lenses can be purchased


Menu Button: Topping a column of buttons along the left side of the LCD monitor, this button accesses the 30D's LCD-based operating menu in all modes. Pressing the Menu button a second time cancels the menu display.


Info Button: Just below the Menu button, this button displays the current exposure settings on the LCD screen when pressed. In Playback mode, pressing this button switches between three different formats for the playback display. The options are Single Image Display (with Basic Info), which shows the image number, shutter speed and aperture; Shooting Information, which brings up an information screen that reports the detailed exposure settings that the picture was taken with, and also displays a small histogram which shows the number of pixels having each possible brightness value; and Single Image Display (no Shooting Info) which shows just the image with no overlay. The Info button works regardless of whether you are viewing a single image, multi-image index display, or are using the playback zoom.


Jump Button: Directly below the Info button, this button allows you to jump 10 frames forward or backward when viewing images in Playback mode. Once pressed, a jump bar appears in the LCD screen, and jumping is controlled by turning the Quick Control Dial forwards or backwards. The Jump button also jumps to the next group in the menu, indicated by color codes on the right side of the display.


Play Button: The final button on the left side of the back panel, this button puts the camera into Playback mode, regardless of the Mode dial setting. (Turning the Quick Control dial in this mode scrolls rapidly through captured images.) Playback mode can be canceled by hitting the Play button again, or by touching the Shutter button. (The 30D is a "shooting priority" camera. It's always ready to shoot a picture, regardless of its current mode. Simply pressing the Shutter button returns it immediately to capture mode.)


Erase Button: Resting beneath the lower right corner of the LCD monitor, this button accesses the Erase menu, which allows you to erase the current image or all images on the card (except for protected ones). There is also an option to cancel. The Erase function works in Playback mode and the quick review mode only.


Quick Control Dial: To the right of the LCD monitor on the camera's back panel, this dial selects various camera settings and menu options when turned while pressing a control button or while in an LCD menu screen. When shooting in the Creative Zone (except for Manual exposure mode), turning the dial while halfway pressing the Shutter button sets the exposure compensation (from -2 to +2 in one-third or one-half EV increments). In Playback mode, this dial scrolls through captured images on the CompactFlash card. It also navigates the index display and scrolls around within an enlarged image. In Manual mode, the dial sets the aperture.

Set Button: Located in the center of the Quick Control dial, this button confirms menu selections and camera settings when using the LCD menu system. Through the Custom Function menu, this button can be programmed to control the image quality, parameters, or image playback in conjunction with the Quick Control dial. (The default is for it to have no function in record mode.)

Multi-Controller: Located directly above the Quick Control Dial, this innovative joystick makes for a more intuitive way to select items like which autofocus point to use. The joystick can be moved eight ways, or pressed in centrally, and is used to control AF Point selection and white balance correction, as well as to pan around images when the playback zoom is in use, and to select the area to be trimmed when printing directly from the camera. It also comes into play when using the new White Balance Compensation feature.


AE / FE Button: In the top right corner of the rear panel and marked with an asterisk, this button locks the exposure until the Shutter button is pressed. When pressed while the flash is activated, this button locks the flash exposure, which signals the camera to fire a small pre-flash to measure the exposure before locking it. (This decoupling of exposure lock from autofocusing is a very useful "pro" feature seldom seen on lower-end cameras.) Through the Custom menu, you can program this button to lock exposure and focus together, or only one of the variables.

AF Point Selector Button: Just beside the AE / FE button, this button allows you to choose the focus area manually or automatically in Program AE, Shutter-Priority AE, Aperture-Priority AE, or Manual Exposure modes. Pressing the button and using the Multi-Controller allows you to select either an automatic setting (by moving the Multi-Controller to the position of the currently selected AF point), or your choice of nine manually-selected focus areas (up, up/left, left, down/left, down, down/right, right, up/right, or the center point - which is selected by pushing inwards on the Multi-Controller). The automatic setting selects the active focus point(s) based on the position of the subject within the frame, and its proximity to the nine focusing points (shown as nine small boxes arranged in a diamond pattern in the viewfinder). Whenever you press this button, your current choice of focusing area is reflected in the top-panel LCD data readout by the position of a dash (or series of dashes) in the LCD data readout.

Camera Modes and Menus

Flash Off Mode: The first mode in the Easy Shooting Zone, Flash Off mode disables both the internal flash unit and any external flash unit connected. Focus is set to AI Focus mode, drive mode is set to Single, and metering is set to Evaluative. The camera controls ISO and Auto white balance as well.


Night Scene Mode: This mode is for taking pictures of people at sunset or at night. The autofocus mode is automatically set to One Shot. Drive mode is set to Single Shot, and metering mode is set to Evaluative. Since slower shutter speeds will be used, a tripod is recommended to prevent movement from the camera. The built-in flash is automatically enabled and synched with the slower shutter speed, so subjects need to remain still after the flash fires to avoid ghostlike afterimages. ISO is automatically adjusted by the camera. (For night exposures without the flash, Canon recommends shooting in Landscape mode.)


Sports Mode: This mode uses a faster shutter speed to capture fast-moving subjects. The autofocus mode is automatically set to AI Servo. Drive mode is set to Continuous Shooting, ISO is set to Auto, and metering mode is set to Evaluative. The onboard flash isn't available in this mode (since it can't cycle fast enough to keep up with the continuous exposure mode).


Close-up Mode (Macro Mode): Turning the Mode dial to the macro flower symbol sets the camera for capturing smaller subjects such as flowers, jewelry, and other small details. The autofocus mode is automatically adjusted to One Shot, the drive mode is set to Single Shot, and the metering mode is set to Evaluative. ISO is set to Auto. Close-up mode takes advantage of the current lens' minimum focal distance. However, an EOS dedicated macro lens and the Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX are recommended for better close-up photography. (Unlike the macro mode on most consumer digicams, Macro mode on the 30D has no effect on lens focusing range, as that parameter is entirely determined by the lens being used.)


Landscape Mode: Landscape mode combines slower shutter speeds with smaller aperture settings to increase the depth of field when shooting broad vistas and sweeping landscapes. This mode is also good for night scenes without people in them. The built-in flash is automatically disabled, even if it's already raised. Because this mode uses slower shutter speeds, a tripod may be needed. Metering is again set to Evaluative and ISO to Auto.


Portrait Mode: This mode uses a large aperture setting to decrease the depth of field, which blurs the background to emphasize the subject. ISO is set to Auto, metering to Evaluative, and AF mode to One Shot.

Full Automatic Mode: The final mode in the Easy Shooting Zone, Full Automatic is indicated on the Mode dial by a green rectangular outline. In this mode, the camera makes all exposure decisions with the exception of image quality. Autofocus mode is set to AI Focus. (AI Focus evaluates subject movement, automatically sets either one-shot AF or AI Servo AF automatically.) Drive mode is set to Single Shot, and the metering mode is set to Evaluative.


Program AE: This is the first mode in the Creative Zone of the Mode Dial. Program AE works similarly to the Full Automatic exposure mode, but allows more control over the exposure variables. Aperture and shutter speed are automatically selected by the camera, but you can bias the exposure to larger or smaller apertures by turning the Main control dial, which will change the combination of aperture and shutter speed so as to maintain the same exposure value, but with a different choice of aperture/shutter speed. Turning the Quick Control dial in this mode adjusts the exposure compensation setting, to increase or decrease overall exposure.


Shutter-Priority AE: This mode allows you to manually set the shutter speed anywhere from 1/8,000 to 30 seconds, while the camera chooses the best corresponding aperture setting. You have control over all other exposure variables, including exposure compensation.


Aperture-Priority AE: The opposite of Shutter-Priority mode, Aperture-Priority AE allows you to set the lens aperture (with available ranges depending on the lens in use), while the camera selects the most appropriate shutter speed. Again, you have control over all other exposure variables, including exposure compensation.


Manual Exposure: This mode provides the same range of exposure control as the other Creative Zone exposure modes (except for exposure compensation), but lets you control both shutter speed and lens aperture independently. The shutter speed range is extended to include a Bulb setting. Displays in both the viewfinder and the top LCD panel report whether the camera thinks your settings will result in under, over, or correctly exposed photos.


Automatic Depth of Field AE: This is the final mode in the Creative Zone, and is meant for taking pictures of large groups of people, landscapes with foreground detail, or any subject with elements of interest at varying distances from the camera. This mode puts the camera in control of both the shutter speed and aperture values, but you can adjust the other exposure variables. (This mode cannot be used if the lens focus mode is set to manual.) When shooting in Automatic Depth of Field AE, the camera sets both the exposure and focus distance to achieve a sharp focus over a wide depth of field. It uses the autofocus system to measure the distance to the subjects covered by each of the three autofocus zones, and then attempts to set the focusing distance and lens aperture so as to render all three subject areas in sharp focus.

Playback Mode: This mode is entered by pressing the Play button on the back panel. Playback mode lets you erase images, protect them, or set them up for printing on DPOF/PictBridge compatible devices. You can also view images in an index display, enlarge images to 10x, view a slide show of all captured images, or rotate an image. The Info button activates an information display, which reports the exposure settings for the image and graphs the exposure values on a small histogram.

Operating Menu: This menu is available in all of the camera modes, though a few of the capture-related options are only available in the Creative Zone. Pressing the Menu button calls up the Operating menu.

• Quality: Sets the image size and the compression ratio. Options are Large/Fine (3,504 x 2,336 pixels), Large/Normal (3,504 x 2,336 pixels), Medium/Fine (2,544 x 1,696 pixels), Medium/Normal (2,544 x 1,696 pixels), Small/Fine (1,728 x 1,152 pixels), Small/Normal (1,728 x 1,152 pixels), RAW (3,504 x 2,336 pixels, with lossless compression by itself) and RAW plus each of the above (the camera saves a RAW image, plus of the above sizes of JPEG compressed format files).
• Red Eye On/Off: Turns the Red Eye Reduction lamp mode on or off (when on, the Red Eye reduction lamp lights before every flash exposure, and a countdown timer displays in the viewfinder).
• Beep: Turns the camera's beep sounds on or off.
• Shoot w/o card: Allows firing of the shutter without a CF card in the camera.
• AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing): Sets the bracketing range for Auto Exposure Bracketing in increments of 1/3 or 1/2 EV from -2 to +2 EV (Creative Zone only).
  
• WB SHIFT/BKT (White Balance Shift/Bracketing): Adjusts the white balance bracketing series, in arbitrary units from -3 to +3 in full-stop increments, also allows sophisticated biasing between Green/Magenta and Blue Amber.
• Custom WB: Lets you manually establish the white value by referencing a shot of a white card (Creative Zone only). (This mode on the 30D is a little different from the implementation used by other camera makers, in that it makes use of a previously-shot image of a white card, allowing you to store several white-point references on the camera's memory card and switch between them. It also allows a white reference to be shared between multiple photographers shooting the same event, simply by putting the same white reference image on each of their memory cards. Very handy!)
• Color Temp.: Sets the color temperature in degrees Kelvin for the Kelvin white balance option. Choices range from 2,800 to 10,000 Kelvin in 100-Kelvin degree increments.
• Color Space: Switches between sRGB and Adobe RGB capture. This is a nice addition, because it allows the user to still modify parameters.
  
• Picture Style: Lets you reference any of up to nine sets of image-processing parameters that you can set on the camera. These parameters can affect sharpness, contrast, color saturation, and color tone adjustments in the same way that the Canon's RAW Image Converter software does when processing RAW format images. Available modes are Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, Monochrome, and three User Defined 1, 2, and 3.


• Protect: Protects the currently displayed image against accidental deletion, apart from card formatting.
• Rotate: Rotates the currently displayed image 90 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise.
• Print Order: Allows you to set up images for printing on any DPOF compatible device. Print options include setting the number of prints, and whether or not the date and/or file number is printed as well.
• Transfer Order: Sets images to be transferred to a computer.
• Auto Play: Automatically plays captured images in sequential order as a slide show.
• Review Time: When the Review function is set to On or On (Info), this setting controls the amount of time that images are displayed in the review, with options of two, four, or eight seconds, or Hold (which displays the image until the Set button is pressed, or the Shutter button is halfway pressed).
• AF Points: Selects whether the AF point selected at exposure is indicated when the image is displayed in Playback mode.
• Histogram: Selects between a Brightness histogram or an RGB histogram for display in the "Info" screen in Playback mode.
  
  
  
• Auto Power Off: Sets power down time to between 1 and 30 minutes or to Off for no automatic shutoff.
• Auto Rotate: Enhanced feature has three options: Off, Rotate image on the camera and the computer, and Rotate image on the computer only. (Rotating the image on the camera makes poor use of the full rectangular screen, so this is an excellent option).
• LCD Brightness: Adjusts the LCD brightness in five steps.
• Date/Time: Sets the camera's internal date and time.
• File Numbering: Extends consecutive file numbering between media cards or resets numbering with each new card.
  
• Language: Sets the menu language to one of 15 languages.
• Video System: Selects either NTSC or PAL video timing formats
• Communication: Sets camera to work with a computer or printer (Print/PC) or with the WFT-E1 WiFi transmitter.
• Format: Reformats the CompactFlash card, which erases all files (even protected ones).
  
• Custom Functions: Sets a variety of custom camera functions for individual camera users.
• Clear Settings: Resets all custom settings to their defaults.
• Sensor Clean: Locks up the mirror and opens the shutter, allowing you to clean the sensor of any dust.
• Firmware Ver.: Reports the camera's current firmware and allows user to update.

Image Storage and Interface

The EOS 30D utilizes CompactFlash (Type I and II) memory cards as its image storage medium, which should never be removed from the camera while in use. (Removing a card while the camera is still writing to it, and that includes opening the card cover door, could cause permanent damage to the card.) The EOS 30D does not ship with a memory card, so you'll want to purchase a large capacity card right away. I'd recommend picking up at least a 512MB card for starters, given the EOS 30D's large, 3,504 x 2,336-pixel maximum resolution. The table below shows card capacities and approximate compression ratios for the various file sizes and types, based on a 512MB memory card. Like the 20D before it, the 30D is fully compatible with IBM MicroDrives and other Type II CompactFlash devices.

The EOS-30D supports the FAT32 directory structure. (FAT stands for File Allocation Table, and FAT32 indicates that these newer cards use a 32-bit File Allocation Table. In general, digicams made before 2003 supported only FAT 16.) The larger address space provided by FAT32 is necessary for managing high-capacity memory cards of 2GB or greater capacity. This hasn't been an issue until now, but current CF cards with capacities as high as 8 GB require FAT32 support to use them.

The RAW mode listed above deserves some explanation. This is a format that records all the data from the sensor, exactly as it comes from the A/D conversion process. It is lossless compression, meaning that the file is reduced to a smaller size, but without losing any data in the process. It thus preserves all the original data from the sensor, but is nevertheless much more compact than an equivalent TIFF file. Depending on the subject content, RAW files will compress more or less. In our use of the camera, we saw compression ratios ranging from 1.8:1 to 5:1. Most images will likely come out around 2:1, for a file size of a bit more than 12 MB.

Download Speed

The Canon EOS 30D connects to a host computer via a USB interface. Downloading files to my Sony desktop running Windows XP (Pentium IV, 2.4 GHz), I clocked it at 1266 KBytes/second. (Cameras with slow USB interfaces run as low as 300 KB/s, cameras with fast v1.1 interfaces run as high as 600 KB/s. Cameras with USB v2.0 interfaces run as fast as several megabytes/second.) Downloads via Windows Image Assistant (WIA) were fairly fast, but it's important to note that WIA only recognizes JPEG files, and so can't be used for transferring RAW images. As fast as WIA seemed to be, transfers through Canon's own Image Viewer utility were much faster, at 2,190 KB/second. This is very fast, even among cameras with USB v2.0 interfaces.

Video Out

A video cable comes packaged with the 30D, allowing you to connect the camera to your television set for image playback. The video signal can be switched between NTSC and PAL via a menu preference. All menus, etc. appear on the external video monitor, but do note that it won't work as a viewfinder for the same reason that the rear-panel LCD won't. (The SLR optics mean that the sensor is only exposed to light when the shutter is open.)

Power

The EOS 30D uses the same BP-511A battery first introduced with the Canon PowerShot Pro1, and now appearing as standard in many of Canon's cameras. These are compatible with older chargers and cameras, they're just of higher capacity. The BP-511A battery pack provides 1390 mAh at 7.4 volts. A separate charger comes in the box with the 30D. The US version works much like many of the recent ELPH chargers, with two flip-out prongs that plug directly into the wall. You'll need to purchase the AC adapter kit ACK-E2 if you need to run the camera from AC power.

Because it lacks an external power terminal, I couldn't perform my usual direct measurements of power consumption on the EOS-30D. I can attest to its excellent battery life though, as I should shoot literally for days without exhausting a fully-charged battery. Canon rates battery life at 1100 shots without the flash, or about 750 with 50% flash use, at 20 degrees C / 68 degrees F, which certainly seem like reasonable ratings given my personal experience with the camera. Both numbers are significantly higher than those claimed for the 20D.

Of course, regardless of how good a camera's battery life is, there's rarely an excuse to not purchase at least one extra battery to bring along as a hot spare. Plan on buying a second battery along with your 30D, it'll save you a world of grief later on when the battery that you were sure was full of juice runs out of gas in the middle of an important shoot.

Included Software

The 30D ships with a pretty complete complement of software on both Mac and Windows platforms, including Canon's EOS DIGITAL Solution Disk, and a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements(tm). The EOS DIGITAL Solution Disk enables image downloading and management, as well as the necessary tools to process the camera's RAW files. Adobe Photoshop Elements is a streamlined version of the larger Photoshop application, and offers creative editing tools.

In the Box

The EOS 30D comes with the following items in the box:

• Neck strap.
• Eye cup.
• BP-511A battery pack and charger.
• CR2025 lithium battery.
• Video cable.
• USB cable.
• Two software CDs.
• Instruction manuals and registration information

Test Results

We ran the Canon EOS 30D through our usual battery of tests, and have summarized our findings here. To see the full set of our test images, with explanations of what to look for in them, see the Canon EOS 30D Sample Pictures page. For a complete listing of all our test and "gallery" shots, go to the Thumbnails page.

Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the EOS 30D with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!

Lens

The Canon EOS 30D accommodates an extremely wide range of Canon lenses, so performance here will depend entirely on the lens in use. (Hence, no results reported in this section.)

Sensor

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Poor performance from the Auto white balance setting, but good color balance with the Manual and 2900K settings, and good exposure as well.

Auto White Balance +1.0 EV	Incandescent WB +1.0 EV
Manual White Balance +1.0 EV	2,900K WB +1.0 EV

The EOS 30D's Manual white balance setting responded very well to the tough incandescent lighting on this shot, but the 2900K setting was perhaps a bit truer to the warmth of the original scene. The Auto and Incandescent settings produced rather warm casts. On a Pro-oriented camera like the 30D, you'd expect the Incandescent setting to be color balanced for the 3200K of studio lights, so a warm cast there isn't too surprising. We really expect more from the Auto white balance of a camera in this price/performance range though. The EOS 30D required a +1.0 EV exposure compensation boost for the best looking exposure, which is pretty much average for this shot. Overall color looks very good here, though the blue flowers appear very dark and purplish. (A very common outcome for this shot.) Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent bulb, a pretty yellow light source, but a very common one in typical home settings here in the US.

Outdoors, daylight
Very good color balance and exposure accuracy outdoors.

Auto White Balance, Auto Exposure	Auto White Balance, Auto Exposure

The EOS 30D produced very good-looking images outdoors, even under harsh lighting conditions. Though highlights were slightly blown out, detail remained good in both highlights and shadows. Color balance was very good, with vibrant hues.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Resolution
High resolution, 1,500-1,650 lines of strong detail.

Our laboratory resolution chart revealed sharp, distinct line patterns down to about 1,500 lines per picture height vertically and 1,650 horizontally, with extinction occurring somewhere past 2,000. Use these numbers to compare with other cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can mean in terms of potential detail. Beware that while you might be able to make out what looks like distinct lines at numbers higher than those we've mentioned here, the camera is just doing its best to continue interpreting the lines. If you zoom in and follow them from the wider portions, you'll see the lines shrink and grow in width considerably, due to aliasing, eventually converging and reappearing several times, so the lines you see at 1,800 and higher are really only artifacts generated by the camera's imaging system.

Strong detail to 1,650 lines horizontal	Strong detail to 1,500 lines vertical

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Sharpness & Detail
Sharp images with strong detail.

Good definition of high-contrast elements.	Subtle detail: Hair Noise suppression tends to blur detail in areas of subtle contrast, as in the darker parts of Marti's hair here.

The EOS 30D's images are nice and sharp, only minimal over-sharpening and edge enhancement on the camera's part. (Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.) The edge profile of the 30D appears to be slightly more rounded and broader than that of the 20D, but the two are very close.

Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears. The crop at far right shows this only slightly, with darker areas of Marti's hair showing slightly limited detail, though there is still good definition in the individual strands. (The 30D does better in this respect than many cameras, particularly at higher ISO settings.)

ISO & Noise Performance
Low to moderate noise, with strong detail, even as high as ISO 800. But much higher noise with strong blurring at the highest sensitivity settings.

ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 1,600 (Sorry blurred due to subject motion)	ISO 3,200

The Canon EOS-30D produces low to moderate noise, without much interference in detail definition all the way up to ISO 800. However, at ISO 3,200, noise is much higher and the resulting images quite blurry all over, with very little visible fine detail.

Extremes: Sunlit and low light tests
Excellent detail and resolution, with strong detail in the shadows and good overall color, better than average highlight handling. Excellent low-light performance as well, capable of capturing bright images in near total darkness.

+0.3 EV	+0.7 EV	+1.0 EV

Sunlight:
Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here.)

The EOS 30D handled this challenge very well, producing only slightly high contrast (even with its contrast adjustment dialed down a couple of notches), but good detail in the highlights and shadows. I chose the +0.7 EV exposure adjustment, though you could certainly use the +0.3 EV setting and adjust the contrast and brightness a little. (In "real life" though, be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown above; it's better to shoot in the shade when possible.)

	1 fc 11 lux	1/2 fc 5.5 lux	1/4 fc 2.7 lux	1/8 fc 1.3 lux	1/16 fc 0.67 lux	1/16fc No NR
ISO 100	1.6 sec f2.8	4 sec f2.8	8 sec f2.8	13 sec f2.8	25 sec f2.8	25 sec f2.8
ISO 200	1 sec f2.8	2 sec f2.8	4 sec f2.8	6 sec f2.8	10 sec f2.8	10 sec f2.8
ISO 400	1/2 sec f2.8	1 sec f2.8	2 sec f2.8	3.2 sec f2.8	5 sec f2.8	6 sec f2.8
ISO 800	1/4 sec f2.8	1/2 sec f2.8	1 sec f2.8	1.6 sec f2.8	3.2 sec f2.8	2.5 sec f2.8
ISO 1600	1/10 sec f2.8	1/5 sec f2.8	1/2 sec f2.8	1 sec f2.8	1.6 sec f2.8	1.6 sec f2.8
ISO 3200	1/20 sec f2.8	1/8 sec f2.8	1/4 sec f2.8	1/2 sec f2.8	1/1 sec f2.8	1/1 sec f2.8

Low light:
The EOS 30D handled our low-light shooting challenge very well, with good color from the Auto white balance system, and good exposures at the lowest light level we test at. The camera's autofocus system also performed very well, able to focus on the subject down to the 1/8 foot-candle light level easily, and almost down to the 1/16 foot-candle level. The bright AF-assist light lets the camera focus on nearby objects in complete darkness. All in all, really excellent low-light capability.

Color

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Bright, appealing, hue-accurate color, very good results under a wide range of conditions.

In the diagram above, the squares show the original color, and the circles show the color that the camera captured. More saturated colors are located towards the periphery of the graph. Hue changes as you travel around the center. Thus, hue-accurate, highly saturated colors appear as lines radiating from the center.

Most consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highly saturated (more intense) than found in the original subjects. This is simply because most people like their color a bit brighter than life. In contrast, most professional SLRs tend to produce less saturated color, which is more technically accurate, but which may appear dull to consumers. The Canon EOS 30D does oversaturate color a little, particularly bright reds and blues, but the vibrant color will most likely be very appealing to many users. (The 30D's color tested out just slightly brighter overall than that of the 20D.) There is an in-camera saturation adjustment that lets you fine tune overall saturation, which seems to work quite well, the "faithful" mode producing very accurate color values. Where oversaturation is most problematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, too yellow, etc. The EOS 30D did enhance the pink in skin tones, but results were within what we consider to be an acceptable range.

The other important part of color rendition is hue accuracy. Hue is "what color" the color is. Here, the EOS 30D also performed well, though it did shift blue toward cyan to a little (a common tactic to improve sky colors), but results overall were among the most accurate of all the cameras we've tested, and very pleasing.

See full set of test images with explanations See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Our random "Gallery" shots showed very pleasing color across a wide variety of subjects.

Viewfinder

Coverage
Good accuracy from the optical viewfinder.

Optical Viewfinder

The EOS 30D's optical viewfinder showed about 95% frame accuracy, which meets Canon's specifications. This level of accuracy is quite typical of lower- and midrange digital SLRs, but we'd really like to see 100% viewfinders even on consumer cameras. (Why can't/won't camera companies do this?)

Flash

Coverage and Range
Good coverage with the built-in flash, about average positive exposure compensation required to boost exposure.

Normal Flash +1.0 EV	Slow-Sync Flash +1.0 EV

On the Indoor test, the EOS 30D's flash underexposed our subject at its default setting, requiring a +1.0 EV exposure compensation adjustment to get bright results (quite typical for this shot). Results were very similar in the Slow-Sync flash mode, and both shots had a slight warm cast from the background incandescent lighting. Still, overall color is pretty good.

8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft	12 ft	13 ft	14 ft
1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100

Flash intensity remained about the same throughout our test range, with good power all the way out to the 14 foot distance.

Output Quality

Print Quality
Excellent print quality, great color, excellent resolution. Very sharp 13x19 inch prints. ISO 3200 shots are usable at 8x10 inches, ISO 800 ones look great at 13x19.

Testing hundreds of digital cameras, we've found that you can only tell just so much about a camera's image quality by viewing its images on-screen. Ultimately, there's no substitute for printing a lot of images and examining them closely. For this reason, we now routinely print sample images from the cameras we test on our Canon i9900 studio printer, and on the Canon iP5200 here in the office. (See the Canon i9900 review for details on that model.)

There's no other word for it, the Canon 30D's images made just fantastic looking prints, with excellent detail and sharpness at 13x19 inches. As always, the acid test comes at very high ISO settings, and the 30D did very well there too. Perhaps no surprise, we found that the Canon EOS-5D (with its full-frame sensor and larger pixels relative to the overall image area) did a bit better at very high ISOs, with less-visible chroma noise. That said though, the difference between the two wasn't as great as we had been expecting to see. The EOS-30D does a great job, even when pushed to high ISOs and large output sizes.

Color was also really excellent, very bright and appealing, without looking overdone. (Except perhaps in strong reds.) The Canon EOS-30D just makes great-looking photos, by every measure.

Timing and Performance

Canon EOS 30D Timing
A fast, responsive digital SLR.

Startup/Shutdown:
Power On to first shot	~0.1 second
Shutter response (Lag Time):
Full Autofocus	0.245 second
Prefocused	0.068 second
Manual Focus	0.154 second
Cycle time (shot to shot)
Normal large/fine JPEG	0.27 seconds
Flash recycling	3 seconds
Continuous mode, High	0.20 second 5.0 frames/second (28 large/fine frames, 10 RAW files)
Continuous mode, Low	0.33 second 3.0 frames/second (36 large/fine frames, 12 RAW files)
Download speed
Windows Computer, USB 2.0	1,266 KBytes/sec

The EOS 30D's performance is very good, with a super speedy startup time and good shutter lag as well. Shot-to-shot cycle times are also very good, at 0.27-second in single-shot mode and a flash recycle time of only three seconds for full power output. (Very good, considering the range and power of the on-camera flash.) The Continuous Shooting modes are also impressive, at about five frames per second in High mode and about three frames per second in Low mode, regardless of resolution setting, with excellent buffer capacity. Download speeds are also quite good. Overall, a fast-shooting camera that should handle a wide range of subjects, from fast-paced sporting events to wiggly babies to unpredictable nature shots.

Battery and Storage Capacity

Battery
The Canon EOS 30D uses a custom rechargeable LiIon battery for power. Because it doesn't have a standard external power connector, we weren't able to conduct our usual power consumption tests on it, but our subjective experience of its battery life was very good.

Indeed, power consumption appears to be an area where Canon has made significant strides relative to the 20D, despite the 30D's much larger LCD display. Canon's own numbers for the EOS 30D indicate that you should be able to get about 1100 shots from a fully-charged battery with the flash off, or 750 shots with the flash used half of the time. Both numbers represent significant increases from the earlier EOS-20D.

Storage
No card is included with the EOS 30D, although it accepts CompactFlash memory cards.

Image Capacity with 512MB Memory Card		RAW	Fine	Fine
3,504 x 2,336	Images	47	102	203
	File Size	10.9 MB	5.0 MB	2.5 MB
2,544 x 1,696	Images	-	179	358
	File Size	-	2.9 MB	1.4 MB
1,728 x 1,152	Images	-	322	645
	File Size	-	1.6 MB	794 KB

I strongly recommend buying at least a 512 MB card, preferably a 1GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings.

Conclusion

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The length of the "Pro" list next to the "Cons" above should give you some idea of the quality and capability of the Canon EOS-30D. The exceptional nature of the Canon 30D should come as no surprise though, given that it's a refinement of an already superb digital SLR, brought up to date with a few features the market's been wanting. The camera performs well in every respect. Color is accurate, image noise very low, resolution excellent, and the camera is very responsive, both to the shutter button, and from shot to shot. The interface is well designed and straightforward; and for current EOS owners it couldn't be more familiar. Because the 30D uses the same sensor as the 20D, it manages to maintain low image noise at high-ISO, on par with its predecessor. Digital Rebel and Rebel XT owners wanting a little more control will also want to give the 30D a look. Anyone looking for the benchmark of quality in a relatively affordable D-SLR with a lens should consider the bundle, which for only $100 more than the body alone includes a versatile and decent quality 18-55mm EF-S lens. Those wanting a little more might want to look at buying the body by itself and purchasing the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, an image-stabilized lens that is versatile enough that most users will never need to change it. Just in case you didn't already guess, the Canon EOS 30D is *highly* recommended!

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