Canon EOS 20D

I have used one and it's bloody magic.

Tried out the 28-300L IS and found that pretty good too.

Don't think anyone actully has stock yet so accurate pricing is hard to come by - Amateur Photographer is the best place to find U.K. dealers.

Thanks Gavin,
Jessops have them in for £1350 inc Vat and 18-55 lense and Dabs have them on their board at £1150 inc Vat and same lense but don't have stock yet. I held the camera in Jessops. But before I part with the money i want to be sure its that big an improvement over a 10D (which is now < £800)
.....Neil

Hi,

QED has the kit system for £1084, maybe Jessops will price match for you.

http://www.qed-uk.com/?i=11k1ZD1nNmhy&vp=6&bg=265&bp=20dkitb&bi=0

Cheers John

Happened past Jessops, Preston today and they had one in the window for £1120 including the 18-55mm lens.

Chris

I have one put aside for me also at Jessops in London... they also have the Nikon D70, and I have until lunch time tomorrow to decide which I'm taking..... is the £350 differential the EOS 20D has over the D70 justifiable???

its going to be a late night of deliberation...

:(

John,
Just to say thanks very much. Jessops just price matched the QED price for the 20D. That saved me £300 and I'm now the proud owner of a 20D. I wish the battery would hurry up and charge!
Thanks again.............Neil

Hi Neil,

glad to here they price matched for you, great news, enjoy your new camera. Can't say I'm not jealous ;)

Cheers John

.... and this morning when I passed Jessops, next to the 20D at £1120 they had a 10D, without lens, for £1050! Perhpas someone should tell them.

A Jessops branch I called in while passing was selling a used lens for £595. The same lens brand new one was on sale at £475.

I asked them if they would do a deal on the used lens but they declined stating that it was in MINT condition.

Silly me, should have known better!

Gavin

meanwhile Jessops, Deansgate, Manchester want £1350 for the 20D plus lens. I guess they figure the Manchester types are richer and/or more foolish.

For all you EOS users out there I have a Canon EF100-400 IS USM lens that is now surplus to requirements. I bought it last October from Jessops for £1300 but have hardly used it. It has never been registered and has been packed in its carry case and original box for some time now waiting on me getting round to listing it on ebay. Actually, that should be re-listed as it was up once but payment never materialised.

Anyway, if anyone is interested I'm looking c£930 for it.

If its not already you may want to put this in the for sale forum...?
You should get a better response...

Its a great lens..can be had for just over £1000 now though....(New).

Not as sharp as the 70-200, but still a quality lens worthy of the 'L' badge...sharp all the way through the range.

Kind Regards

Its a great lens..can be had for just over £1000 now though....(New).

Really? Where from? Not that I dispute what you say for a moment but if they're that cheap they might have good price for other EF lenses I'm after.

Hows the legs these days?

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_4_409_40910&products_id=98418&PHPSESSID=a45b0a891c65befbba37b18ed31f50fa

Price now includes UK Vat...

As previously mentioned think this a great lens, i would be very interested myself but am seriously considering the Sigma 50-500 (£509 ebay), definately not the quality of the Canon 100-400, but cheaper and still good quality.

I have the 28-300L but now want the extra length..

If you have the spare money this lens offers long term value due to its build quality, and good optics.

Legs are ok, just waiting for new knees... will not operate yet until 'real' ones give out though....

Kind regards as always

I know B.A about still cameras, but hope for the EOS20D from father Xmas. What would be a good lens for portraits?

i have taken fairly decent portrait shots with the following kit

eos300d with it's 18-55 mm lens
plus
canon 28-90 mm lens
canon 75-300 mm lens

Cheers Gary!

Surely one of the best things about the 20D is that the 10D, which is still an excellent camera, can be bought for £799 at Park Cameras.

cheers

Steve Allen

For portraits on a DSLR try a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 you can get them on eBay for £50, they are really sharp with a nice bokeh. I've got L lenses but still keep one of these in my bag.

Reviews at http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=172&sort=7&thecat=2

On a 35mm SLR, 90mm lens is generally considered to be the ideal portrait lens. With the 1.6 multiplier required to calculate the equivalent on the 20D or 300D this become about 56mm. On that basis the maximum zoom on the 'kit' lens should do nicely.

I disagree with Keith, the kit lens doesn't have the same quality and is nowhere near as fast.

I too find that the kit lens is 'iffy' especially when you open it up. It's a cheap item and, unfortunately, it shows. On the other hand, it's convenient if you don't want to pay for real a Canon lens.

Chris

a very GOOD PORTRAIT LENS IS THE 100MM 2.8 Macro lENS.

Kind Regards

I was referring to the effective focal length of the lens as I don't have the actual lens and therefore can't comment on the quality of result.

Regarding a prime 50mm (80mm equiv) for portraiture - compared to the 50mm setting on a kit lens, it's likely to be typically two stops faster. Hence much reduced depth of field, which for some portraiture may be a big advantage, especially since for the same angle of view and aperture the smaller image size of most DSLRs acts to give more depth of field.

I got the 20D the day it was released and must say its a feature rich Camera.. the new digic2 autofocus works like a charm,its fast and deadly accurate
in burst mode it is just nuts if you have never seen this type of thing before, in jpg mode it has a quoted burst rate of 23 shots --with my sandisk 80x CF card it will shoot 40 on the trot before it crys wolf

if you dont 'get the shot' out of that lot you should take up another hobby
whats really crazy is that in busrt mode you can literally wave the camera from side to side in AI Servo mode and it incredibly gets 99% of the shot in focus.. its crazy see-ing it

the metering is also about as good as it gets exposing backlit scenes as good as you could possibly expect

enough of the Canon back slapping now
one sour note, is that there were reports springing up all over the net, that when changing Lenses the 20D would Lock up!!!!
until last saturday mine did not do this, however 5 tines in one day kind of soured things a little, so I have sent it to Canon service center for a newly released firmware upgrade that by all reports cures this hiccup (hope so)

other than that, this Camera really does bring something very special to the table

Interesting Moviemad. I have a shoot next weekend both Saturday and Sunday which very important to me, how long does it take to get the firmware uprade done and I assume this is free?

regards.............Neil

You should be able to update the firmware yourself. Here's a link to the Canon site with the firmware upgrade.

Hi Neil
You can do the firmware your self but read the 'HOW TO' carefully.. the reason I chose not to was because Canon released firmware 1.04 and it had a bug in it and it killed some Cameras.... so as you can imagine I chose the option of letting Canon do it, as well as giving the sensor a clean as mine had some specs of dust on it.. that my dust blower would not remove so I had both jobs done.. after I arranged for the camera to be sent in to Canon, they released a bug free firmware 1.05

any way to cut a long story short its now back with me with both tasks done -- and me chomping at the bit to get some photography done..
but the weather is really awful

here Iam at a rediculous time of the "morning" waiting for a render to finish and a dozen DVD's to burn beofore I have to be 30 miles up the road for 8am for an all day shoot (stills and video)! can someone remind me why I do this?!

Thanks for the reply moviemad. It's forcast rain all day tomorrow too. Oh joy :rolleyes:

regards............Neil