Well, I have finally made the leap to a digital SLR, namely the Canon EOS 30D. Wow! What a great, high-end consumer level camera. My prior camera (and new backup) was the Canon EOS 3, which I reviewed here. While I loved the EOS 3, the 30D is awesome. I found the interfaces very intuitive and easy to learn, especially after coming from the EOS 3. Some of the buttons are in different places (such as the depth of field preview), but I quickly adapted to their new locations.

Naturally, the camera has all the benefits of being digital such as a nice big LCD (enlarged from the Canon EOS 20D) and the ability to change ISO, white balance and file format quickly and easily. I am also greatly impressed by several features that were lacking on the EOS 3

1. It has a built in flash. Not a big deal in itself, but you can dial back the flash exposure very quickly through the user interface
2. It is fast. Something like 5 or 6 frames per second, with a very large continuous burst possible, assuming the memory card can keep up. I was playing around with the camera taking shots of my son riding his bike and was so amazed how it screams when you hold down the shutter. I am not a sports photographer, but I can imagine it will be fun to use at my son’s soccer games.
3. The bundled software is decent, although I haven’t given it a full test yet. I doubt it is a good as Apple’s Aperture or Photoshop CS2 but it does have one cool feature that allows you to take pictures by clicking the mouse when the camera is hooked up via the USB cable.

I find the focus system is very fast, although I do kind of miss the eye control feature of the EOS 3, but I guess you can’t have everything. The metering system does a good job and performs pretty well even when you crank the ISO up (which I have done a few times to see how it works). There is more noise, but it still allows you to get a shot when you couldn’t before.

I have yet to put the camera through all it’s paces, but my first impressions are very positive. I, no doubt, will be updating my Portfolio with some new shots in the near future and will post my further impressions about the 30D at that time.
If you are in the market for a new high-end, advanced amateur digital camera, I definitely recommend the 30D.  Try it with a Canon 70-200mm L Series Lens (my favorite lens).

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 4th, 2006 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.