30D: one of the new Canon DSLRs is out
 

Canon's long-awaited 20D replacement is out. It is essentially a 20D Mark II, with the same 8MP sensor and the same not-especially-bright viewfinder but a raft of minor changes which add up to a significant new product for birding and sport photographers. These include:

• Better RAW buffer. By tweaking the firmware, canon have found a way to almost double the RAW buffer from 6 frames to 11 frames without actually making the camera's memory any bigger.
• Spot metering
• ISO in the viewfinder (but only when you press the ISO button)
• ISO can be set in one-third stops
• Better-shaped multicontroller, supposed to be easier to use
• Selectable burst rate: 5FPS or 3FPS
• Picture styles like the 5D, much better control of JPEG saturation, sharpening, etc
• Bigger LCD, same as the 5D
• Other stuff that, frankly, I couldn't care less about, such as direct print.

The nearly-double RAW buffer alone is probably enough to persuade me to sell one of my almost-new 20Ds and replace it with a 30D. At 11 frames instead of a piddly 6 frames, the 30D threatens to be a practical camera to use for birding shooting RAW - something I couldn't say of the 20D which forces me to use JPG nearly all the time.

And wow! Just when we though Canon would never, ever, ever offer a proper spot meter - an essential feature that Nikon have had for years, that Canon's own pro DSLRs have had for years, and even their P&S models have offered since Adam was in short pants - they give us a 3.5% spot in the 30D. That's nice too.

It is long past time we had ISO in the viewfinder (but it should be visible all the time, not just when you press the ISO button) and the one-third stop flexibility will be welcome too.

I for one will be buying a 30D sometime this year. Unless, that is, the other new Canon camera that is yet to be announced is still more tempting. Wait and see.

Why do I say that Canon will announce another camera soon? Because, fine camera that it promises to be, the 30D doesn't seem to have what it takes to match the new Nikon D200 in many people's eyes. Sure, I would rather a 30D for my bird work, but a lot of other people will look at the 10MP sensor of the D200 and the weather sealing and go Nikon. I just can't see Canon failing to respond to their arch-rivals like that, and I can't see the Canon 5D filling up the gap either: it just costs too much to make a full-frame sensor, and there is no way Canon can sell the 5D for a near-D200 price, so there has to be another model to slot in-between. It would need to be a 1.6 or 1.3 crop sensor, around 10 or 12MP, and have other features to match or better the D200. For bird and sport photographers, it just might be irresistable.

Oooh, they're not happy at the usual spec orientated forum sites. New model = more megapixels to a lot of people... which is a bit silly, this could still be a big improvement on the 20D.

Just so, Andy. Lots of grumbling. I'd take a bigger buffer and a spot meter a long, long way before I'd go for more megapixels. Hey - if your shot is under-exposed because you couldn't meter it the way you wanted, or if your shot simply doesn't exist because the buffer was full at the moment your subject did the thing you were aiming to capture (take wing, fall off the bike, kick the goal - whatever) then who cares how many extra megapixels it has? In any case, unless the extra MP are actually delivering extra resolution - which is doubtful a lot of the time - all they do is take up even more space on your flash cards and hard drives.

Wasn't it an old TV show title? Eight is enough

Maybe the Russians will do a firmware hack for us 20D users ;)

What was the spot metering % before then? You're right, any improvement in this is a help... I like my 2% spot ;)

I still think there'll be a lot of happy 20D owners out there today... and partners of 20D owners ;)

The Partial metering mode is 9% - I was not looking at upgrading this time around anyway. Whatever improvements would be minor for the cost of upgrade.

Nine percent, Andy. Yes, 9%. Only they call it "partial metering", perhaps because at 9% the term "spot" would be ridiculous. With my 20Ds I frequently miss the spot metering capabilities of my old digiscoping cameras (Nikon CP4500s and Canon A95). I'm not sure what percentage their "spot" metering was, but the effective percentage was quite small because of the massive zoom the scope provided.

Before anyone jumps up and down and says "no-one really needs spot metering", I'll repeat what I said already in another thread (possibly at another site - I get mixed up from time to time): for birding, sometimes you just don't get a chance to get a rare bird in good light. Sometimes the only chance you get is rather too far away and straight into the sun/bright cloud. You need spot metering then because you don't have time to take multiple manual exposures and chimp it till you get it right. You often only have a few moments, and the fastest way to get the bird correctly exposed is to lay your centre spot on a suitably-shaded part of the plumage and let the background blow out. You can paste some nice blue sky or something in later on with photoshop - you have any number of nice background shots you can take that from - or just darken it up and blur it out, but you can't ever recover the bird details. So long as you have the presence of mind to lay your centre spot in a sensible place, you might not get a great shot, but you will get a usable shot, and that is a lot better than nothing.

That's the great thing with spot metering: it's instant. If you can see a spot anywhere in the frame that will give you the exposure you want, you can just grab it, and not risk missing things because you were fiddling about changing settings on the camera.

I think Canon's decision to add spot metering to the 3D was a very wise one. Maybe it was a last-minute decision: Canon have resisted spot metering in non-professional SLRs for so long now that it seemed as though they would never do it, but perhaps they looked at the D200 when it first came out and, although the main specs of the 30D would have been set in concrete by then, felt obliged to offer a little something to make the 30D more competitive. Whatever, I don't care. All I know is that I am no longer faced with the ugly choices of either dropping a fortune by selling all my Canon glass and going Nikon, or else spending a fortune on a professional-grade Canon body. (Would I have done either of these? Well, not right away, but the thoughts had already crossed my mind. Arm me with a credit card, and that kind of thinking is dangerous.)

I know it's a typo ;) seems up in the air what it will be called...but it's keeping some very tragic people busy on the other sites :D

Yeah .... Visiting DPR and the techo sites is sort of like watching a train wreck on TV at the moment. You know you should stop wasting time and go to do something useful, but you keep opening just one more thread, just one more thread. Every now and again I slip back over here for a breath of sanity. :)

Oh, and thanks Rob & Tannin for the info on the Canon spot metering specs... I knew it wasn't too hot on the 3** series but thought the others were at least sensible.

Seems to be an outbreak of wishful thinking at the moment, with this '30D' just part of a mass release of new cameras, one of which will be the real replacement of the 20D. Still, the Fuji DSLR forum is the funniest by far.