Canon EOS 10D Review

[surelybwh]

I bought my Canon EOS 10D in June of 2004, the same day that Ronald Reagan died. I make jewelry and have been working on taking pictures for the web. I was between the Digital Rebel and the 10D. I chose the 10D for the flexibility with lenses. The only lens I bought at the time was a Canon Compact Macro Lens EF 50mm. For my birthday the next month, I got a Canon Zoom Lens EF 28-105mm. That same year for Christmas I got a Canon Macro Lens EF 100mm. Then for my next birthday I got the Canon Speedlite 420EX.

My very first "serious" camera was a Canon 7S - a range finder no less! My parents gave me and my sister one each for Christmas when I was 13. It would be years before I truly appreciated that gift. I lost that camera in a fire in 1987. Bought a Minolta, but it just didn't work the same way. That's what I like about my 10D - it is intuitive for me.

I've now taken over 10,000 photos with it, although most have never been seen by anyone but me. But I have gotten much better, thanks to my 10D. I am now shooting in Camera RAW and have seen a huge improvement in my photos. When shooting jewelry photos, everything is set to manual, including the focus. It is so easy to do that with my Canon.

My only issues: Sometimes I wish it would respond faster. And occasionally, a picture doesn't get saved, but that could be in the CompactFlash.

Overall: 9/10

[smc1377]

Seems like Barbara beat me to a Canon 10D review, but here's my submission anyways and hopefully it's detailed enough to be useful to others.

First, let me start off with what I have owned in terms of cameras so that you get an idea of where I'm coming from with my review.

I've always loved photography ever since I could remember. Back before digital really became affordable, I dabbled in some film with the typical point and shoot film cameras and a Konica SLR that was given to me. Once cameras started becoming affordable, I have purchased 9 digital cameras for my own use (1mp Kodak, 1 mp Concorde Duo, 2mp Concord Go Duo, 3.2mp HP 733, 4mp Casio Z-40, 5mp HP R607, 5mp Casio Z50, 6mp Casio P600 and Canon 10D).

The Canon 10D is most closely related to the Canon Digital Rebel aka 300D (not the XT nor the XTi). The 10D and the original Rebel pretty much came out at the same time. Key differences being that one is made for more of a semi-pro use (10D) while the other is more of a consumer type of camera (Rebel aka 300D).

A few key advantages the 10D has over the Rebel are...

• 10D has magnesium body - Rebel has plastic body
• 10D has larger internal buffer for consecutive shots
• PC Sync for external flash
• Two dials instead of one for faster changes of settings
• 1st or Rear Curtain Sync (for the flash)
• Custom functions
• Red eye reduction via a bright LED light on the camera
• It just plain felt better in my hands

For a complete list of differences, check out this chart at DPReview.

The listed buffer for the 10D is 9 pictures, but I often can take over 15 rapid shots right in a row before the internal memory is filled. As soon as enough internal memory has been freed to shoot another picture, you can shoot instantly. I've found that for most applications, this has been plenty. There has been a few rare occasions where I found myself not being able to get that last shot because the buffer has filled up.

Since we're on the topic of speed, this is where this camera is lacking. The read/write speeds on memory cards is limited by the capabilities of the camera. It's still a USB1.1 compliant camera, meaning that when the camera was made, there was no real need to make it read or write any faster since the pictures can't be offloaded any faster. This fact alone has prompted me to never have installed the Canon software on my computer. I use a USB2.0 card reader for much faster downloads of my pictures.

The camera's image quality is excellent, but that's to be expected since the sensors and the digic processors are pretty universal across the line. So it really is almost pointless to spend too much time talking about image quality, for it's going to mostly depend on the lens you use that limits quality. All that needs to be said is that it takes great pictures.

Like most cameras, you can select between a few settings in terms of how large or small of a jpg you want. Likewise, you can also specify in the custom functions what size of jpg file you want to embed into your RAW pictures as well. There's also one button in the center of the back dial called "SET" that can be custom assigned. I have this button assigned as my image quality setting, so that I can quickly change from Large JPG to RAW with a push of a button, a turn of that dial, then another push of that button.

And when taking a picture in manual mode, it's very convenient to have the two dials. The one by the shutter button controls the shutter speed while the other on the back of the camera where the thumb can turn controls aperture. So I can easily make my adjustments unlike the Rebel and Rebel XT. Inside the viewfinder, it also displays the current shutter speed and the aperture along with the exposure compensation and the remaining shots left using the internal memory buffer.

There are also tons of other features that I'm sure you can easily find information about online that I'm not qualified enough to talk about. But as far as my overall experience with this camera, I absolutely love it.

Though it's only a 6.3 megapixel camera, it really is enough megapixels for the average, and not so average user. I've used this camera plenty for commercial purposes (I had to claim a few thousand dollars on my taxes from income) so it can pull its weight out in the field.

I have been tempted to upgrade, but I really haven't been able to justify the extra costs. For example, though the XTi is a nice camera, the only upgrade from this camera that I would care about is the 4 extra megapixels and the anti-dust vibrating thingy. So at that, I really can't justify the extra expense. Then I look at the 20D or 30D. Again, extra megapixels and that's about it. Sure, there are some other features that are better, but nothing that I'd pay that much extra for.

So while some people may look at this camera and think that it's inferior cause it came out in 2003, there really hasn't been a whole lot that has changed or improved since then other than megapixels. I suppose if you're doing action photography and need it to take more than 3 pictures per second or need the extra megapixels for large prints, one of the other two digit or 1 digit Canons (see note below) would be in order, but this camera does just fine.

I'd recommend anyone looking to buy a used DSLR to look into the 10D before the original Rebel or even the Rebel XT (if you can do with 2 less megapixels). The 10D has been the forgotten Canon DSLR and because of it, it can be had for really cheap on eBay. The last time I checked, the original Rebels and the 10Ds were selling at about the same price, while original MSRP on these were $900 for the Rebel and $1500 for the 10D. That makes the 10D a great bargain!






Note: Canon has three basic lines for their DSLR cameras. The naming convention reflects this fact. Consumer models have 3 numbers followed by the letter D (for Digital) aka 300D, 350D, 400D. One step above that, they have their Prosumer models which have two numbers followed by the letter D (10D, 20D, 30D). And lastly, their Pro models have only 1 number (5D, 1D).