I’ve been consider either a Rebel XT or 20D. I’m not considering the original Rebel because it seems rather out of date. Nor am I considering the high end Canon SLR’s as I simply can’t afford to spend $7000+ on a EOS-1Ds Mark II. After some research it seems that if you want a 20D that your better off waiting for the 30D which will be available in a couple of months. The 20D is supposed to drop $200 in price to make room for the newer model. Indeed, it’s droped ~$100 on Amazon in the last week. It looks like Canon typically closes out the previous years model in January and accord to the forums on www.fatwallet.com, it looks like I’ve missed some rather good discounts on Canon SLRs and lenses. Which ever Camera body I choose I know that I want the “EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM” lens.
The 30D adds over the 20D: true spot metering, greatly enhanced battery life, a 2.5″ LCD instead of a 1.8″ one, and improved focusing among other little tweaks.
Reviews I appreciated
Canon EOS Rebel XT
www.dpreview.com
www.outbackphoto.com
Canon EOS 20D
www.dpreview.com
www.photographyreview.com
Canon EOS 30D (previews)
Lenses:
www.bobatkins.com
www.luminous-landscape.com
www.outbackphoto.com
24-70mm vs. 24-105mm
24-105mm vs. 28-135mm
www.photozone.de
USM Lenses
USM or “Ultra Sonic Motor” is a type of drive motor used for the auto focus mechanism in better Canon lenses. There are actually two subtypes of USM. Ring USM (good) and Micromotor USM (bad). Ring USM allows full time manual focus. E.g., it allows the autofocus to be tweaked. Micromotor USM is just like a conventional autofocus motor in that you have to move a switch between AF and MF. I also get the impression that Ring USM is faster but the technology doesn’t seem to be discussed in depth anywhere.
EF vs. EF-S
Most Canon digital SLR cameras have a smaller focal plane then a tradition 35mm camera. This results in an multiplier being applied to estimate the 35mm equivalent focal length. For the Rebel, Rebel XT, 10D, 20D, & 30D this multiplier is 1.6x. E.g., a 24-105mm lens has the same effective magnifications as a 38-168mm lens on these cameras. The EF-S series of lens are design for this reduced focal plane area and thus can be lighter and cheaper. The down side is that there is no guarantee of how long Canon will continue to make cameras with smaller sized CMOS detectors. The 5D has a multiplier of 1x (35mm equivalent) and the 1D[s] uses a multiplier of 1.3x.
My personal opinion is that using a EF lens on a 1.6x multiplier camera is that your using more of the center of the lens and getting less of the field distortion at the edges of the lens’ FOV.
MTF or Modulation Transfer Function
Canon provides MTF plots for all of their lenses. This is how to evaluate the resolution and contrast ability of a lens and get a sense for how much field distortion it has.
www.luminous-landscape.com
w
ww.normankoren.com
www.microscopyu.com
An example Canon lens page:
Time To Buy
January seems to be best time to buy as this right before the PMA conference where Canon tends to announces new products
Where to Buy
For Hawaii, Amazon’s price + shipping can’t be beat by any of the reputable vendor. There are a large number of scam website operations selling Canon cameras. Be very careful when dealing with a small store and be sure to check the merchant evaluations in Froogle or Pricegrabber.
Amazon has a 5% coupon on the Rebel XT, 20D, and select lenses that expires 2006-03-02.
Fatwallet.com has coupons and/or cashback for several of the larger Camera shops.
Flash Cards
Neither the Rebel XT or the 20D seem to be able to write more then ~6MB/s to a flash card. The SanDisk Ultra II series of cards is plenty fast enough. So there is little point in getting the expensive “high speed” cards from Lexar, etc. as those brands carry a heavy price premium. The one exception may be the SanDisk Extreme III series which are not only super fast but are also enviromentally hardened. The biggest bang for your buck right now seems to be the 2GB cards with near linear scaling in cost to 4GB.
Flashes
The best flash for the EOS SLR series is the Canon Speedlite 580EX as it is the only flash that will share “flash color” information with the camera. Unfortunately, this is also the most expensive flash in Canon’s current line.
Cases
The neither the hard case sold for the Rebel XT or 20D will work with lenses larger the “kit” lens attached. It also seems to be rather pricey for what you get. I don’t know if this would be useful or not because of the size restrictions.
Canon sells a Rebel XT Starter Kit that includes a UV filter for the “kit” lens, an extra battery, and a soft carry case. On amazon that bag is worth about $22 after subtracting out the individual cost of the battery and filter. If don’t purchase the camera as part of a kit it’s unlikely you’ll have a lens that the UV filter will fit.
Canon makes a backpack, the 200EG, that can fit several lens and a camera body with rather large lenses attached. Based on the Amazon customer comments this is the way to go. It’s reasonably priced to boot.
There is a review of some camera bags here.