Canon 30D | sample images
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Details at a glance
Megapixels: 8.2
Lens Mount: Canon EF/EF-S
FPS:3
LCD: 2.5 inches
Storage: CF I/II, M
Size: 144 x 105.5 x 73.5mm
Weight: 700g
We clicked with
Image quality, low noise, logical layout that's familiar to any Canon user
Shots in the dark
Not a great upgrade to the 20D, no anti dust, no image stabiliser in the camera
Links
More Canon information
www.canon.co.uk
Price Comparison:
Canon 30D
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Canon DSLRs are tricky - do you want and entry level, a pro spec or a mid range model? Even in the middle ground there are options - go with the full frame 5D or the smaller, cheaper 30D? In fact it may be a lot more complicated than that. When we tested the 5D we found it outstanding as a low noise camera but you had to be careful what lenses you use with it. Maybe the cheaper 30D will have some of the great features of the 5D without some of the issues. Let's see.
Features
Finally they fixed the metering. In case you don't know, most cameras look at the whole scene to work out what the correct exposure is. They use multiple sensor points and average out the exposure (it's a bit more complicated than that but that's enough tech for now). With spot metering you can use just one small sensor to base the exposure on. This has drawbacks (which is why pattern metering was invented) but for ultimate control of your exposure you want a spot meter so you can check different parts of the scene and then make your own mind up. I know this is a techie point to dive straight in with but the 20D was supposed to be a prosumer camera. When they came out it was around a thousand pounds - it always seemed ridiculous that Canon didn't allow you to use spot metering in it - well the 30D has a spot meter. (You'll notice in this review I refer a lot to the 20D - the 30D is a direct replacement for the 20D. It has a few new features and a couple of updates but is largely similar.)
Missing features
The 30D is absolutely brim full of stuff that you need to take great pictures so I thought it would be easier to talk about the things it doesn't have and discuss whether these are important or not. Remember that apart from these items the 30D is a very well specified camera.
Full frame sensor
Normally I wouldn't comment on this but Canon really brought it on itself. The 30D has an APS-C sized sensor (just like the vast majority of DSLRs from other manufacturers) - that's about 40% smaller than the sensor in the 5D. There's a belief that bigger is always better in sensor technology so many people may want to choose the 5D over the 30D.
However, a bigger sensor uses more of the lens. The edges of a lens are very seldom as good as the centre and so using a bigger sensor could actually give poorer resolution at the edges of the frame. A full frame user would say of course that they could take their image and crop it to the size of an APS-C sensor and there would be little difference.
The size of the sensor also affects depth of field and apparent focal length. These tend to be very technical and contentious issues but if you put identical lenses on APS-C and full frame sensors the one on the APS-C will appear to be a longer lens and to have more depth of field at a given setting than on the full frame. As a huge over simplification - smaller sensors could be better for macro and long range shooting, bigger would be better for wide angle shooting.
Bottom line though - if the cameras were otherwise identical then a bigger sensor would be better 95% of the time.
Anti dust
Another one Canon has set itself up for. I've used a bunch of DSLRs for several years and the dust “issue” doesn't really worry me but there are many cameras now on the market with anti dust technology (I'm thinking particularly of the Sony Alpha 100 and the Canon 400D). In a way this is just a matter of time since the 30D is slightly older than either of these - I'd expect to see a 40D soon with anti dust but if dust bothers you then you might want to look elsewhere.
Image stabilisation
Again it may really be a matter of time but plenty of other makes have image stabilisation built into the camera (Sony, Samsung, Pentax etc). The Canon 30D doesn't - and neither does any other Canon DSLR.
There's a simple reason for this - it doesn't need it. Canon has a great range of image stabilised lenses. For my money, image stabilisation currently seems to work better in the lens than in the camera but the gap is closing but it's something else to budget for if you're concerned about getting shaky pictures with longer lenses.
Handling
It's a Canon - it handles like a Canon. That's a rather glib simplification but it's true. If you've handled a 300D or a 5D or any Canon other than a 1DS then everything's going to work pretty much like you expect it to. And that's a HUGE benefit - if you're used to Canon's you're going to be up and running with the 30D in minutes.
If you're not then it's still pretty easy to get on with. There are a couple of “gotchas” and they both have to do with the nose, sorry, I mean thumbwheel. There's a big wheel on the back of the camera - this is absolutely great for reviewing pictures but in shooting mode it can be tricky. You set exposure compensation by rotating the wheel and this is a really nice, fast way to do it. Unfortunately there's a real chance that you can adjust exposure if you catch this wheel with your nose and that's especially true if you are left eyed. There's a lock to turn it off but that gives the camera a rather curious 2 phase on/off switch - turn one notch to turn the camera on and another to turn on the nose wheel. This wasn't a big issue after the first hour or so but occasionally I thought I'd turned the camera off only to find it was on the first notch - on but with the thumbwheel turned off. It's also worth pointing out that on our review model a couple of the buttons on the back of the camera didn't work though I'd imagine this is less to do with camera robustness and more to do with stupid things journalists do with cameras.
I found the little joystick just above the thumbwheel rather fiddly and hard to use. It isn't used much in regular shooting since most functions are sensibly assigned to the thumbwheel.
Other than that the 30D handles very well - it's small and light enough to carry in one hand but heavy enough to feel robust.
Image quality
In the sample pictures above you'll see a stone column with a purple scarf around it. On the full size original I can see every stitch in the scarf and every loose thread. You'll also see the front of a cheese shop. On the extreme right hand side there are two dozen yellow cards - I can read the words on every one of them. It's very easy to get wrapped up in the megapixel race and believe that an 8MP sensor is slightly behind cutting edge. That would be a mistake - the 20D delivers great quality images that are packed full of detail. I often talk about how big you can print pictures - I would have no hesitation printing any of the shots at A3 and beyond.
Using the camera in auto white balance has made the jpegs generally a little too warm for my taste. Afternoon light gets rendered with a rather orangey warmth to it. One very odd thing is that I shot several pictures in combined raw and jpeg mode. If you process the raw without “any” corrections (i.e. apply camera settings) then I would expect the pictures to look pretty much identical. In fact they are completely different. Opening both in Photoshop shows that the raw file has quite a neutral “faithful” look to it. The jpeg is much warmer and looks slightly false. I checked this a number of times to make sure that PS wasn't applying its own processing in the background and the results were always the same - the jpeg is a lot warmer than the raw. I'd advise you to take extra care with white balance settings on a 30D when shooting jpegs.
Noise was pretty good. If I hadn't recently tested a 5D then I'd say that it was excellent. When you are looking at noise it's important to use the “right” pictures. On a complex scene with a strong subject and few shadows even ISO 1600 delivers very little noise. Check out the statue picture - I searched this at 100% and couldn't find much noise at all. However, the 30D does exhibit noise on areas of the picture that should be a flat uniform colour. Under these circumstances you can get visible noise at ISO 400. This probably leads to some of the contradictory claims for this camera - lab tests show that it fairly good for noise while many users claim that it is excellent. My tests seem to show that although this camera is pretty good in controlled tests (i.e. better than average for its class), in real world pictures the noise levels are even better. This is one of the few cameras that I'd be comfortable shooting at ISO 1600 and if really necessary I'd switch to ISO 3200 for some shots - you'd have to pick your scene and print size with care but it would certainly produce files you could work with as long as the scene was correctly exposed. To my eyes the 5D just beats the 30D for noise but really they are both very good.
What's not to like
I've said this before - I'm a little disappointed this camera exists. The upgrades from the 20D are minor at best and it would have been great if Canon could have released firmware patches to bring the 20D close to the performance of the 30D. As it is I didn't find anything important that the 30D had that the 20D lacked apart from pot metering. Screen is a little bigger and nicer to look at but really it's an evolutionary change. That's not to say the 30D is bad - the 20D is a very nice camera but some people hoped for more when a model got replaced.
Apart from that minor grumble this is a very nice camera. By current standards it may seem a little on the pricey side. The 400D gives you 2 million more pixels and anti dust for £300 less. Until I test a 400D I can't really say which is a better buy but I would expect the 30D to be a better camera. Image quality is excellent and build quality and handling very good.
Camera specification
| Mega-pixels: | 8.2 |
Photo: | JPEG, RAW |
| Lens Mount: | Canon EF/EF-S |
RAW: | Yes |
| LCD: | 2.5 inch |
FPS: | 3 |
| Dimensions: | 144 x 105.5 x 73.5mm |
Shutter: | 30 sec to 1/8000 |
| Weight: | 700g |
Exposure: | ISO 100 to 1600 |
| Storage: | CF I/II, M |
Movie: | No |
| Battery: | Li-Ion BP-511A |
Microphone: | No |
| Interface: | USB 2.0, AV |
PictBridge: | Yes |
