Canon EOS 20D review

Canon has produced a worthy successor to the EOS 10D with this model, endowing it with class-leading 8-megapixel resolution, excellent image quality across a broad range of ISO settings, and fast performance. With a sturdy, well-designed body and an intuitive control layout, the EOS 20D is a pleasure to shoot with. It still lacks a spot meter and isn't without minor flaws, but serious amateurs and pros who need a compact, affordable Canon dSLR should put this camera at the top of their lists.

If you'd like to stay closer to the £600 mark and don't need raw-image-processing software, an optional battery grip, or 8-megapixel resolution, consider Nikon's 6-megapixel D70. Its performance isn't quite as fast as that of the semipro 20D, but it offers the excellent image quality and sophisticated controls that avid photographers demand.

Design
Shooting with the Canon EOS 20D is a pleasure. Its solidly constructed 680g body is nicely compact for an SLR and feels well balanced in the hand. The rubberised grip is comfortable, and all of the controls are easy to reach. I photographed events with the 20D for several hours at a time without feeling any strain.

I tried a few different lenses, and with a large 70mm-to-200mm zoom, the body started to feel a little small. Attaching the optional battery grip might be a good way to give it the bulk and weight that will make it a sturdier counterweight to a big lens.

Controls on the front of the 20D body include a button that releases the pop-up flash, the lens-mount release, and a depth-of-field preview button.

The large dial on the back works in conjunction with buttons on top of the camera to adjust settings and with the center Set button to navigate LCD menus. The small joystick controller above it lets you shift the white balance, select autofocus points, and pan in review mode.

Since the EOS 20D is fairly compact, there isn't a lot of room for multiple LCDs and rows of dedicated buttons. To change resolution and compression settings, you have to go into the main LCD menu, and the display of current settings is limited to what will fit in the small, top-mounted status screen. This didn't cause any big problems, but I did wish that there were a constant ISO display along with other exposure information, both on the status LCD and in the viewfinder.

The 20D is hardly the only SLR that makes this omission, and I think it's a significant oversight. Digital cameras give you the ability to change your ISO setting as often as your shutter speed, so they should also give you a way to keep an eye on your current selection without having to push buttons.

Selections on the left-mounted mode dial include the usual manual and automatic modes, as well as five scene modes, a no-flash mode, and an automatic depth-of-field mode.