I only owned my 10D for 4 months and I owned the 20D for two of those
months. The 10D is a very capable camera but the thing that made me
change was the startup time as I shoot mostly wildlife. The delay at
startup once the camera went to sleep didn't work for me with the 10D.
I feel the 20D has slightly better color accuracy and contrast, less
noise at all ISO speeds but really noticable above 400 ISO.
I don't find the AF speed to be much different and the buffer and write
speed are better with the 20D. I also like the overall look of my
images with the 20D better but I did take some excellent images with
the 10D. There are people with more experience with both bodies but
these are my observations.

Art Salmons

I bought my 10D in August 2003 and my 20D in late December 2004. Since
getting the 20D my 10D has not been used and I haven't regretted making the
upgrade.

AF speed is good and I haven't had any accuracy problems. RAW buffering
hasn't been a problem to me as I rarely shoot fast sequences, though it
would seem that with the 20D's vastly improved writing speed it must be
better than the 10D even if the actual buffer is supposedly smaller.

The main improvements as far as I'm concerned are instant on and instant
playback. Instant on is just that, which certainly beats having to wait for
the 10D to turn on every time the meter times out. Instant playback is
virtually always instant (at least with a fast card), which is a great help
because it means that even with action shots it's possible to check the
histogram and tweak the exposure while shooting without too much fear of
losing a shot.

The larger image file does add some extra detail and while it's not a huge
difference it's enough to be worth having.

The new battery certainly has greater capacity and adds considerably to the
number of shots between charges.

I really prefer noise-free images but sometimes the conditions mean that
ISO100 isn't practical. With the 20D I'm reasonably happy to shoot at 400,
whereas with the 10D I was always a little doubtful. I know some insist on
shooting at 3200 and then moan about banding, but if you're conservative
with the ISO I doubt that you would be disappointed with 400 and may even
find 800 quite acceptable.

The CR2 RAW format does seem to provide a bit more latitude and brighter
colours than CRW, but that's pretty subjective.

Geoff Bryant
www.cfgphoto.com

Art & Geoff, thanks for the info, it's been very helpful. :)

The 10D is a "better" camera. Somehow Canon have managed to produce an
upgrade which is actually worse than it's predecessor in far too many
ways. Shutter shudder is the most noticeable worsening. I guess that's
why they provided better high ISO performance - you have to use higher
shutter speeds!

There's more but I can't be bothered whining to this bunch of Canonites.

GH

Hi Lionel,

I had the 10D for 9 months (4600+ pics) and have had the 20D for the last 3
(1000+ shots). I used the 10D for a lot of travel stuff and found it
fantastic (superb image quality, colour rendition, focus, etc.). However, I
also shoot a lot of sports stuff and here it was woefully inadequate
(compared to my previous EOS-1's).

I always shoot RAW and, initially, shot max jpg also. However, the 10D has a
retarded 'embedded jpg' format that means the camera shoots 1 file
containing both the RAW & jpg images. (The 20D is a huge improvement here
writing 2 completely separate files far quicker than the 10D managed 1).

The 10D was is incredibly slow to write (even to Sandisk Extreme CF cards)
and one frequently had to wait several seconds for the 'Camera Busy' to
disappear. On several occasions (shooting Rugby matches) I filled the camera
buffer & could only get off the odd shot very slowly. Eventually, I gave up
& just waited for the buffer to clear fully (not ideal).

However, far worse was the autofocus performance. I got sick to death when
play was 'coming towards me' of getting the player, or runner, just behind
the one the autofocus point was selecting in focus and (using f/2.8) the one
selected out of focus. Also, it was extremely frustrating, with laterally
moving subjects, never being sure exactly what the camera was capturing due
to the delay between pressing the button & when the camera seemed to
'decide' to capture the image. I tried adapting & trying to compensate for
the 'lag' by anticipating the trigger point (hardly ideal). Eventually, I
found the camera was undermining my confidence in being able to capture what
I wanted and was in serious wrangling with my other half re. trying to
justify ditching the 10D for an EOS-1Ds II. Then, Canon announced the 20D
and on paper it seemed to be addressing most of these needs (and others
besides) and as it was far more affordable than the EOS-1Ds II I decided to
try it out.

What a revelation!

Landscape / Travel stuff - no diff (except the larger image size allows for
additional cropping).

Sports - back to being no problem ;o))

The 20D has not once exhibited the 10D's trait of picking up the trailing
person & has resolutely captured what is selected.
The 'lag' seems far less on lateral moving subjects (though there is still a
little versus the old EOS-1's).

So problem's solved but the 20D had a couple of (unexpected) bonuses up it's
sleeve...

1) The sheer speed the camera can write to the memory card.

This things is just amazing & it makes a mockery of comparison of supposed
buffer levels. With quick memory this things seems to be clearing the buffer
almost as fast as you can write to it. In 3 months I have not hit the buffer
ceiling and had to pause shooting in live matches. I've never seen the
'camera busy' sign for more than a fleeting second even after shooting a
sequence of  consecutive shots one can hit the review button & the camera
will display the shot images even whilst still writing to the card.

In  a more 'artificial' test (to try & put some numbers to this) using a
Sandisk Extreme CF card writing simultaneous RAW + Max JPG...

The 20D shoots 6 shots before hitting the buffer limit indicating 'camera
busy' - the red write light completely goes out 11 secs later. Pausing 5
secs (rather than the 11 required to fully clear the buffer) the 20D will
allow a burst of 4 shots before again hitting the buffer (whilst still
writing the rest of the previous data to card).

By comparison, the 10D shooting just RAW (no jpg) managed 9 shots before
hitting the buffer limit but then took 55 secs for the write light to go
off! Pausing 5 secs allows only 2 further shots before hitting the buffer
again.

2) Far lower noise levels.

10D - quite impressive up to ISO 400 (compared to chemical); 800 - 'usable'
at a push; 1600 - Colour 'muddied' (rescuable in Photoshop or if converted
to B&W)
20D - About 1 1/2 step improvement (i.e. ISO 800 better than 10D at ISO 400
but ISO 1600 slightly more noisy than 10D at ISO 400)
This makes a huge advantage shooting action stuff indoors and as the colour
balance at 1600 is still great can eliminate the need for the use of flash
in more 'delicate' situations. It has enabled one to shoot without flash
during actual matches (Tennis, badminton, etc.) where the use of flash would
have been prohibited because of distracting the players.

Regards

DM