Canon EOS 30D Body Only Digital Camera

I have owned my Canon EOS 30D for a year and previously had a Canon EOS 350D. My friend has a Nikon D200 and previously owned a Nikon D70. Comparing the Canons and the Nikon has given me a pretty good view on the strengths and weaknesses of the two brands and the specific cameras. More recently I have upgraded to a Canon EOS 40D.

The reasons replacing the 350 with the 30 were...

Increased body size feels better in the hand than the 350 and reduces camera shake particularly when using a long lens.

Increased frame rate of 5fps (fastest camera out of all of these) is great for action shots such as sports of photos of the kids at play.

Large 2.5 inch rear screen with clear RGB histogram function enables me to check my settings

Thumbwheel operation on the back of the camera is easier to use than the buttons on the 350/400 and fast response times of this and all other functions in the camera make it very easy and quick to use.

Ability to customise the functions within the camera is useful to me though I gather a lot of people dont really care.

Scene modes such as portrait, landscae and user defined are great once you learn how to use them. Nikons are generally slightly over saturated in default settings whereas Canon is less so but the scene modes allow you to alter this to your own taste. You might not want this is you use photoshot all the time but if you want the photos straight out of the camera then they are great. Tip: increase saturation but not sharpness.

Canon reputation and support prevented me from swapping to Nikon. I only had one lens when I upgraded so brand loyalty was never an issue. I actually like the Nikon cameras but they do lack the quality feel of the Canons and have less lenses available. That said they seem to offer more custom functions and accessories are generally slightly cheaper.


My freind paid a lot more for his D200 than my 30D and yet bits keep falling off it and it occaisionally locks up and he has to turn it off/on to get it working again.. Generally though I think it is probably a better camera with more features and higher resolution. The histogram function is better on the Nikon and the viewfinder is brighter. On the downside it has a CCD sensor rather than a SMOS sensor so the battery life is not so good and I gather the image quality is not as good on CCD but I think they're identical. The CMOS on the Canon does go much higher i nthe ISO range without noise though and this is a definite advantage over the Nikons but only a problem in poor light.

The 30D also has spot meterign which is really good if the subject is heavily backlit. The 350 and 400 do not have this.

The high ISO of H3200 is great for shooting fast subjects in dark places. Check out my jumping dog in the woods shot. This would have been impossible on a Nikon.

Mostly I bought this camera because I liked the way it feels and operates rather than anything to do with the image quality. The image quality is taken as read on a Canon and, to be fair, most digital cameras are pretty good these days. The range of lenses is not a consideration to me either as I can only afford two of them

This brings the deciding factor down to the price / feature comparison and this is where the 30D won hand over fist for me. When buying a camera you should list all the features that YOU want to use rather than the features of the individual cameras and put them in order of importance to you and buy the best you can afford.