Ashley Pomeroy
Well-known member
I've had one of these for a month or so, although I have converted it to infrared. It's a popular infrared conversion camera because it's available very cheaply on the used market, and it has overall good performance and image quality. The EF lens mount opens up a world of adapted manual focus lenses.
As a conventional digital SLR it is a good although not great used choice nowadays. It tends to be overshadowed by the 20D, which has a higher resolution, a faster processor, and an EF-S lens mount. Otherwise the 10D takes the BP-511 batteries that were then Canon's standard, and are still cheaply available on eBay, and it also takes standard Compact Flash cards, uses USB, and is in all respects unproblematic to own and use. The shutter button apparently gets unresponsive with time - mine had this problem - but there were never any major 10D reliability controversies, unlike e.g. the 300D's sub mirror pin.
On the used market it vies with the D60 and 300D as the cheapest second-hand six megapixel Canon SLR body. The 300D's only real advantage is EF-S compatibility; it is otherwise not much smaller than the 10D and has a number of reliability issues and the silver version looks like a toy. The D60 is apparently noisier and has a terrible autofocus system. The 10D has no obvious operational problems and the image quality is nice and clean and I have no great fear of ISO 400; later cameras have cleaner output, but even at ISO 1600 the 10D's output is not offensively ugly. Six megapixels limits your cropping options but is enough for A3 prints and more than enough for Facebook.
Most camera repair shops still service it. The price is such that you would probably not be heartbroken if it failed. The body is solid and metal, but surprisingly lightweight - my 5D MkII feels like a lead brick in comparison. The BG-ED3 grip is generally available cheaply on the used market and will interchange with the D30 and D60, if you have one. As far as I know there was never a Far Eastern clone of the BG-ED3.
The camera's autofocus system is infinitely superior to the autofocus system in the D30 and D60. I have no great opinion as to its merits pro and con nowadays; it works, it focuses, it doesn't just whizz back and forth and back and forth again.
Problems:
In its day the 10D was super; it was within the budget of a lot of people who had invested in Canon's 35mm EOS gear and were curious about digital, and its image quality and performance were far better than the compact cameras that most people associated with digital photography in 2003.
Nowadays it has a number of problems. Image quality is not one of them; I have no problems with the files it produces. The only thing that seems limited by modern standards is the dynamic range in the highlights. It doesn't cope with overexposure burn-out as well as later cameras (or Kodak's earlier DCS models). The lack of EF-S support makes it a poor choice as a backup for e.g a 50D with a 17-55mm f/2.8 or 15-85mm, because you can't interchange lenses. On the other hand it is, as far as I know, compatible with digital-only lenses from Sigma and Tamron and so forth.
Write times are very slow by modern standards, and you can't review and zoom into images until the entire run of shots has been written to the card, which takes what seems like ages - about six seconds per RAW file according to DPReview. Take three shots and you will have to wait eighteen seconds before you can review the first shot. Viewing a contact sheet is very slow. As DPReview points out, if you're overeager and open the memory card door too soon, the camera turns off and fails to write the remaining files.
The 10D doesn't have a joystick. You zoom into and navigate around the image with the command dial and a scroll up/down, scroll left/right button. It's better than the system in the D30 and D60 but it still feels clunky.
Compared to later XXD cameras the specification is very spartan. You can switch from SRGB and Adobe RGB and alter some of the parameters in a narrow range, but there are no predefined picture styles, and of course no Live View, artificial horizon etc. The sensor cleaning mode simply opens up the shutter, it doesn't actually clean the sensor.
Ultimately the big problem is that a used Canon 20D isn't much more expensive, but is still perfectly viable as a do-everything camera nowadays. Which is why I had my 10D converted to a dedicated infrared camera.
As a conventional digital SLR it is a good although not great used choice nowadays. It tends to be overshadowed by the 20D, which has a higher resolution, a faster processor, and an EF-S lens mount. Otherwise the 10D takes the BP-511 batteries that were then Canon's standard, and are still cheaply available on eBay, and it also takes standard Compact Flash cards, uses USB, and is in all respects unproblematic to own and use. The shutter button apparently gets unresponsive with time - mine had this problem - but there were never any major 10D reliability controversies, unlike e.g. the 300D's sub mirror pin.
On the used market it vies with the D60 and 300D as the cheapest second-hand six megapixel Canon SLR body. The 300D's only real advantage is EF-S compatibility; it is otherwise not much smaller than the 10D and has a number of reliability issues and the silver version looks like a toy. The D60 is apparently noisier and has a terrible autofocus system. The 10D has no obvious operational problems and the image quality is nice and clean and I have no great fear of ISO 400; later cameras have cleaner output, but even at ISO 1600 the 10D's output is not offensively ugly. Six megapixels limits your cropping options but is enough for A3 prints and more than enough for Facebook.
Most camera repair shops still service it. The price is such that you would probably not be heartbroken if it failed. The body is solid and metal, but surprisingly lightweight - my 5D MkII feels like a lead brick in comparison. The BG-ED3 grip is generally available cheaply on the used market and will interchange with the D30 and D60, if you have one. As far as I know there was never a Far Eastern clone of the BG-ED3.
The camera's autofocus system is infinitely superior to the autofocus system in the D30 and D60. I have no great opinion as to its merits pro and con nowadays; it works, it focuses, it doesn't just whizz back and forth and back and forth again.
Problems:
In its day the 10D was super; it was within the budget of a lot of people who had invested in Canon's 35mm EOS gear and were curious about digital, and its image quality and performance were far better than the compact cameras that most people associated with digital photography in 2003.
Nowadays it has a number of problems. Image quality is not one of them; I have no problems with the files it produces. The only thing that seems limited by modern standards is the dynamic range in the highlights. It doesn't cope with overexposure burn-out as well as later cameras (or Kodak's earlier DCS models). The lack of EF-S support makes it a poor choice as a backup for e.g a 50D with a 17-55mm f/2.8 or 15-85mm, because you can't interchange lenses. On the other hand it is, as far as I know, compatible with digital-only lenses from Sigma and Tamron and so forth.
Write times are very slow by modern standards, and you can't review and zoom into images until the entire run of shots has been written to the card, which takes what seems like ages - about six seconds per RAW file according to DPReview. Take three shots and you will have to wait eighteen seconds before you can review the first shot. Viewing a contact sheet is very slow. As DPReview points out, if you're overeager and open the memory card door too soon, the camera turns off and fails to write the remaining files.
The 10D doesn't have a joystick. You zoom into and navigate around the image with the command dial and a scroll up/down, scroll left/right button. It's better than the system in the D30 and D60 but it still feels clunky.
Compared to later XXD cameras the specification is very spartan. You can switch from SRGB and Adobe RGB and alter some of the parameters in a narrow range, but there are no predefined picture styles, and of course no Live View, artificial horizon etc. The sensor cleaning mode simply opens up the shutter, it doesn't actually clean the sensor.
Ultimately the big problem is that a used Canon 20D isn't much more expensive, but is still perfectly viable as a do-everything camera nowadays. Which is why I had my 10D converted to a dedicated infrared camera.
