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Ken Rockwell 2006
Canon 30D User's Guide 2006 KenRockwell.com

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.... 2 BASICS: CAMERA... 3 LENS.... 5 CONTROLS... 6 TOP PANEL CONTROLS... 6 REAR PANEL CONTROLS.. 11 SIDE and FRONT CONTROLS... 16 CUSTOM FUNCTIONS... 17 THE CUSTOM FUNCTIONS... 18 MENUS.... 24 SHOOTING MENU... 25 PLAYBACK MENU... 31 WRENCH MENU... 33

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INTRODUCTION
This is how I use and set up a Canon 30D. Want free live phone support? In the USA, call (800) OK-CANON from 10AM Midnight M-F, 10AM - 8PM Saturday, Eastern Time. They're closed Sundays. I start off explaining things so my mom can understand, and get on to deciphering every menu item for advanced users at the end. This article will teach you to be an expert on the 30D's controls and menus. It also includes a lot of tips, tricks, and the settings I prefer to use. To get great photos you still need to get yourself to the right place at the right time and point the camera in the right direction, which is a lot harder than mastering the 30D. Right out of the box at default settings the 30D does a great job. Making a great photo involves locations, timing, patience and a whole lot more. Below are the basics. Explicit details follow in later pages.

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BASICS: CAMERA
Many of these adjustments require you to be in the P, Tv, Av or M exposure modes. You set that on the top dial. The cute preset modes often lock out some adjustments. I never use these preset scene modes and won't cover them. I leave most settings at their defaults and use the Program exposure mode. I never use the cute little preset icon modes because I prefer to set anything special myself. Power: I always leave the power switch ON or set to the line (explained at Controls). The 30D ignores all the other buttons except the shutter once it goes to sleep a minute after you ignore it. The only way to get the 30D to respond to other keys, like Playback or MENU, is to tap the shutter button to wake it up. I don't bother turning it OFF, since it doesn't use the batteries while sleeping. I only turn it off if it's going in a case where the shutter might get tapped unintentionally. ISO: I use 100 in daylight. If the light gets dim and my images would get blurry from slower shutter speeds I increase the ISO to 400, 800 or 1,600. I never bother with in-between settings like 250 or 640. Unlike film, the 30D looks great at high ISOs, so I use them anytime I need them. I'd much rather have a slightly grainy but sharp image than a less grainy and blurry one. See examples of the noise and grain on my noise comparison page. I explain how to set these on my Controls page, and I explain ISO (sensitivity to light) on my ISO page. White Balance: I use AUTO. I explain how to set these on the 30D at Controls. See my White Balance Examples page and my White Balance page for why you'd want to change them. Quality: I shoot Large JPG NORMAL, which shows as L and a stair-step icon on the rear and top LCDs. Large is 3,504 x 2,336 pixels image size. I don't bother with RAW. See RAW vs. JPG and file format examples from a Nikon D200 for explanations and examples of the various settings. I explain how to set these at Menus. For parties or sports where' I'll be shooting hundreds and hundreds of images, I shoot Medium Normal (M and stair step icon) to save file space. The images still look great! I've made 12 x 18" prints of the same shot and seen no difference among the file types. Don't worry! I never use FINE, which is the quarter circle in place of the stair step icon. It looks the same to me and takes up twice the file space.

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Picture Style: This is where you set the "look" of your images: saturation, color, contrast, etc. I prefer the vivid color I get from Fuji's Velvia 50 film, so I tweak the 30D to give color almost as vivid as I can get. The 30D has a much wider range of saturation adjustment than most other cameras, so halfway up on a 30D is the same as all the way up on a 20D, D80 or D200. I leave everything at normal, and set the saturation to +2, +3, or, if I'm sitting down, +4. +4 is pretty wild. Try them for yourself. I explain how to set this later at Picture Styles. FOCUS: I use AI Focus. This clever mode automatically selects either of the two other focus modes. The other two focus modes are ONE SHOT, which means the 30D locks and holds the focus for you to compose still subjects, or AI Servo, which keeps the focus active to track moving subjects. I explain how to set these on my Controls page. METERING: Evaluative (the solid dot and circle in a rectangle icon). I never use the other modes. The other metering modes are: Center-Only (circle in rectangle, Canon calls this "Partial Metering"), Spot (dot in rectangle) or Center-Biased, Full-Frame Averaging (empty rectangle, Canon calls this "Center Weighted Averaging") modes. These modes are leftovers from before Evaluative metering was invented in 1985. I explain how to set these on my Controls page.

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I leave the AF - MF switch set to AF, for Autofocus. If the lens has an Image Stabilizer, I leave it ON. Some telephoto and macro lenses may have a switch to limit the range over which the lens can focus. I leave these set to the widest range. If your lens is taking too much time to hunt around and get focused, you might want to select a more restricted range, in which case the lens only looks at those ranges and will save itself from hunting.

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CONTROLS

TOP PANEL CONTROLS

Left side: Control Wheel: I leave this on P, Program exposure. This lets the 30D select the aperture and shutter speed, which it does perfectly all by itself. If I want different shutter speeds or apertures than the 30D's Program mode selections, I spin the front dial to select other combinations. Easy! Spinning the front dial in the Program mode is much faster and easier than switching to any of the other modes. I'll use Tv ("Time value") if I want to select a certain shutter speed only, in which case the 30D selects the aperture. I never use this. I'll use Av ("Aperture value") if I want to select a certain aperture only, in which case the 30D selects the shutter speed. I only use this when testing lenses and need exact apertures. I don't use this for real photography. M is manual exposure. You have to select the aperture and shutter speed the hard way: with more knobs. I'll only use this if I'm photographing something weird that requires me to lock down the exposure and keep it from changing. This most often is outdoors at night. A-DEP is a goofy mode which is supposed to select the aperture based on how much depth-of-field you require. I've tried it, and never use it.

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Tap DRIVE-ISO and the big dial on the back selects among the various ISO (light sensitivity) settings. It goes in third stops from 100 - 1,600. I prefer the 20D which only offers full stops. I never use middle ISOs like 320 or 640, so they get in my way on the 30D. ISO 3,200 is locked out to prevent people from using it by accident and complaining about noise and grain. You have to enable it in Custom Function 08. Once you've set Custom Function 08 to ON, ISO 3,200 is selected as "H," one click past ISO 1,600. I wish Canon allowed setting 1/3 stop ISOs between 1,600 and 3,200, since only at these very high speeds is there any real difference in noise between 1,600, 2,000, 2,500 and 3,200. The 20D and 30D only allow setting 1,600 or 3,200, not 2,000 or 2,500. I set 100 outdoors, and higher ones as I need them. There is NO Auto setting, as I love using on my Nikons. (There is a partial auto setting in some of the scene modes selected on the left top dial, which I don't use.) Rectangles, Circles, Lightning Bolt and +/- (Metering and Flash Brightness) Button: This button works the same as the other two buttons. It selects meter mode (the rectangle and circles) and flash brightness (the lighting bolt). You spin the front dial to change the exposure meter modes. I explained the Meter Mode selections on the first page. I always use evaluative, which is the dot and circle inside the rectangle. Flash brightness is set with the rear dial. I leave it on 0. + makes it brighter and - makes it darker.

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REAR PANEL CONTROLS
Note: Canon color-codes buttons in blue and silver to correspond to their functions in playback or shooting. I may use these colors in the text to clarify. Squiggle - Printer Button: I never use this. It's for messing around with transferring only some images from the camera to your computer (the squiggle) or for printing directly from the camera to an inkjet printer (the printer). Trick: The squiggle/printer button does something useful, but only if you enable it in Custom Function 17. If enabled, hold this squiggle/printer button and press the (+) (magnify) button while an image is reviewing immediately after it's shot. It will let you magnify the image without having to hit Play. Beats me why you have to enable this in a custom function; all the Canon point-andshoots do this by pressing their SET buttons without needing any menus. Pro tip: format your card every time you shoot, pull all your images off the card at the same time, back them up, and then format the card again before shooting again. This prevents data errors. People who keep erasing (instead of formatting) cards are asking for trouble over time. MENU: Calls up the menus.

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INFO: In playback, this button cycles through three kinds of display: 1.) Just the image, or 2.) Image with file number, frame counts and f/stop and shutter speed, or 3.) A page of more data and a useless single-channel histogram. You'll get much better results with the RGB histogram you should select in the Playback Menu. If the LCD is off, you're in shooting mode and pressing INFO calls up a screen of data related to the pictures you're about to take. It calls up the current time and date, exposure compensation, WB and Picture Style settings, available memory and etc. JUMP: If you have the menus up, JUMP jumps to the next of three colorcoded kinds of menu items: Shooting, Playing and Wrench. If you're playing an image, press it and you'll see a scroll bar appear on the image. Now the big rear wheel jumps 10 images forward or back per click. [ > ] (Play): Plays images. Press again to turn them off. Trash: Delete image. To delete an image, press the trash button, spin the dial one click clockwise to highlight "Erase" and press SET. ON / OFF: Power switch. The top "/" position enables the big dial to set exposure compensation, which makes images darker or lighter. Note how the "/" line connects to the big dial. In "ON" the big dial still works in the menus and everything else, but it won't set exposure compensation. You may wish to use the "ON" position to prevent accidental changing of the lighten/darken value. This value is shown on the top LCD and in the finder as a bar under a dotted line. In the photo of the top LCD above you can see this line on the bottom center of the LCD. In the photo the bar is at -1/3, my usual preference for the 30D. Big Dial: Spin this to select items as shown on the two LCDs and explained throughout this article. SET: This is the button in the center of the big dial. It rotates with the dial. I had to be sure I had it rotated so it said "SET" and wasn't upside down ("13S") for the photo. Don't worry, it does the same thing all the time. Red light on bottom right of Big Dial: This lights when the memory card is working. Leave the memory card alone while it's lit. It only lights for short periods of time when taking pictures, or stays lit and flashing when downloading a lot of photos.

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Unmarked Button above Big Dial: This is a 9-way navigation button. You can push it in 8 directions, or push it straight in. In playback it lets you scroll around the image after zooming in. It ignores you if you're not zoomed in, or are in the multi-image playback mode. In shooting it ignores you, unless you first press the top-right [+] button (explained below). After pressing the [+] button, the unmarked button allows you to select the autofocus sensor, which you'll see highlighted in red in the finder. You'll also see a cryptic [ - ] display on the top LCD, which is a rough representation of the selected AF sensor. Move the unmarked button to select the AF sensor. Push the unmarked button straight in to select the center sensor, which is very handy. Push it straight in again to light all the sensors, which lets the 30D select the sensor automatically. This button has nine direct positions and selects that sensor directly, regardless of the currently selected sensor. Unlike Nikon, it doesn't move the selection around by clicks. Example 1: if you have the bottom sensor selected and want to select the lower left sensor, just press the button to the lower left. Pressing it to the upper left, as you'd do on Nikon to move it a click, would select the upper left sensor. Example 2: if you have the right sensor selected and push the button left, you'll get the left sensor directly. You won't move a click to the center sensor as you would on Nikon. You get the center sensor by pushing the button straight in. You can let the unmarked button move the AF sensor without needing to press the [+] button first in Custom Function 13.

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Top Rear Corner
* (star), Checkerboard, (-) Button: This is on the top right of the rear of the 30D. In playback: Zooms out (-), or if you're zoomed all the way out, the next push gets you into the 9-image display mode (checkerboard). During shooting: * is Exposure Lock. Press * to lock the exposure. You'll see "*" in the finder to confirm after you've pressed it. This is the easy way to set the exposure in difficult (contrasty or backlit) light by pointing at one subject, locking the exposure and recomposing. For instance, with strong backlight, zoom into the face, tap the * (see "*" in finder to confirm that the exposure is locked) and zoom back out and recompose for your photo. This is much faster than other ways of setting exposure. Of course in a backlit case you should be using fill flash, too. It should be marked AEL. Sorry. You can change the function of this button in Custom Function 04. Once locked, it stays locked. I wish it unlocked if I pressed * again. Pressing it again merely locks it to a new setting Even taking a picture won't release it. You have to press one of the top AE-WB or DRIVE-ISO buttons to release it. If your flash is on, it locks flash exposure, too. You'll see FEL (Flash Exposure Lock) blink in the finder right after you press it.

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Flash Tip for the "*" Button:

Preflash - Eyes Closed

No preflash - eyes open
The 30D, like most cameras, fires a preflash a fraction of a second before the actual photo is taken to set how bright the flash should be. Then it takes the picture a fraction of a second later with a second pop of the flash. Most of the time the first pop of the flash starts people and pets blinking, which almost guarantees that their eyes will be closed in the actual photo! Use the * button to pop the preflash before you take a flash picture of people or pets. Now, so long as the * stay lit in the finder, the 30D will only fire one flash for each photo, which won't cause people to blink the moment before the photo is taken. Be sure to press * again if you change your distance. [+] - (+) Button: This is on the top right of the rear of the 30D. In playback: Zooms in (+), or if you're in the 9-image display mode (checkerboard), returns you to an individual image. During shooting: [+] allows you to change the selected AF sensor or sensors. I explained this above under the Unmarked Button above Big Dial.

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SIDE and FRONT CONTROLS
Look for the buttons on the front of the 30D near the lens. Lightning Bolt Button (just above and to left of EOS 30D label): Press it to pop up the built in flash. That's all it does. Unlike Nikon, you change the flash brightness (exposure compensation), if needed, with the flash exposure compensation button on the top of the camera. The finder flashes BUSY while the flash recycles. Big Unmarked Button (middle, to right of "Canon" marking on lens): Press it to unlock the lens for removal. Hold it in and turn the lens so the red or white dot goes towards the top of the camera to remove it. To mount another lens you merely match the red or white dot on the lens with the red or white dot on the 30D and rotate it until it clicks and locks automatically. Teeny Unmarked Button (just below Big Unmarked Button): Press and hold it to preview if the background will come into sharp enough focus to be distracting. It probably will make the viewfinder get darker, ignore that. Photographers call this button the "depth-of-field preview button." This button was important for film cameras, but since you get a better view playing the image back on the LCD, today this button is for a quick check of the background when making portraits.

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CUSTOM FUNCTIONS
Custom Functions are little menu tweaks that let you configure the 30D to your liking. You are welcome to forget all of these if your 30D is the way you want it. There are a couple I suggest you change to get the most out of your 30D. They are easy to see and to change. There are 18 of them, each with their own options. Some are wonderfully helpful while and others are only for special purposes. Sadly they are all well hidden in the menu system. How to Get to the Custom Functions Menu 1. Press MENU. 2. Spin the Big Dial to select Custom Functions, which is in the orange wrench section almost on the bottom. 3. Press SET. You're here. How to Select a Custom Function: After the above, spin the Big Dial. How to Change a Custom Function 1. After the above to select what you want to change, press SET. 2. Spin the Big Dial to see the options. 3. Press SET to save your choice.

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THE CUSTOM FUNCTIONS
The default setting is "0" for each. 01: SET function when shooting lets you have the SET button do something helpful while shooting. These are cool; they give you instant access to your choice of a function, skipping a few clicks. I use the Change Quality setting. Options are: 0: Nothing. The 30D ignores the SET button while shooting. 1: Change the Quality setting. You have to look at the top LCD. 2: Select a different Picture Style. 3: Call up MENU (duplicates the MENU button). 4: Replay the image. 02: Long Exposure Noise Reduction. This means after an exposure of a second or longer, the 30D makes a second exposure as long as the first, except with the shutter closed. The top LCD blinks BUSY during this second, dark, exposure. The 30D then subtracts any noise, fog or hot pixels seen in the known dark exposure from your image. I never use this. I hate waiting, and I especially hate waiting for double-long exposures for this to finish. Use it only if you see fog or hot pixels and then only if it improves them. 03: Flash Sync in Av Mode. 0: Auto: the shutter speed remains as set for a good ambient exposure. I use this. 1: 1/250: It locks the shutter at its fastest 1/250 sync, making the backgrounds dark or black.

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04: Shutter Button/AE Lock Button chooses the function of these two buttons. Hint: The AE lock button is the one marked *. 0: AF/AE Lock: The shutter button focuses the lens and locks the exposure. The * button locks exposure, too, and holds it after you've released it. I have no idea how to unlock the set exposure, except by cycling the power or tapping the AF-WB or DRIVE-ISO buttons. 1: AE Lock/AF is backwards from how I like things. The shutter button locks exposure, and the * button focuses. 2: AF/AF lock, no AE lock: the shutter button focuses and locks exposure. The * button locks focus. 3: AE/AF, no AE lock. The shutter only releases the shutter. Only the * button focuses, and it also locks exposure. This is different from what I'd expect from the labeling. I use the default. Sadly, I have no idea how to get the buttons to work the way I want, which is for the shutter to lock focus but not exposure, and the * button to lock exposure only when held down. 05: AF Assist Beam. This is a trick: the 30D has NO AF illuminator! Sadly, the 30D instead fires off the flash numerous times, blinding your subjects. My wife kicked me out when she thought I was going to blind her dogs. The little light near the shutter button on the front of the body is only for the self-timer, not the AF illuminator. Sorry. 06: Set Exposure in 1/3 or 1/2 Stops: purely personal preference. I prefer full stops (not offered), except in Manual, where I prefer thirds. 07: Flash on/off: This one is silly. Turn it off, and the flash won't go off, even if popped up! That's the easiest way to confuse yourself and send in your camera for unneeded service. Really want to confuse your friends? Even if this is turned off, the flash will still go off in the dark to help focusing, but won't go off for the photo! leave this one alone at its default of ON. 08 ISO Expansion (ISO 3200 Enable): by default, this is off. If it's off, the highest ISO is 1,600. Set it to ON to let you get to ISO 3,200. Once set ON, you get to ISO 3,200 easily through the usual ISO setting. Canon hid ISO 3,200 so inexperienced photographers wouldn't accidentally shoot photos at ISO 3,200 and be unhappy with the grain (noise). Of course ISO 3,200 is noisy. I use ISO 3,200 if it's dark and the difference between a sharp shot and a blurry one. I always leave this custom function set to ON so I can get to ISO 3,200 any time I need it.

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09: Bracket Sequence/Auto Cancel sets two things. (You enable bracketing in the menus.) Sequence is the order of the exposures. Normal is 0 - +, which means the first shot is at the normal exposure, the next is underexposure, and the last is overexposure. You can change this to - 0 +, which makes the underexposure first, followed by the normal and then overexposed shot. This also applies to WB bracketing: + refers to more green or amber; - refers to more magenta or blue. Auto Cancel is whether or not the bracketing cancels when you turn off the power or change lenses. By default, bracketing turns off with the camera. If you set this to disable (a double negative: you're disabling the auto-cancel so it doesn't cancel) then the bracketing is still turned on next time you turn on the 30D. I wouldn't do this; I'd leave it alone. Canon's manual implies that you have to choose a non-default "disable" in order to repeat a bracket sequence. I think this was lost in translation, you can repeat sequences in any setting. 10: Superimposed Display (Red AF Sensor Lights) let you turn off the red AF sensor lights in the finder. I don't know why you'd do this. I leave this at its default, which lights up the sensor in use as you shoot. If you turn it off, you'll still see the sensors as you're selecting them manually. 11: Menu Button Display Position selects where you are each time you hit the MENU button 0: Previous (top if power off): Every time you hit MENU you are where you were the last time you hit it, unless you've turned off the 30D, in which case it starts again at the top of the menu list. 1: Previous: You are where you were the last time you hit the Menu button even if you've turned off the 30D. 2: Top. Every time you press the MENU button you start at the top of the list. (hint: use JUMP to jump to each section)

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17: Magnified View enables you to zoom the image right after you shoot it. I have no idea why this requires a menu option, even my canon point-andshoots do this, automatically. 0: Playback only. You have to hit the Play button before you can zoom in. Stupid. 1: Review and Playback. You can zoom in after hitting the Play button as before. Also, while the image is reviewing, you can hold the squiggle/printer button while pressing the (+) (magnify) button to zoom in. This lets you magnify the image without having to hit Play. Beats me why you have to enable this in a custom function; all the Canon pointand-shoots do this by pressing their SET buttons without needing any menus. 18: Lens AF Stop Button lets you select what happens when you press AF Stop buttons which appear only on Canon's super telephoto lenses. Most lenses don't have these buttons. 19: Add Original Decision Data adds a checksum to the image file. If you pay $700 extra for the DVK-E2 software kit, when playing back images you can get your computer to tell you if your file is as it came from the camera, or if it's been altered. This is something Canon pitches to people who use photos for evidence and forensics. I have no idea if anyone believes any of this. I wouldn't.

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These are called up with the MENU button. The 30D needs to be awake to respond to the MENU button. Tap the shutter button if the 30D has fallen asleep, which it does after a minute idle. You'll see a bunch of things on the rear LCD. You move up and down by spinning the big rear dial. You can jump to the top of any of the three color-coded sections by pressing the JUMP button. The three sections of the menu are SHOOTING (a camera icon in red), PLAYBACK ( [>] icon, blue) and WRENCH (hammer and sickle icon, orange).

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SHOOTING MENU
Quality: Here's where you select file type, image size, and JPG compression level. I use Large Normal, which is L with a stair-step icon. Default is Large Fine, which is next to it as L and a quarter-circle icon. Fine makes a file with the same resolution and number of pixels, but with twice the file size (half as many pictures per card) and with 1% better quality. L is an image 3,504 x 2,336 pixels. My friend Paul Renner uses a 20D and people pay him top dollar for prints many feet on a side at this resolution. M is a slightly smaller image size, 2,544 x 1,696 pixels. I use this to save file space if I'm shooting hundreds and hundreds of shots of sports or at a party. I can print these files at 12 x 18" (50 cm wide) and they still look great. S is a smaller image at 1,728 x 1,152 pixels. I use it only if I want a small shot to record a sign in front of a location for reference. Even then, this will print just lovely at 8x12" (30 cm wide).

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WB SHIFT/BKT: This allows you change (shift) the white balance slightly, or bracket them (make several shots, each slightly different). Shift: This is what you do to make subtle color shifts to images. To do this, press MENU, spin the dial to select WB SHIFT/BKT, press SET to get into it, use the unmarked rear navigation button to set the color shift, and press SET to lock it in. Oddly the center push of the button won't get you back to 0; you have to click back over the hard way. (The 30D ignores you if you forget to press SET.) This shift is subtle, you have to look carefully to see it. If you set it away from 0, you'll see a small "WB =/-" on the top LCD to remind you. Bracket: Spin the big dial and you'll see three dots where before there was just one. Spin in one direction to get red/blue bracketing, and in the other direction for green/magenta. Shooting this way is easier than exposure bracketing, since the 30D automatically records three files, one for each exact WB, for each shot. This is because WB is calculated internally for each shot, unlike exposure. WB BKT records three frames from each shot automatically. Of course you also always need to press SET for these settings to take effect. You may shift the WB as in the above paragraph, and then bracket around it. Slick! The unslick part is that this WB offset takes effect for all other WB settings. To turn it off or on or change it you have to get into these menus. You can't save a different value for Daylight and another for Cloudy, as you can on Nikon. Nikons are better because they make changing this as simple as spinning the front dial while holding the WB button. Nikons are better because they store and recall the WB trim (shift) separately for each WB preset. Canons are better because they also allow altering the WB along the green/magenta axis, which Nikons don't. Personally I never use green/magenta bias anyway. Canon also provides more adjustment points, although I find Nikon's +/- 3 settings more than enough. I prefer the Nikons here. CUSTOM WB is how you set the 30D's white balance to a white or gray card or Expodisc. It's complicated, unlike Canon's compact cameras. To set the WB to a random reference, first make a shot of the entire frame filled by that reference, but do it in anything other than the Custom WB mode. The Custom WB mode is an icon of a little square in the middle of two ramps. Now press MENU, spin the big dial to CUSTOM WB, press SET (spin the dial again if you want to set the WB to an image other than the one you've just taken), press SET again to set the WB to that shot. You'll probably get a reminder now to set the WB (use the WB button) to Custom (square and two ramps). If you did this correctly, your next shots will have perfect color balance.

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COLOR TEMP lets you set the images to exactly your preference of warmth or coolness (amber or blue.) Press MENU, spin the dial to COLOR TEMP, press SET, spin the dial to your choice, and press SET to lock it in. You can't use this setting until you select [K] with the WB button. Canon makes this simple setting needlessly complex. Canon makes you do this because they combined the WB button with the AF button. Nikon does this correctly by having a dedicated WB button which lets you use the first dial for selecting AUTO, DAY, Custom, K or whatever, and the second dial to select the exact K value or shift the WB. I prefer Nikon here, which lets you do this directly without menus. COLOR SPACE allows you to use the default world-standard sRGB for accurate and vivid colors, or screw them up and get duller colors by selecting Adobe RGB. I explain this under color spaces. Just leave it at sRGB. Adobe RGB doesn't get any wider range of colors on any of the printers I've used (inkjet, gicle, lightjet or supergloss), but almost ensures that someplace along the line the colors will get screwed up and look too dull. Canon makes this much easier to set than Nikon. Unfortunately this is something that should be buried, since you shouldn't use it unless you really, really know what you're doing, and print everything yourself from start to finish. PICTURE STYLE settings are important. "Picture Style" is bad English for what should be called "critical artistic adjustments." This is where you set the critical "look" of your images. It's where you set Contrast, Sharpness, Saturation and even color shift (called color tone by Canon). Nikon hides these deeper in its menus than Canon does. Nikon calls the same thing "Optimize Image." There are nine memory banks, or sets, of "Picture Styles," of which five are locked and four are available for adjustment. The 20D only has six total, but the same number of adjustable ones. The 30D provides more presets, which I ignore. The 30D has five preset (locked) sets of parameters, named Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral and Faithful. Those names don't mean very much. You can see what settings these use for contrast etc. when you look through them, which is better than Nikon, which makes it almost impossible to see what values are used for their color presets. No big deal, if you're wanting to set your own you probably don't care about the canned values. The next four are adjustable. One is B/W, called "monochrome," and the other three are color. Canon calls these three banks of color settings User Def. 1, 2 and 3.

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Monochrome is Black and White. You can change the contrast, sharpening, add a sepia effect or even simulate the effect of using a colored filter in front of the lens in B/W. B/W of course offers no saturation or skin tone (color tone) tweaks User Def. 1, 2 and 3 are where you store your own sets of color parameters. It's important to play with these to get the look you want. This is how I get bold color right out of my camera. To select or adjust one of these Picture Styles: 1. Press MENU and spin the Big Dial to highlight Picture Style. Press SET. 2. Spin the Big Dial to select one of them. 3. Press SET to use it, or Press JUMP to adjust it. If you want to adjust the settings, spin the Big Dial to select what to adjust. If you choose a preset Picture Style first, you pull down all the settings from that fixed preset as a starting point for your own tweaks. Once you've spun to one of the parameters, like Contrast, press SET and spin to adjust it. Press MENU to lock in your selection. This last step is important. If, after making a change, you press anything other than MENU, your change will be ignored. Sorry! That drove me nuts until I figured it out. It's easier to do than to write about. When looking at the User Defined 1, 2 and 3 settings in the menu, they are blue if altered, or white if at defaults. Thank God you'll probably only need to set these once! I set mine all to defaults, except I set my User Def 1 to +2 for saturation, User Def 2 to +3 Saturation, and User Def 3 to +4 saturation. Trick: Once you have these set, you can set Custom Function 01 to let you select among these nine sets using a push of the SET button! I LOVE this- it makes it easy for me to select just how loud I want my colors for each shot. I wish my Nikons could do this.

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Now let me describe the individual settings: Contrast: I leave this in the middle. You can soften images by turning it down, or make them harsher by cranking it up. I prefer Nikons which have an AUTO mode which adjusts automatically to the subject. On Canons you need to set this up or down manually if you have an unusually contrasty or flat subject. It always looks fine to me left alone at 0. Sharpness is really how much extra sharpening is added. I leave at the default. The image can look harsh if set higher. Play around and see what you like, just remember it's not really sharpness, which if it was I'd crank it up, but artificial sharpening which is added later to the image. Too much looks bad. Saturation is the vividness of the color. The 30D is exceptional in that it allows much more saturation than other cameras. Set to the middle of the boost, or +2, it's the same as most cameras cranked to the max. It has two positions above that, which are loud and louder color. Try it yourself and see. I love this! Color Tone shifts skin tones. It seems to shift most other colors a little, too. Try it yourself and see if you like the effects. + makes skin tones yellower (yellows go greener) and - makes them redder (yellows go more magenta). might mimic Fuji Velvia 50's wonderful warming of yellows and oranges. Try a - setting. You can check the settings by going to the main menu and going back into these. You also can check them by pressing the INFO button. It will report these settings cryptically as a string of four digits. Sorry, I don't make this stuff up. If one fine day Canon asks me for my input, these will be much easier to figure out.

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PLAYBACK MENU
You get to the Playback menu by pressing MENU and spinning the big dial, or pressing MENU and then JUMP. The 30D needs to be awake to respond to the MENU button. Tap the shutter button if the 30D has fallen asleep, which it does after a minute idle. Protect allows you to prevent erasure of individual files. To do it, press MENU, get to Protect, and press SET. Now spin the dial to select the images you'd like to protect and press SET to protect or unprotect each image. Of course formatting the card erases everything, even if you've protected a file. Be careful! I only use this feature if I want to erase all the photos on a card except for a few. I protect them, then do ERASE ALL. I rarely do this. I copy all the files to my computer, back them up and format the card. I do my selections on my computer. Buy a bigger card if you have to, they're cheap today. Rotate lets you set the rotation flag manually for any image. It doesn't actually rotate the images, and different computer software may see these flags differently. I leave my files unrotated and rotate them for real in iView (Action > JPEG Rotate) later. Print Order is for selecting what and how you want pictures printed straight from the camera. It means you're ordering prints from within the camera! I don't do this - I prefer to sort and select my images on my computer. I've never seen a lab which works this way. I presume they're big in Japan, or that I haven't been paying attention. I suspect you're asking for trouble and losing files if you play around with all this in-camera on the memory card. Transfer Order is also related to ordering prints. I don't use this either. Auto Play plays a slide show on the tiny screen, or you can plug the 30D into a TV. Digital images look crummy played on TV. I never use this. Review Time is how long, or if, images play on the screen after they're taken. Set it to OFF if you don't want them to play automatically. Default is 2 seconds, which is too short. I set it to 8 seconds or Hold. AF Points lets you choose to display, during playback, the AF points that were used to make the picture.

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Histogram must be set to RGB. The Brightness (default) setting is useless, as are all single-channel histograms. This is a major reason to buy the 30D over the 20D. Read more at Histograms and Color Histograms. The Brightness setting can lead you to think you have a good exposure, when in fact you could have heinous overexposure, which would be obvious on the RGB histogram. The Brightness setting is only helpful for B/W photos, it's worse than useless in color.

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WRENCH MENU
You get to the Wrench menu by pressing MENU and spinning the big dial, or pressing MENU and then JUMP. The 30D needs to be awake to respond to the MENU button. Tap the shutter button if the 30D has fallen asleep, which it does after a minute idle. Auto Power Off sets how long the 30D stays awake before going to sleep. I find the default of 1 minute is fine. The OFF setting is a double-negative, if you choose OFF for Auto Power Off, the 30D stays on until you turn it off or the battery dies. Auto Rotate adds flags to vertical images so they look vertical on most playback software. it doesn't actually rotate the images, and not all software will see the flags. I prefer to leave this off and rotate the images later in iView (Action > JPEG Rotate), unless I'm shooting a zillion images at a party. If you leave this on and the camera gets a few wrong, you can fix it in the playback menu's Rotate option. LCD Brightness changes the brightness of the LCD backlight. See more at LCD Comparisons. I usually leave this cranked all the way up, not at it's much dimmer default. Date/Time sets both. File Numbering lets new files made on a fresh card start off where the last file numbers left off. Leave this at its default of Continuous. Auto Reset is bad. If you use Auto Reset then each card or reformat will probably start at file IMG_0001.JPG again, which means over time you'll have a hundred files all called IMG_0001.JPG. This wreaks havoc later if you want to put them in the same folder or use them on the same web page. Beware, just leave this alone at Continuous. If you do, it will keep counting up until you get to file IMG_9999.JPG before it resets to IMG_0001.JPG. Language lets you set the 30D to Swedish. For fun, try setting it to Korean and see if you can get it back to English! Video System controls the TV output. Leave it at NTSC for the USA and Japan, and PAL in Europe. I never use the TV output. TV is much lower resolution and looks bad. Communication: I leave this at Print/PC. Unfortunately, no setting will make the 30D appear as an external hard drive, which most other brands like Casio and Nikon do. Because of this, you have to load software to get your images out of the camera, making it a pain if you travel and want to borrow a computer. Nikon and Casio cameras pop right up as external USB drives, making it trivial to transfer files to and from these cameras.

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The LAN(WFT-E1) setting is for use with the WFT-E1 Wireless File Transmitter. The WFT-E1 is a $999 gizmo and antenna that screws to your camera and attaches with a cable. It allows you to FTP your shots to your computer over Wi-Fi. Format is important. Formatting erases the card and lets it start fresh. I format my card every time I shoot anything. Frequent formatting prevents file errors and corruption. Want to lose files and have unreadable cards? Then just keep erasing images from the card and forget to reformat. Reformatting is good hygiene. I prefer my Nikon SLRs, which have a two-button way to do this without menus. I prefer the Nikons because they make this easy for something I do a couple of times a day. I reformat after every time I download and back up. Custom Functions are 18 more settings I cover at Canon 30D Custom Functions. Clear Settings resets almost everything I just explained. Clear All Camera Settings resets everything I just explained on the past few pages to their defaults. Clear All Custom Functions resets everything I'm about to explain at Canon 30D Custom Functions. I don't use these, because they reset everything without any intelligence. I prefer Nikon's green-button reset, because Nikons SLRs are smart enough to reset the tactical things like ISO, focus mode, WB, exposure compensations, flash modes, etc., that I change for every shot, but leave the strategic settings, like file numbering, timers, saturation and no beeping, alone. Resets are important, because every night I usually wind up my camera to ISO 1,600 and some screwy custom white balance, flash mode and exposure compensation, and every morning I need to set it all back to ISO 100 and normal. With the Canons I need to run down a long checklist of about a dozen things I may have messed with, because I can't use their reset because it resets too much, meaning I would have to go down an even longer checklist to reset the strategic items. Nikon's reset only resets what I need reset. I use it every time I shoot. It's not just for dummies! Sensor Clean is for locking up the mirror and cleaning the sensor. Don't try this at home! I've made about 60,000 shots on DSLRs and I've never cleaned a sensor, except with a blower bulb. I have met pros who have destroyed their $5,000 D2Xs because their sensor swab was defective. Don't let this happen to you. The only people who recommend trying this yourself are the people who want to sell you swabs.

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Firmware lets you check your revision number, and update it if you have a newer version on a CF card. Dedication Adorama was a big help with this article. If you find this article helpful and want to get a 30D, getting it there helps us all continue to do more of this.

unusual position of being able to listen to the comments and requests of EOS camera users and to respond with precision. The EOS 30D retains the best of the highly acclaimed basic functions of the EOS 20D: an 8.2 MP CMOS sensor, the DiG!C II Image Processor, 5 fps fast continuous shooting, a multilayer LPF (low pass filter), high-precision 9-point AF, a durable magnesium alloy body, a multi-controller and vast system compatibility. Some changes are shared with other EOS models, such as the 2.5-inch LCD monitor with a wide viewing angle, Picture Style settings and automatic noise reduction, while other enhancements appear for the first time, including the Print/Share button, extended PictBridge functions, enhanced auto-rotate functionality and improvements in Canon-to-Canon Exterior cover and internal construction device linkage. Additional new features such as 3.5% spot metering, a tougher and more durable shutter, increased burst rate, more shots per battery charge, a low-speed drive mode, numerous improved shooting, recording and playback functions and faster startup all derive, at least in part, from user feedback. After reviewing the feature improvements of the EOS 30D, it becomes apparent that Canon has managed to make this new camera far more suitable for professional applications, while at the same time maintaining its strong appeal to advanced amateurs. Whereas the EOS 20D could reasonably have been described as the big brother of the Digital Rebel XT, the EOS 30D is truly the little brother of its higher-priced sibling, the EOS 5D. This makes the 30D a compelling proposition for a wide range of customers, including: Digital Rebel or 20D owners who want to step up to the 30Ds improved features 5D or EOS-1 class owners looking for a professional quality backup camera Wedding and portrait photographers looking for exceptional image quality and professional features in a compact, lightweight package Photojournalists, other professionals and anyone else looking for outstanding performance at an affordable price The EOS 30D has one more feature that is sure to make it even more appealing: an introductory price of $1,399 for the body only, $100 lower than the EOS 20Ds first price, and hundreds of dollars less than its competition. Remember, too, that Canon includes not only the battery pack and charger, strap, video and interface cables, but also a software package of great quality, completeness and usefulness. Canon does not expect its customers to purchase options just to make their cameras work.

According to NPD Intelect Market Research. Source: http://www.uspto.gov
II. NEW AND IMPROVED FEATURES
New 2.5-inch LCD monitor with approximately 230,000 pixels, wide viewing angle and substantially improved visibility Exceptional new direct printing capabilities, unique to Canon Picture Style controls make it easier to get what you want New, switchable high-speed/low-speed continuous shooting ISO settings in 1/3-stop increments with readout in viewfinder Reduced energy consumption for roughly 10% more shots per battery charge New 4-step battery level display New spot metering, same as EOS-1 Series and EOS 5D New, professional-quality shutter rated to approximately 100,000 cycles Great workflow improvement with upgraded software package, including (at no extra charge) ZoomBrowser/ImageBrowser, and Digital Photo Professional, backwards compatible to D2000 and D6000 of 1998 Improved folder management with up to 9,999 images in each folder and file numbering with manual reset 0.15-second startup time, fastest of any EOS camera* 30-frame Large/Fine JPEG burst, up from 23 frames** 11 RAW frame burst, up from 6** Improved image playback functions, including new enlarge function in Quick Review as well as Playback, software-only auto rotate, and an improved jump function Enhanced Info screen with new, switchable RGB histogram as well as AF frame and File Size displays New auto noise reduction for long exposures with new Custom Function 02 New magnified view with Custom Function 17 Error code readout on back screen together with countermeasures help New display for image transfer failure using the WFT-E1A Improved recovery from Auto Power Off Single-shot AE/AF lock retained for subsequent shots Separate flash exposure (FE) lock icon displayed in the viewfinder Lower introductory price than EOS 20D
as of February 2006 compared to the EOS 20D

III. CAMERA CONTROLS

Picture Style
Picture Style, introduced on the Canon EOS-1D Mark II N and the EOS 5D, is Canons new and genuinely improved approach to selecting presets that reflect most closely the photographic purpose and intent of the user. It consolidates Processing Parameters and Color Matrix and takes them a step further. Picture Style selection is like choosing a film type with the added benefits of being able to refine ones film selection after loading, and the ability to change film properties significantly and repeatedly in mid-roll. Style 1 Standard is for users who do not intend to do any post-processing of their images. Right out of the camera, the pictures look crisp and vibrant, with the sharpness set to 3 and the color tone and saturation set to obtain vivid colors. Excellent prints will eventuate without any further adjustment. It is equivalent to parameter 1 on the EOS 20D. Style 2 Portrait has color tone and saturation settings that yield natural skin tones. The sharpness is set one step weaker than the Standard setting so that skin and hair look softer. Style 3 Landscape has color tone and saturation settings that give vivid blues and greens for skies and greenery. The sharpness is set one step stronger than the Standard setting so that the outlines of mountains, trees, and buildings look more crisp. Style 4 Neutral yields natural color reproduction, and no sharpness is applied. This setting is ideal for post-processing and is the same as the EOS-1D Series defaults. Style 5 Faithful is intended to match the original as closely as possible. It is the same as Faithful in Digital Photo Professional. When the subject is photographed in 5,200K light, the color is adjusted colorimetrically to match the subjects color. No sharpness is applied. This setting, too, is designed for workflow that includes post-processing. Style 6 Monochrome with filter effects and color tones, is the same as the EOS 20Ds monochrome setting. One can select a preset Picture Style (from Styles 1 through 5) and then, by pressing the Jump button, adjust sharpness (0 to 7), contrast (-4 to +4), color saturation (-4 to +4) or color tone (-4 to +4). Up to three additional user-defined Picture Style settings can be saved. Additional customized Picture Style files can also be downloaded via the Internet and set through the Camera Window software included in the package. When C.Fn-01-2 is set, pressing the SET button displays the Picture Style setting screen. The [Clear all camera settings] menu item causes all settings to revert to their defaults. In the EOS 30D, the Picture Style is automatically set for each of the Basic Zone modes:

Portrait and Landscape for their respective modes, and Standard for Full Auto, Close-Up, Sports, Night Portrait and Flash Off.

Noise Reduction

Selecting choice [1: Auto] in C.Fn-02, a new setting also available on the EOS 5D, enables auto noise reduction. For exposures of 1 second and longer, the EOS 30D then measures noise levels automatically and applies noise reduction only if it is determined that such a process would be beneficial. Causes of noise include the long exposure itself or high air temperature. Auto noise reduction is an excellent method for the management of dark frame subtraction because, most often, the camera is far better able to evaluate the presence of spurious data than the user. If noise reduction is performed, it takes the same amount of processing time as the exposure; the next shot cannot be taken until the process is completed. Unlike the EOS 5D, the EOS 30D cannot take any pictures while noise reduction is performed, a time equal to the length of the exposure. When [2: On] is selected for C.Fn-02, noise reduction is always performed for images shot with an exposure time of 1 second or longer. This is effective for the noise that occasionally occurs in a low-temperature environment because such noise cannot be detected automatically. In the case of both the Auto and On settings, noise reduction is performed regardless of the ISO setting. If the same shutter speed is used for continuous shooting in the shutter speed-priority AE mode or in the manual exposure mode, noise reduction will be performed on all the shots based on the first shots noise data. This can be quite effective for Auto Exposure Bracketing sequences when all of the exposures are between 1 and 30 seconds.

Files and Folders

In response to user requests, the number of images that can be saved in one folder has been increased from 100 on the EOS 20D to 9,999 as in the Canon EOS-1 Series and EOS 5D. Also, a file numbering manual reset function like the one on the EOS 5D has been added. The [Manual reset] option is now in the [File numbering] menu. When a reset is performed, a new folder is created and the image number begins with 0001. The folder selection function provided on the EOS 5D is not included on the EOS 30D.

Ease of Operation

Attention paid by Canon engineers to some of the finer details of camera functionality has made the EOS 30D faster and easier to use. The multicontrollers operation and diagonal scrolling have been improved with new firmware and a re-shaped controller. A Print/Share button has been added to the upper left of the back of the camera. The button is used for Direct Print, when printing images directly from the camera, and Direct image transfer, when the camera is connected to a compatible personal computer. In addition to turning power back on from Auto Power Off by pressing the shutter button

Custom Functions

The EOS 30D has one new custom function and an addition to an existing one, resulting in 19 custom functions with 53 possible settings. Entirely new is C.Fn-17, Magnified view. With option [0: Image playback only], magnified view is possible after one presses the Playback button to display the image. With option [1: Image review and playback], magnified view is possible after one presses the Playback button (as with the 0 setting) as well as during the image review immediately after shooting. During the image
review, hold down the Print/Share button and press the Magnify button to magnify the image. Once magnified, the AF point selector enlarges and the AE lock button reduces the image. When option 1 is selected but the image has not been magnified, these two buttons retain their regular functions. C.Fn-02, Long exposure noise reduction, now has 3 options: Off, Auto and On. Please see Noise Reduction for a discussion of this feature. Note that, when C.Fn-12-1 (mirror lockup) is set, the camera should not be pointed toward the sun or any bright light source. Doing so could damage the shutter curtains, cause stray light to enter or damage the imaging sensor.

White Balance

White balance controls are the same as on the EOS 20D. The modes are Auto (AWB, approx. 30007000K), six Preset settings (Daylight, approx. 5200K; Shade, approx. 7000K; Cloudy/twilight/sunset, approx. 6000K; Tungsten, approx. 3200K; White fluorescent,

SHIFT A5 G2

BKT AB 3
M approx. 4000K; Flash, approx. 6000K), and two SET OK SHIFT BKT manual modes (Custom: photograph a white subject serving as the WB standard and use the [Custom WB] menu to specify that image as the standard; Color Temperature: specify directly from the [Color temp.] menu). WB correction (Blue/amber or Magenta/green, +/- 9 levels, set with the multi-controller) can be applied to any of these settings within a range of 2000 to 10000K. WB bracketing can be enabled for three images at the current color temperature setting,
then blue bias and then amber bias or current color temperature setting, then magenta bias and then green bias. The range is +/- 3 stops in one-stop increments. Because three images are recorded with one press of the shutter button, write times to the CF card increase proportionally. Also, when WB-BKT is set, the shots remaining will decrease to about one-third of the normal quantity. With C.Fn-09 [Bracketing sequence/ Auto cancel], the bracketing sequence can be changed and the bracketing can be canceled automatically.
IV. SOFTWARE AND EXTENDED COMPATIBILITY
Software One of the many differences between Canon and the other manufacturers of DSLRs is the completeness, excellence and generosity of the software package Canon includes with each EOS Digital SLR. The EOS Digital Solution Disk Version 12 has the following components (in seven languages): EOS Utility Ver.1.0 integrates and upgrades CameraWindow and EOS Capture, bringing together all the functions that involve communication with the camera. It is the gateway that allows users to download images to a computer, adjust camera settings, shoot photos remotely, monitor folders when the WFT-E1A wireless transmitter is used and even see images as they are shot. It supports automatic image transfer using the Print/Share button on the EOS 30D, as well as selectable linked display in Digital Photo Professional and ZoomBrowser/ImageBrowser. This means that Canon EOS users can now download their images directly into Digital Photo Professional, ZoomBrowser EX or ImageBrowser a huge workflow improvement, integrated from shooting all the way to printing. EOS Utility Ver.1.0 is compatible with all EOS Digital SLRs from the EOS D30 onwards (Mac and Windows).

communicate with the computer. No separate driver is required for Windows XP or Mac OS X 10.210.4 because the OS driver is used.

Direct Printing

In addition to its standard PictBridge features, which are compatible with most PictBridge-compliant printers regardless of manufacturer, the EOS 30D supports additional direct printing features exclusively when the camera is connected to a new PIXMA Pro9500 or Pro9000 desktop photo printer, which are being announced simultaneously with the EOS 30D camera. These features include the following: Full support for Picture Style settings: Images are printed according to the photographers preferences for sharpening, contrast, saturation and color tone, as well as monochrome and other special effects. Fine adjustment of other image quality settings such as color balance, color space (including Adobe RGB), overall brightness, face brightness and microcontrast levels as well as a red-eye correction function. Expanded paper selection, including a range of fine art paper stocks available in a variety of sizes up to 13" x 19". These additional direct printing features are being introduced to meet the needs of camera users who pay close attention to details and want to fine-tune their image quality to the highest possible degree. As a result, customers who purchase the EOS 30D camera together with a compatible PIXMA Pro Series printer will achieve levels of quality and convenience that are only available with this new Canon-to-Canon solution. In previous direct printing, the colors shot by the camera were automatically corrected by the printer during printing. The user could neither print images using the cameras unmodified color characteristics nor look at a print and make fine adjustments to color tones. With an EOS 30D/ PIXMA Pro Series printer combination, a full range of print effects is now possible. Images can now be printed using the cameras color characteristics without automatic correction by the printer, a particular advantage when

<JUMP> button

Select [Detail set.]
printing from a camera with Picture Style. When necessary, the conventional print mode with automatic correction on the printer is still selectable. The following table shows the wide range of choices available for print optimization when using Direct Print. It lists selectable Print Effects across the top and manually adjustable print parameters in the left column.

Wireless Remote Controller LC-3
Wireless Remote Controller LC-4
V. PERFORMANCE, DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
LCD Monitor The most obvious external difference between the EOS 20D and the EOS 30D is the new 2.5-inch, 230,00-pixel TFT liquid-crystal monitor with its 170 wide viewing angle and six LED backlight modules. This is the same monitor used on the EOS-1D Mark II N and the EOS 5D, both released in the autumn of 2005. Compared with the unit on the EOS 20D, the new monitor has a viewing 85 angle 1.94 times larger in all directions, is EOS 30D EOS 20D much easier to see in daylight, and has a 20 font size about twice as large and 10% wider. The monitor has approximately 100% coverage for JPEG images and 5 levels of brightness adjustment with a gray chart displayed along with the image.

Vertical viewing angle

Horizontal viewing angle

Design and Construction

Some changes have been made to move the EOS 30D in the direction of the EOS 5D. The new, large monitor is unmistakable. (It accounts for a 20g increase in camera weight.) Shapes around the flash head and lens mount have been changed subtly to suggest Canons upper-range models. The mode dial now has a metallic finish. The grip below the shutter button has been extended for better purchase with the middle fingers and improved overall handling. A new groove where the middle finger falls improves comfort and security. The body is 2mm thicker than the EOS 20Ds, also enhancing comfort and security. Indented surrounds have been added to the row of four buttons on the back of the camera and the Delete key has been given its own location. Like the EOS 20D, the 30D is compact, solid, elegant, durable and purposeful. It is easy to carry and a delight to hold and use. The real design and construction story, though, is the extent to which numerous internal changes have made the EOS 30D a meaningful upgrade over the EOS 20D. Like the EOS 20D, the EOS 30Ds top, front and rear covers are made of a very light and strong magnesium alloy. Also, the left cover, where the USB port, video port and other external interface terminals are located, is made of special engineering plastic which also serves as an electromagnetic shield. The main body is made of a stainless steel chassis and the mirror box is made of high-strength engineering plastic. Also, the lens mount and imaging element are fixed on the mirror box so that the flange focal distance does not change due to static pressure caused by the mounted lens. The mirror box is fixed solidly on the chassis to attain a body precision on a par with the EOS 20D. The external paint is the same high-quality black satin leathery finish found on the EOS 5D. It suppresses fingernail scratches and the finer grain of the satin finish makes the

New Lenses

Two new and very different lenses that professional and advanced amateur photographers will find exceptionally appealing will become available at roughly the time that the EOS 30D reaches dealers. They are a large aperture standard zoom and an ultra-fast medium telephoto. The EF-S 1755mm f/2.8 IS USM offers superb image quality, on a par with L Series lenses. It has a large maximum aperture which, combined with higher shutter speeds, can minimize subject motion blur. Shallow depth-of-field for separation of a subject from its background is much easier to achieve. The f/2.8 maximum aperture allows a bright finder and extremely precise focusing with f/2.8-compatible AF sensors. The internal stabilization has a sharpness benefit equivalent to a three stop faster shutter speed. Combining f/2.8 with IS makes the new lens outstanding in low light. As an EF-S lens, the new zoom is smaller, lighter and handier than a lens of similar specifications could be, but covers the full 24 x 36mm frame. This new lens would certainly be the best match for the EOS 30D except that it causes some vignetting when the built-in flash is used. The EF-S 1755mm f/2.8 IS USM is expected to retail for $1,149 and is sure to be adopted by photographers of every sort. The EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM is a revision of the EF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens introduced in 1989. Its enormous maximum aperture and handy focal length made it a favorite of wedding, portrait and sports photographers. While its image quality has remained a benchmark, general improvements in AF speed over its years of service make it an excellent candidate for an AF update. A ring EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM USM drive, a high-speed CPU and optimized AF algorithms achieve a great increase in AF speed over the older lens (roughly 1.8x, depending upon camera and conditions). Lens coatings have been optimized as well, minimizing ghosting and flare. Distance information is now provided for flash exposure calculations. The new lens now has a round aperture that helps to produce a beautiful background blur. The new 85mm has the same optical system as its predecessor, 8 elements in 7 groups. The ground aspherical element, in the third position from the front, minimizes aberrations and provides superb image quality with high resolution and high contrast, even at maximum aperture, true to its L Series heritage. The lens uses a floating construction in which the final group (lens element 8) is fixed and the other lens groups

Power Source, Shooting Capacity and Startup Time
To compensate for the extra power consumed by the new 2.5-inch monitor, microcomputer power management has been incorporated. As a result, the number of possible shots exceeds that of the EOS 20D.

Battery Life

Temperature At 20C/68F At 0C/32F
Shooting Conditions No Flash 50% Flash Use Approx. 750 shots Approx. 1100 shots Approx. 900 shots Approx. 600 shots
The figures above are based on a fully-charged BP-511A and CIPA (Camera & Imaging Products Association) testing criteria.

Battery Level Indicator

With the addition of an Almost completely Completely Fully charged Low charge discharged discharged Imminent power exhaustion K234 step, the battery charge level display now has 4 increments, 20D like the EOS-1 Series cameras and the EOS 5D, so remaining charge can be indicated more precisely. The EOS 30D can be powered by BP-511A/514/511/512 battery packs. The Battery Grip BG-E2 can accommodate two of these battery packs or six AA-size batteries, doubling shooting capacity. AC power is possible with the optional AC Adapter Kit ACK-E2. Thanks to DiG!C II, an improved system processing sequence during startup and shorter startup processes, the EOS 30D boasts the fastest startup time of any EOS digital camera, 0.15 second (approximately). The EOS 20D is itself speedy, at 0.20 second.

VI. SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Digital AF/AE SLR Recording Media: CompactFlash (CF) Card Types I & II Sensor Size: 0.89 x 0.59 in./22.5 x 15.0mm (APS-C size sensor) Compatible Lenses: Canon EF lenses, including EF-S lenses. (Focal length conversion factor: Equivalent to approx. 1.6x indicated focal length compared to 35mm format) Lens Mount: Canon EF mount

IMAGING ELEMENT

Type: High-sensitivity, high-resolution, single-plate CMOS sensor Effective Pixels: Approx. 8.2 megapixels Total Pixels: 8.5 megapixels Aspect Ratio: 2:3 (Vertical:Horizontal) Color Filter System: RGB primary color filters IR Cut Low-pass Filter: Fixed position in front of the CMOS sensor

RECORDING SYSTEM

File Format: Design rule for Camera File System2.0, Exif 2.21 compliant Recording Formats: JPEG, RAW and RAW+JPEG simultaneous recording provided; RAW and JPEG images are saved as separate files in the CF card File Size* (on CF Card): (1) Large/Fine: Approx. 3.6MB (3504 x 2336), (2) Large/ Normal: Approx. 1.8MB (3504 x 2336), (3) Medium/ Fine: Approx. 2.2MB (2544 x 1696), (4) Medium/Normal: Approx. 1.1MB (2544 x 1696), (5) Small/Fine: Approx. 1.2MB (1728 x 1152), (6) Small/ Normal: Approx. 0.6MB (1728 x 1152); (7) RAW: Approx. 8.7MB (3504 x 2336) (Exact file sizes depend on the subject and ISO speed) Folder Settings: Automatic folder creation/selection File Numbering: (1) Continuous numbering, (2) Auto reset, (3) Manual reset (new folder created by user) Color Space: Selectable between sRGB and Adobe RGB Picture Style: Six preset Picture Style settings plus three user-defined custom Picture Style settings with individual adjustments for Sharpness, Contrast, Color saturation, 2nd Color tone, Filter effect, Toning effect for black and white images. Interface: USB 2.0 Hi-Speed, NTSC/PAL for video output

WHITE BALANCE

Settings: Auto, Preset (Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten Light, White Fluorescent Light, Flash), Color Temperature (2,80010,000K), Custom (read off white or neutral gray object) Auto White Balance: Auto white balance with the image sensor Color Temperature Compensation: White balance bracketing: +/- 3 levels in 1-level
increments White balance correction: blue/amber bias +/- 9 levels, magenta/green bias +/- 9 levels When blue/amber bias and magenta/green bias set together with White balance correction, white balance bracketing cannot be set to more than +/- 9 levels

VIEWFINDER

Type: Eye-level SLR (with fixed pentaprism) Coverage: Approx. 95% vertically and horizontally (Coverage against JPEG Large) Magnification: 0.9x (-1 diopter with 50mm lens at infinity) Eyepoint: Approx. 20mm Built-in Dioptric Adjustment: : -3.0 to +1.0 diopter Focusing Screen: Fixed, Precision Matte screen Mirror: Quick-return half mirror (Transmission: reflection ratio of 40:60. No mirror cut-off with lenses up to EF 600mm f/4L USM) Viewfinder Information: AF (AF points, focus confirmation light), Exposure (shutter speed, aperture, spot metering circle, exposure level, AE lock, exposure compensation, AEB level, ISO speed), Flash (flash ready, built-in flash recycling, red-eye reduction lamp on, highspeed sync, FE lock, flash exposure compensation, insufficient flash warning during FE lock), White balance correction, Maximum burst, busy, CF card full warning, CF card error warning, No CF card warning Depth-of-Field Preview: Enabled with Depth-of-Field Preview button Eyepiece Shutter: None

AUTOFOCUS

Type: TTL-CT-SIR AF-dedicated CMOS sensor AF Points: 9 AF Working Range: EV -0.518 (ISO 100 at 68F/20C) Focusing Modes: One-Shot AF, Predictive AI Servo AF, AI Focus AF (Automatically selects One-Shot AF or AI Servo AF), Manual Focusing (MF) AF Point Selection: Automatic selection, manual selection Selected AF Point Display: Superimposed on viewfinder and LCD panel AF-assist Beam: Intermittent firing of built-in flash

EXPOSURE CONTROL

Metering Modes: Max. aperture TTL metering with 35-zone SPC (1) Evaluative metering (linked to all AF points), (2) Partial metering (approx. 9% of viewfinder), (3) Spot metering (approx. 3.5% of viewfinder), (4) Center-weighted average metering Metering Range: EV 120 (ISO 100 at 68F/20C with EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens) Exposure Control Systems: Program AE (shiftable), Shutter-priority AE, Aperture-priority AE, Depth-of-field AE (non-shiftable), Full auto (non-shiftable), Programmed image control modes, Manual exposure, E-TTL II autoflash Program AE ISO Speed Range: Equivalent to ISO 100-1600 (in 1/3-stop increments, ISO speed can be expanded to ISO 1003200) Exposure Compensation: Up to +/-2 stops in 1/3- or 1/2-stop increments (1) User-set
with multi-controller (2) AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) AE Lock: Auto: Applied in One-Shot AF mode with evaluative metering when focus is achieved / User-set: Applied with AE lock button

SHUTTER

Type: Vertical-travel focal-plane shutter with all speeds electronically-controlled Shutter Speeds: 1/8000 to 30 sec. (1/3- and 1/2-stop increments), X-sync at 1/250 sec. Shutter Release: Soft-touch electromagnetic release Self-Timer: 10-sec. delay, 2-sec. delay with C.Fn-12-1 (mirror lockup) Remote Control: Remote control with N3-type terminal
Built-in Flash: Auto pop-up, retractable, built-in flash in the pentaprism (user must activate flash in P, Av, Tv and M modes) Flash coverage: Up to 17mm focal length (equivalent to 27mm in 35mm format) EOS-dedicated Speedlite: E-TTL II autoflash with EX Series Speedlites

DRIVE SYSTEM

Drive Modes: Single, Continuous, Self-timer Continuous Shooting Speed: High-speed approx. 5 fps / low-speed approx. 3 fps (at a shutter speed of 1/250 sec. or faster) Max. Burst During Continuous Shooting: JPEG: high-speed approx. 30 frames (Large/Fine), RAW: high-/low-speed approx. 11 frames, RAW+JPEG: high-/low-speed approx. 9 frames

LCD MONITOR

Type: TFT color, liquid-crystal monitor Monitor Size: 2.5 in. diagonal with a viewing angle of approx. 170 vertically and horizontally Pixels: Approx. 230,000 pixels Coverage: Approx. 100% Brightness Adjustment: 5 levels (settable with menus LCD brightness)

IMAGE PLAYBACK

Image Display Formats: (1) Single image, (2) 9-image index, (3) Magnified zoom (single image) up to 10x, (4) Auto play (5) Auto play right after shooting Highlight Alert: In the single image (INFO) display mode, the areas with highlights containing no image information will blink
IMAGE PROTECTION AND ERASE
Protection: A single image can be protected or unprotected Erase: A single image or all images stored in a CF card can be erased if they are unprotected Format: Complete initialization of CF card available in setup menu
Menu Categories: (1) Shooting Menu: red, (2) Playback Menu: blue, (3) Setup Menu: yellow LCD Monitor Language: English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Simplified/Traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese Firmware Update: Enabled by the user (in Creative Zone only)

POWER SOURCE

Battery: One Battery Pack BP-511A/511/512/514 (lithium-ion rechargeable battery) Number of Shots:

DIMENSIONS AND WEIGHT

Dimensions (W x H x D): 5.7 x 4.2 x 2.9 in. / 144 x 105.5 x 73.5mm Weight: 24.7 oz. / 700g (Body only)

OPERATING CONDITIONS

Operating Temperature Range: 32104F/040C Operating Humidity: 85% or less
Canon and DIGIC are registered trademarks, and PIXMA is a trademark, of Canon Inc. in the United States and may also be registered trademarks or trademarks in other countries. All other products and brand names are registered trademarks, trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

System Chart

VII. CONCLUSION
The EOS 30D is a new camera that stands firmly on the shoulders of the EOS 20D, as well as the entire Canon EOS System. Because it is based on the highly successful 20D, customers will understand that they are investing in an established, reliable product. As the digital photography business matures, people are developing a more sophisticated appreciation of matters such as long-tem reliability, component consistency and complementary system characteristics. These goals are difficult to achieve when key components are outsourced. Canons dedication to the research, development and manufacturing of CMOS chips means that they control short and long-term sensor reliability. The Canon natural color look is the product of an imaging philosophy that Canon implements at each step in the image path from the glass in its lenses to the software that performs RAW file conversion. Each Canon camera is designed to meet the needs of a particular customer category. The EOS 30D is aimed at advanced amateurs and professionals who buy their own equipment. They require high performance and genuine, lasting value. Many of them own more than one body or expect to upgrade in the future. If they trade in, they expect their old equipment to retain a reasonable portion of its original cost. If they keep their gear and buy new, the old and new must work perfectly together. Commitments such as the backward compatibility of DPP to the EOS D6000 and the D2000, as well as the introduction of the EF-S 1755mm f/2.8 IS USM and the EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lenses, demonstrate that the Canon EOS System will respect the past even as it grows constantly. While it makes a strong case for itself as a separate device, the EOS 30D provides a clear upgrade path to the EOS 5D and the EOS-1D Mark II N, links to an ever more sophisticated Canon-to-Canon workflow and fits neatly into the vast Canon EOS System of lenses, bodies, flashes, accessories, software and printers. New, new, new is certainly exciting, and a healthy dose of it keeps the wheels of possibility spinning in our heads. Still, tried-and-true, or tried-and-true-but-very-muchmodern-and-current, has a genuine appeal, especially to the person whos paying for it. The wedding and portrait photographers, journalists, news organizations and serious amateurs who will buy the EOS 30D will get their moneys worth and much, much more, and they will never, ever second-guess themselves about the wisdom of their purchase.

Actual selling price will be set by dealers and may vary.