Summary: Great Camera

Comment: This is my first DSLR and i can't say enough great things about it. I won't get into the technical details, it's all right there at the Canon website. The programs are user friedly and the menu is laid out very well. I reccommend reading the manual and any other reading material that helps you get the most out of this camera. Remember you paid a good chunk of change for it so you might as well understand how it operates. If you are wondering whether or not the 8 mega pixels is enough for your needs, just ask yourself how big you plan on printing. You can easily print beautiful 8X10 with this many mega pixels. Just remember that the mega pixels doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the image until your start printing LARGER prints. In other words you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a 5 mega pixel and 15 megapixel on a 4X6 print. Choose a great lens and then you will start noticing a difference. I ended pairing this with a Sigma 10-20 and a Canon 24-105 L. I hope to get the 70-200 IS f/4 and be done with it. For a beginning photographer you cannot go wrong with this camera! I highly reccommend it and have produced terrific images with it!

UPDATE;

I had to send off my Canon 30D to Jamesburg, NJ to clean dust off the sensor. Most of the time you can blow it off with a bulb blower... Canons customer service was excellent and very quick. It was back in my hands dust free in less than a week. Another great reason to go with Canon products!

Summary: Canon EOS 30d! Puts Nikons Entry Levels To Shame!

Comment: I'll be Frank. I've had this camera for a month now, and i love it. From the extremely Fast continuous shoot. Which is Five Frames per second, heres a video that i recorded about it shooting off those frames:

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It's really fast, i love it!

The image quality on this camera is Great! Don't mind that it ' only ' has eight megapixels. Although it has less resolution than the XTI, it would sure put it to shame, and beat its image quality. The Pictures are really Great, sharp, colorful, and detailed. I need to use Photoshop less and less. It's a really Great camera. I'm glad the price has gone down from the 1,600$ it was around two years ago, it's really becoming more affordable, who need a Mark III?

Summary: photographer

Comment: I'm extremely happy with my camera!
You can't beat this camera for the money.

Summary: Perfect Balance

Comment: I've shot photos for almost 45 years. . . . started very early. The bottom line is the Canon 30D has excellent build quality, superb low light performance, excellent features and most of all superb picture quality in both ideal and non ideal lighting.

I shot a lot of low light pictures and compared the Nikon 80, the Canon 30D and 40D and to my eyes, the Canon 30D simply rendered the sharpest, most noise free images in lower light levels.

I owned 3 Canon EF lens. The 50mm f1.4, the 70-300mm IS lens and the Canon 28-135MM IS lens. All of these lens deliver excellent pictures in low light, provide sharp images and focus quickly and accurately. I tend to be a strong believer in Nikon and Canon because of the bench strength of their great lens.

The only downside of the 30D is it lacks live view. In my opinion this is of limited if any value. To some, this feature might be important, but be aware that live view depletes the camera's battery pretty quickly.

Even thought this camera is discontinued, it is well worth seeking out.

Summary: Good bang for buck

Comment: This is great bang for your buck. When I bought my first dslr, the XT, new, it cost the same as the 30D does now. I'm very happy with the improved controls of the 30D over the XT as well as better high iso performance and 5 fps... My future plans are to get a 5d for holding a wideangle lens and use the 30D for the 70-200. The 24-105 range makes sense on either but the nature of the lens will be more telephoto on the 30D...