EOS 60D Notes [CR2]

[pedro]

@that1guy: thanks for sharing your opinion. I am currently using a 30D as a passionate amateur. most of the time I do nightshots and lowlight photography. Next upgrade for me is the 5DIII or however they will call it due to the FF sensors enhanced lowlight abilities. But I do know a pro in my town using a 40D who says: why should I go FF for bigger files only? He's doing a lot of studio work. So you are well echoed by him. Body depends on your preferencies and main genres when it comes to purchase. Major element in any type of photography are the eyes and the handling of the your camera.

[Stuart]

Let me put it to you this way: you went to a store asking a salesman whether you should buy a cheap camera or an expensive camera and he recommended the expensive one.
 he's selling used cars or new cameras.

Year, thats what I thought, too. So the Q is: Why wait for the 60D and not go for a 550D? I prefer a good sensor with high ISO-values and don't need an articulate screen, so why buy the 60D then?

Yep it seems like its going to be interesting to make the 60D decision, i'm sure the specs when they arrive will help convince us, probally with video improvements, Digic V (in camera processing?), FPS, and Wifi fingers crossed.

[dilbert]

Let me put it to you this way: you went to a store asking a salesman whether you should buy a cheap camera or an expensive camera and he recommended the expensive one.
 he's selling used cars or new cameras.

Year, thats what I thought, too. So the Q is: Why wait for the 60D and not go for a 550D? I prefer a good sensor with high ISO-values and don't need an articulate screen, so why buy the 60D then?

Ahh, I've been waiting for someone to say "don't need an articulate screen" 

If that's what you want, buy a 5D Mark2. Screen doesn't articulate, good with high ISO. Or go and buy a Nikon D700 if you want to jump on that band wagon. No apologies if they're priced a bit higher.

But if you're going to complain about a camera having features you don't want/need and always use that as the reason why you didn't buy that particular camera then you will never buy a camera because there will always be an extra feature that you find which you don't need.

Rarely is life about being able to select something that is a perfect match to a need. There's nearly always compromise involved. I wish I could buy the perfect new car that I'd like for $10,000. Is it going to happen? Not likely so I just work out what I can live without and buy something that meets my goals.

So stop making excuses, work out what you need, what you can live without, what's within budget and you should be done. You might even learn to like and love the features that you didn't think you needed (like the articulating screen) but got anyway.

[canonguy]

if this is true... then it only shows canon is running scared of nikon. they actualy stoop down to the level of degrading a successful xxD line just to compete with the d90/d95. the current xxD build is the reason why i didnt go for nikon back then. then comes the plastic 60D and the magnesium d95. what next??? canon will drop their MP and stick with 12MP then nikon will go for 18MP. im just so disapointed! ive been waiting for this camera for years and canon slaps me in the face with a plastic toy camera. its the quality that counts and not the extra weight reduction.

[jelte04]

im just so disapointed! ive been waiting for this camera for years and canon slaps me in the face with a plastic toy camera. its the quality that counts and not the extra weight reduction.

The camera is still not released, and why is plastic so bad?

[Jan]

its the quality that counts and not the extra weight reduction.

Maybe for you. But not necessarily for everybody. I personally would also prefer a Mg body, but neither my 350D nor the 400D body broke and they're both plastic.

Besides, I don't know if plastic is really (that much) lighter than Mg. Mg is already very lightweight although it's a metal. I think the difference between the weight of a xxxD and a xxD comes also from the size of the body.

[rrcphoto]

its the quality that counts and not the extra weight reduction.

Maybe for you. But not necessarily for everybody. I personally would also prefer a Mg body, but neither my 350D nor the 400D body broke and they're both plastic.

Besides, I don't know if plastic is really (that much) lighter than Mg. Mg is already very lightweight although it's a metal. I think the difference between the weight of a xxxD and a xxD comes also from the size of the body.

actually I'll go back to my original question.

who's to say it's plastic?

The way I look at this is that we're simply rumored that it's NOT magnesium alloy.

if I'm not mistaken - it's everyone's assumption.  however canon has made professional camera bodies out of meterials not called magnesium alloy.

EOS-1, 1N and EOS-3 are good examples of a metal body.  I have yet to see anyone complain that it didn't feel solid .. or felt like a lens would cause it to pull apart   It wasnt until the EOS-1v that canon implemented magnesium alloy chassis.

[stark-arts]

Recent plastic bodies have used SD cards, does this mean that the 60D will use SD cards? Seems like Canon wants to shift away from CF cards, The Top of the Line Canon 1Ds III uses 1 CF and 1 SD card, while the Top of the Line Nikon D3x uses TWO CF cards.

I have too many SanDisc Extreme IV cards to buy a camera that uses Inferior SD cards.

I have a ton of CF also but I will say this - SD cards never get messed up. Drop em in water, put em in and out 1000's of times. No bent pins. I've never lost data shooting with SD (although admittedly i've shot SD far less - only in my wifes G cams...)

Not a deal breaker for me

[gkreis]

if this is true... then it only shows canon is running scared of nikon. they actualy stoop down to the level of degrading a successful xxD line just to compete with the d90/d95. the current xxD build is the reason why i didnt go for nikon back then. then comes the plastic 60D and the magnesium d95. what next??? canon will drop their MP and stick with 12MP then nikon will go for 18MP. im just so disapointed! ive been waiting for this camera for years and canon slaps me in the face with a plastic toy camera. its the quality that counts and not the extra weight reduction.

Buy the 7D.

[wuschba]

But if you're going to complain about a camera having features you don't want/need and always use that as the reason why you didn't buy that particular camera then you will never buy a camera because there will always be an extra feature that you find which you don't need.

And all that you read out of my post? No. I just get riled that I waited for the 60D in anticipation that it will be in  the same class (no matter if plastic is "bad" or mg is "good") as all xxDs before... And perhaps "class" is just a feeling, I holded a 550D and a 7D and they just didn't feel "right", the 550D too much plastic/too light and the 7D just to big and heavy (all very subjective of course).

But anyway I should have decided to buy a 550D or a 7D months ago - if this all here is really true of course, because I'm afraid a plastic 60D might feel almost like a 550D. Which - of course - we only will know if we wait again until the 60D is released, which (again) leads to the Q: Buy or wait?

[neuroanatomist]

...which (again) leads to the Q: Buy or wait?

This is a simple question, and it always puzzles me why people agonize over this.  If you need it right now, and it meets your current and anticipated needs, buy it right now.  Who cares if something better comes along soon?  If you can wait, there's always something better coming out soon, so wait. 

[pgabor]

I waited for the 60D in anticipation that it will be in  the same class (no matter if plastic is "bad" or mg is "good") as all xxDs before...

It was not clear for you after the 7D announcement, that there will be no such thing as "50D successor"? (maximum in name, not in the specs) Canon is now (sry, since the 5DmkII) started to compete directly with Nikons, the first attack made by Nikon, when they released the D3 and the D700, then canon striked back with the markII and attacked the success of the D300 with the 7D, and now with the 60D they want to compete directly with the D90 successor. So i really don't see why are you so surprised.

[that1guy]

wuschba- at this point you might as well wait and see.  It's only a couple months.  Then you will be able to see what those other things are that the 60D has and decide for yourself if it is worth the extra money.  That is of course unless you don't have a camera or your old camera broke, then you might need one.  Otherwise, I would just wait and keep taking photos w/ whatever you currently have.  If you don't end up liking the 60D, maybe one of the other two will have dropped in price

[PaulRivers]

I hope they *don't* put a magnesium body, so that if I buy a 60D I don't have to deal with all the comments from the silly status-driven photo snobs.

I mean seriously, the make or break point isn't whether the camera is actually sturdy, but whether it "feels sturdy"? Like someone else said, if they make guns out of "plastic", I'm sure they can do it with a camera body.

I mean you can buy what you want, but if that's your make-or-break point clearly there's not really any significant differences between cameras any more. It's like buying one car over another because you like the color of the LED on the stereo. You're free to do that, but if you're sensible at all what it really means is that both cars are reliable, fuel efficient, accelerate well enough, etc already, and the only real differences are small tiny details.

I've seen the same thing happen with cell phones - "it feels like a toy"..."So you'd rather carry around more weight, that doesn't do anything, so it *feels* more sturdy?"..."Yes". Personally, I'd rather that it be lighter so it's easier to carry around.

[gkreis]

....

But if you're going to complain about a camera having features you don't want/need and always use that as the reason why you didn't buy that particular camera then you will never buy a camera because there will always be an extra feature that you find which you don't need.

Rarely is life about being able to select something that is a perfect match to a need. There's nearly always compromise involved. I wish I could buy the perfect new car that I'd like for $10,000. Is it going to happen? Not likely so I just work out what I can live without and buy something that meets my goals.

So stop making excuses, work out what you need, what you can live without, what's within budget and you should be done. You might even learn to like and love the features that you didn't think you needed (like the articulating screen) but got anyway.

Very well said!  For instance, I just saw a particularly smart goldfinch stealing water from the ant guard bucket built into my hummingbird feeder. He has been doing this for a while.  Well, a hummingbird came to feed and hovered, perplexed about what to do.  It went on for a few seconds and as the goldfinch left, the hummingbird flew after him to say 'Scram'!  If I had video in my dSLR I'd have liked to capture that.  Pictures couldn't quite convey the whole story.

So...  I'd go for the 60D over the 550D as it is likely to have better focusing, faster processor and perhaps a radical approach to how it captures video from its sensor.

The perfect dSLR doesn't exist because we really don't know exactly what we will like. We THINK we know, but we might discover that we get a feature we didn't realize would be so grand and the one we were so hung up on having turns out to be no big deal.

Check out this particularly inspiring talk on 'The Art of Choosing'.....

  http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html

P.S.
I have been kind of a grouch about the 60D and the 18MP sensor, but I am deciding I need to let it go and just wait and see.  Because I can't change anything about it anyway....  (Hmm... maybe some of us could band together to form a "C"-team and kidnap Canon's marketing staff and let the engineer's produce a camera for once...  ;-).