The Best Digital Camera Ever For The Macintosh.

Every so often you run into a product that works so well, feels so good, and looks so right, you’d swear it was made by Apple.

Canon has a new digital camera that Mac users will swear was made by Apple. It fits, works, looks that good.

Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of owning far too many cameras. A few shelves of photo albums will tell you that I like things that go click in the night (and daytime). Starting from a Pentax Spotmatic circa 1970s, to the latest, near perfect digital camera from Canon, I’ve had my share.

The digital revolution didn’t stop me from trying the latest and greatest, albeit with mounting disatisfaction. I bought an Apple QuickTake (ahead of its time, but not worthy), a 3 megapixel Epson (very good, pricey), a couple of Nikon 5000 series (love that wide angle lens; controls only a Vulcan would love; picture quality wanting).

I’ve tried everything I could get my hands on. Fuji. Sony. Epson. Nikon. Olympus. I couldn’t get no satisfaction, Mick.

Until now.

A friend bought a Canon 10D a year or so ago. The photos were remarkable, controls acceptable, but lens not wide enough, and operation was a bit slow. So I waited. I’m glad I waited.

Canon has introduced the perfect digital camera and it works great with Mac OS X. It works so great in every respect that you’d swear that Apple and Canon got together. Unfortunately, the new Canon EOS 20D digital is not silver aluminum to match the new G5s. It’s black. And it’s made by Canon, not Apple.

That’s too bad; but not to worry. This is a great camera.

The Canon EOS 20D has a new 8.2 MP CMOS sensor, the second generation DIGIC II image processor, a quick startup time, and it feels like a PowerMac G5, or a PowerBook, or the new iMac G5. Everything is just right, including the software for the Mac (amazing, huh?)

This camera can shoot 5 frames per second (up to 23 consecutive frames). There’s a built-in flash, flash sync, and a top shutter speed of 1/8000 sec. The 20D is also compatible with Canon’s new EF-S lenses, and the full line of EOS lenses and flashes.

I have a Canon Elan II with a 28mm to 300mm Tamron zoom lens that I bought a number of years ago. Both have been collecting dust as I’ve migrated from film to digital. Even that lens works fine in the new 20D.

For Mac users, Canon provides a couple of software applications to make managing photos easier. There’s also a Mac version of Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 2.0 for photo touch ups. Canon kindly includes a Photostitch application which allows you to “stictch” photos together to make a wide panorama photograph.

There’s also a Mac version of the EOS Viewer Utility. Pretty much everything you need to move photos from the 20D to the Mac, sort and save images, and modify images is included.

Canon includes EOS Capture to bring photos from the 20D into the Mac, although I found iPhoto to work just fine-- it just took a day to figure out how. The default “communication” setting won’t allow the Canon 20D to communicate properly with Mac OS X Panther, so it was impossible to move photos stored on the camera’s flash card into iPhoto.

Reading instructions is always a good thing.

There’s also a “PTP” setting which bridges communication between the camera and the Mac. Once that setting was changed in the camera, everything worked fine and iPhoto sucked images off the camera OK.

That was about the only glitch I could find (caused by not reading the manual first; just like a Mac user). 

The Canon EOS 20D is the very first digital camera with controls Mac users can fully understand. No flames, please. I’ve always liked a little needle that went down when there wasn’t enough light, and went up when there was too much light. That GUI is hard to beat.

Digital cameras these days are not so kind. Canon figured that out and created a unique control knob on the left side of the camera body (top). All the controls facing the camera user are basic; portrait, close-up, action (multiple frames), flash, and so on. On the other side of the knob are the creative settings; aperture control, shutter control, full manual.

Right in the middle are the full auto or program controls. Honestly, you’d think a Mac interface engineer worked for Canon.

“The visual shutter and aperature settings in the viewfinder need to be brighter (I’m far sighted). I like orange on black.”You know how the iPod feels so great in your hand? Controls are simple, easy to get the hang of, plenty of extras when you need them but they’re not in the way? The same guy who invented and designed all that must have worked on the Canon 20D.

The back of the camera, right below the eyepiece, is the LCD screen. It’s razor sharp. When Apple decides to move onward to a video “vPod” they’ll use a larger version of this screen. Crisp, clear, clean, with a built-in zoom, too.

One thing that surprised me was the the LCD screen isn’t used to frame and shoot photos. That’s reserved for the traditional SLR eyepiece. The screen is only used for viewing photos and changing settings.

Images can be saved in various JPEG sizes and Canon’s version of RAW. Start shopping for the multi-gigabyte compact flash cards. Even a 1 gigabyte compact flash card only gives 239 images at the highest JPEG setting. Typically, I use a Lexar firewire compact flash card reader to move photos from the camera to the Mac.

The camera is auto-focus with 9 points. The 20D is availble as just a body, or body and lens. I bought the 18mm/55mm zoom lens, which equates to about 28mm to 85mm zoom.

As with most good digital cameras, you turn it on, point, press the shutter release half way to focus, then click. The photos are stunning.

How stunning? Click Here for a look at a few more photos on Page 2…

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