I bought the ... EOS 10D

About one year has passed since I wrote Digital Now, and finally I bought the Digital EOS 10D.  I had already considered buying the D60 for several months, but in the end waited a little longer for the 10D, because of its improvements in make (e.g., metal body), AF system (7-point system similar to EOS 30), and slight improvements in image quality over the D60.  

Many good reviews have already been written about this camera, so I won't try to repeat them.  I'll just mention a few things I find especially cool and offer a few recommendations. 

What's cool (especially for someone who used only film before):

• On-the-fly switching of sensitivity.  I usually try to shoot at 100 ASA setting for best quality, low noise.  But if necessary, I switch to 400 or even 800, with slight degradation in image quality and somewhat increased memory consumption.  Maximum is 3200 ASA, but I have not yet tried it.
• A 128 MB flash memory offers 50 picture taking capability at 6 Megapixels and fine (?) mode, i.e., with some lossy JPEG compression. At that mode I cannot recognize any JPEG abnormalities, such as color bleeding, so I am sticking with that mode for now (also when saving on harddisk).  At that rate, a 60GB will hold in the end 30,000 images.  Not bad at all. 
• 1.6 x tele effect.  The smaller "negative" size of the digital EOS results in a 1.6 x magnification.  This gives my 70-200 an effective new range of 112 - 320 mm.  Add to it the 1.4x converter, and I am shooting at maximum 448mm effective focal length.  Cool.  At that point, the image stabilizer really comes in handy!  Of course, at the low end, one suddenly needs a wiiiiide angle lens, such as Canon's new 17 - 40 mm F 4.0 (translates into 27 - 64 mm). 

What I recommend:

• Buy the extra battery grip.  Like several prior EOS cameras, this one can mount the additional grip (for somewhere between $160 and $200). You can install a second battery into it, good for an additional few hundred shots .  But more importantly, it adds better balance, and has the second release button for vertical shots.  The whole rig becomes pretty big, but especially with a heavy lens, such as the 70-200, the overall balance is much better. Note: When you use the grip, make sure you have the BP511 battery pack, not the BP512.
• Buy memory in the 128MB to 512MB range.  I bought 2 flash cards with 128MB each, but will likely add a 512MB card soon.  The 512MB card should be enough for a day of indiscriminate shooting, plus the extra cards will be in reserve, just in case ... .  Actually, I ended up buying another 256MB card for 100 shots.