Canon EOS 30D

Color (8.99)
This Canon digital camera is loaded with several different color sets, which Canon calls Picture Styles. Canon likens these settings to choosing a type of film. For our color testing we used the Faithful picture style to snap shots of the GretagMacbeth color chart. The chart is composed of 24 tiles that depict ideal colors and is accepted by much of the imaging industry. We uploaded the Canon EOS 30D’s images of the chart into Imatest Imaging Software, which analyzes the accuracy of the colors.

Below is the GretagMacbeth color chart, which has been modified in Imatest to show the 30D’s depicted colors in the outer square of each tile, and the ideal color in the vertical rectangle. The inner square shows the ideal color as corrected by Imatest for luminance.

The next graphic shows the same information but in a more linear manner. The squares represent the ideal colors from the GretagMacbeth chart and the circles represent the colors produced by the Canon EOS 30D. The lines connecting the two shapes represent the degree of error.

As seen in the chart above, there is no single color that stands out as a misfit in the set. Colors are almost perfectly saturated at 97.3 percent, and the accuracy shows with only a 5.53 mean color error. Overall, the Canon EOS 30D performed extremely well during color testing. It earned an overall color score of 8.99, just a touch under the Canon EOS 5D’s score of 9.0.

Still Life Scene
We always post an image of our winsome, evocative still-life scene. The 30D's rendition is below.

Click on the image above to view the full resolution version.

Resolution (5.23)
Equipped with its 8.2-megapixel CMOS sensor, the Canon EOS 30D should perform on par with the EOS 20D it replaces. We tested its resolution and sharpness by shooting several frames of an industry standard resolution chart and uploading them into Imatest software. We took pictures in two Picture Style modes because of their differences in sharpening. The Faithful mode does not utilize any in-camera sharpening, while the Standard mode sharpens pictures noticeably within the camera. For the tests, we used a Canon 24-105L USM lens.  

The sharpest shot in the Faithful mode came from an exposure that used a 47mm focal length and an aperture of f/9. Its colors may have been accurate, but its resolution isn’t stunning. The Faithful mode returned 897.5 line widths per picture height (lw/ph) vertically. Line widths per picture height is the theoretical measurement of how many alternating black and white lines could fit across the 30D’s frame. The camera under-sharpened by 16.2 percent vertically and 17.8 percent horizontally. Across the horizontal dimension, the Faithful mode resolved 872.7 lw/ph. While these numbers are low, the setting is included for those who like to manually process their files after capture. For these users, there will be a good deal of detail remaining to uncover.

 

The Standard mode used similar exposure settings of 50mm and f/8. Imatest determined that there were 1818 lw/ph vertically and 4.18 percent over-sharpening in that axis. Horizontally, the software detected 1867 lw/ph and 3.14 percent over-sharpening.

Overall, the Canon EOS 30D earned a respectable score of 5.23 for its results and offers enough control for users to tailor the camera to their desired workflow.

Noise – Auto ISO (4.63)
Photographers using the Canon EOS 30D are more likely to manually adjust the ISO sensitivity, but there is an automatic counterpart. The 30D returned an overall auto ISO noise score of 4.63. The camera produced about as much noise as was found at the manual ISO 400 setting. While this is okay, there was much less noise visible when the sensitivity was manually adjusted.

Noise – Manual ISO (11.64)
We tested the noise levels at each of the camera’s ISO settings and plugged them into the chart shown below. It shows the ISO setting on the horizontal axis and the noise level on the vertical axis. 

The incline is steady with no major blips in performance. The Nikon D200 has less noise in the ISO sensitivities below 800. However, the Canon EOS 30D’s incline plateaus a bit where the Nikon D200’s takes off. The Canon 30D performs much better at the ISO settings above 800. Overall, the 30D performs very well and thus earns itself an 11.64 overall manual ISO noise score.

The 30D's overall noise performance resembles that of the full-frame, $3300 Canon EOS 5D – a camera which did very well in this area. As with the 5D, we tested the 30D in Faithful and Standard picture style. On the 30D, Faithful did better at higher ISOs up to 1250, while Standard took the honors at ISOs under 250, and at 1600. The results were similar on the 5D.

Low Light Performance (7.75)
While the previous tests show the camera’s performance in optimal lighting conditions, this next test challenges the 30D with low light. We tested it in four decreasing light levels to roughly determine the limits of the image sensor. The first test was done at 60 lux, which is about the light emitted from a reading lamp. The second test was performed under 30 lux of lighting, which is approximately the light that comes from an old bulb in the basement. For the third test, we used 15 lux which is about 5 candles. The last test was done under 5 lux, equivalent to 1 or 2 candles. Because of the 30D’s high ISO sensitivities, it can shoot under these dim conditions without the aid of the flash. 

60 Lux	30 Lux
15 Lux	5 Lux

In all digital cameras, the noise levels increase as the shutter remains open. The Canon EOS 30D performed very well though, producing just slightly more noise than the EOS 5D, and far less noise than the Nikon D200 in timed exposures. The 30D's strong low light performance (long exposures and high ISO), stands as a testament to Canon's nearly two years old technology and still holds a slight edge over the largely superior D200.

Dynamic Range (8.0)
The 30D scored very well in our dynamic range test, essentially matching the performance of the Canon EOS 5D. We test dynamic range by photographing a calibrated test target, whose lightest area is more than 13 stops brighter than its darkest and analyzing the image with Imatest software. Imatest measures how many stops the image shows distinctly at various quality levels. We report the High Quality level, which includes only steps that the camera shows with less than 1/10 of a stop of noise, and Low Quality, which includes steps with up to a whole stop. Though the test reports the number of stops detected, it's important to note that the testing setup is designed to show the maximum range possible for a given camera and the results are meant to compare one camera or ISO setting with another. It is very unlikely that an image shot of a typical, natural scene would achieve these levels of dynamic range. 

Most cameras we have tested show a significant decline in dynamic range as ISO increases: the better the camera, the smaller the decline. The 30D has unusually steady performance into high ISO ranges. At Low Quality, its range at ISO 1000 is only one stop less than its range at ISO 100. At High Quality, it loses less than 1 1/2 stops over the same range. It's only at 1600 and 3200 that big drops in range occur.

Canon EOS 30D Dynamic Range - ISO 100

Canon EOS 30D Dynamic Range - ISO 400

Canon EOS 30D Dynamic Range - ISO 1600

Speed / Timing
Start-up to First Shot (9.69)
The 30D went from turned off to getting off a shot in 0.31 of a second, which is a long time for a DSLR. We attribute most of the problem to the stiff power switch rather than the internal electronics. In use, it would be hard to get a shot even this quickly, because the user would have to move their right hand from the bottom of the camera’s backup to the hand grip. Oddly, turning on the 30D is a two-handed operation.

Shot to Shot Time (9.81)
One could almost set a clock by the 30D’s bursts. Their speed closely matches Canon’s promise of 5 frames a second; the 30D turned in 25 shots in 5.02 seconds.

Shutter to Shot Time (9.01)
Little time elapses from pressure on the 30Ds shuttle release to an actual exposure.
With the L Series 24-120 zoom, the 30D focused and shot in as little as 0.05 seconds. When we prefocused, the delay was simply too brief for our testing methods to measure.

Intro	Page 2 of 14		Physical Tour
Canon EOS 30D Digital Camera Review Navigation
Intro	Testing / Performance	Physical Tour	Components
Design / Layout	Modes	Control Options	Image Parameters
Connectivity / Extras	Overall Impressions	Mini Head-to-Head with Nikon D200	Conclusion
Specs / Ratings	Photo Gallery