Canon EOS 30D 8.2MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)

This is my first DSLR & 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 & the menu is laid out very well. I reccommend reading the manual & any other reading material that helps you get the most out of this camera. Remember you paid a good chunk of change 4 it so you might as well understand how it operates. If you are wondering whether or not the 8 mega pixels is enough 4 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 2 do with the quality of the image until your start printing LARGER prints. In other words you wouldn't be able 2 tell the difference between a 5 mega pixel & 15 megapixel on a 4X6 print. Choose a great lens & then you will start noticing a difference. I ended pairing this with a Sigma 10-20 & a Canon 24-105 L. I hope 2 get the 70-200 IS f/4 & be done with it. For a beginning photographer you cannot go wrong with this camera! I highly reccommend it & have produced terrific images with it!

UPDATE;

I had 2 send off my Canon 30D 2 Jamesburg, NJ 2 clean dust off the sensor. Most of the time you can blow it off with a bulb blower... Canons customer service was excellent & very quick. It was back in my hands dust free in less than a week. Another great reason 2 go with Canon products!

I'll be Frank. I've had this camera 4 a month now, & 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:

[...]
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 2 shame, & beat its image quality. The Pictures are really Great, sharp, colorful, & detailed. I need 2 use Photoshop less & 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?

I'm extremely happy with my camera!
You can't beat this camera 4 the money.

I've shot photos 4 almost 45 years. . . . started very early. The bottom line is the Canon 30D has excellent build quality, superb low light performance, excellent features & most of all superb picture quality in both ideal & non ideal lighting.

I shot a lot of low light pictures & compared the Nikon 80, the Canon 30D & 40D & 2 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 & the Canon 28-135MM IS lens. All of these lens deliver excellent pictures in low light, provide sharp images & focus quickly & accurately. I tend 2 be a strong believer in Nikon & 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.

This is great bang 4 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 & 5 fps... My future plans are 2 get a 5d 4 holding a wideangle lens & use the 30D 4 the 70-200. The 24-105 range makes sense on either but the nature of the lens will be more telephoto on the 30D...