Neocamera is very impressed by the quality and performance of the Canon 20D. The two outstanding features of the 20D are its high-ISO (even in low-light) performance and its continuous shooting speed. This made it our first choice for sports and action photography. Even compared to similarly priced DSLRs, the 20D's speed is clearly superior. Noise levels even up to ISO 1600 we surprisingly low. This made us comfortable making entire photo shoots only at ISO 1600 to preserve the mood of ambient lighting.

In terms of usability, the 20D covers most features essential for professional photographers. All the exposure modes are there plus auto-depth-of-field and several scene-modes. The white- balance controls of the 20D are numerous and very fine-grained. Basic white balance can be shifted in any of 2 dimensions (Magenta-Green and Blue-Amber) and bracketed or white-balance can be set in Kelvin degrees. Unfortunately these differences in white-balance settings cannot be seen before taking a picture and are difficult to see after the fact. This makes advanced knowledge essential when tweaking white balance. Notably missing from the 20D is a spot-metering mode.

In general, the ergonomics of the Canon 20D are fairly simple with the traditional mode dial and  control wheels for changing settings. Some controls however are strange and non-intuitive. Near the front control wheel, the camera has 3 buttons each labeled with 2 settings, one which can be changed by the front control wheel and one which can be changed by the real control wheel. These labels seem backwards because the setting labeled furthest from the front-control wheel is actually changed by the front control wheel!  Vice-versa for the other setting. The power-switch has 3 positions! OFF, ON but the rear-control wheel can't be used while the rear LCD s off and ON and the rear-control wheel can be used any time. The ISO setting can't be seen in the viewfinder, this made it easy to forget what ISO we were shooting at. Luckily, the 20D produces noise-free images at all ISO settings.

There are other unusual behavior for the 20D. For one, the exposure lock repeatedly locks the exposure rather than toggle exposure lock. Bracketing is not controlled by the drive mode, as in most other cameras, but turned on by setting a bracket step other than zero. The same is true for white-balance bracketing. Also, the length of the self-timer is controlled by the activation of the mirror lock-up feature. Finally, the rear control dial is mounted vertically, which left little space for a directional controller. Consequently the multi-directional control is tiny and oversensitive.

In summary, we did find this camera lacking in the ergonomics department but getting used to most of these quirks is easy, specially considering the high-quality images produced at high-speed by this camera.