Finally I decided to switch to digital. As I had an Canon EOS 300 with some additional equipment (lenses, flash) I decided to go for an EOS 20D. As I like to shoot using wide angle, I got an Tokina AT-X Pro DX 12~24mm F4 as well. So the lenses I currently have, are
- Tokina f4/12-24mm (19-38mm with crop factor)
- Tamron f3.5-4.5/19-35mm (30-56mm)
- Tamron f3.8-5.6/28-200mm (45-320mm)
- Canon EF f1.8/50mm II (80mm)
The camera works really smooth. Turn it on, and it is on (like an analog one). The AF is really fast and the highlighting of the rectangle is much better visible than just the spot inside. All lenses behave well, but for the usual problems of wide angle lenses (esp. the distortion on the edges is seen at 12 mm). The body is a bit larger than the 300 (but IMO better than the small body of the 350D) and much heavier.
But what I'm not so satisfied with, are the many lenses I carry around now. The additional wide angle Tokina is definetly needed, but I'd rather have a good allround lens in the range of 18 mm to 100 mm or 150 mm at maximum. Only Sigma offers something in this range currently (18-125mm), but I don't remember seeing a test yet. I know that Tamron as well as Sigma have these allround 18-200mm (or even 300?), but actually I almost never need this and the performance tests were no too good…
I did some tests and as I suppose I will photograph more often now, I upgraded my flickr account as well (just three set in the free version :-(). So the first image is a shot with the Tokina at 12 mm and f6.3. If you look at the largest version on flickr, you'll the the distortion on the edges clearly, but overall it looks nice.
These other three were all shot in the “Rose Garden” of Dresden using the Tamron 28-200mm at 200mm (yeah, here I used it!).
The biggest problem with a digital camera is, that you take the pictures to your computer and look at them in 1:1 and sometimes you just wonder, where the hell the AF looked at. So to judge sharpness (and AF) in real world conditions I ordered some 11 cm ×17 cm prints to look at (it's nice to upload the pics to some online service and just wait for the prints to be send home to you; just the DSL line could be symmetric)…
BTW, I also recommend the 10-20mm Sigma. Compared to the Canon 10-20mm relatively cheap, but comparable wrt. quality. (According to the tests I read and did myself.)
The Canon lenses are really overpriced in my eyes. I chose the Tokina because in a test of the German fotomagazin it was far the best of all tested wide-angle zoom and it's acceptable priced (just a little bit big and heavy).