Notes on the Canon EOS 10s. (EOS 10)

Copyright © 2001-2007 NK Guy

http://photonotes.org/reviews/eos-10s/

Here’s some extensive commentary on the Canon EOS 10s camera that I bought used so I could shoot Kodak HIE infrared film without fogging. Hopefully someone out there might find this page interesting or useful. When I was doing my own research for a used camera I found very little information on this particular camera for some reason. So here are my thoughts and observations.

If you want to read up on how to use this camera I’ve put together an extensive unofficial manual that explains how to use it in detail.

Note that this camera has nothing whatsoever to do with the Canon EOS 10D digital camera. The 10/10s is a 35mm film-based camera released in 1990. The 10D is a digital camera released in 2003.

Basic information.

The Canon EOS 10s, a semi-pro EOS camera, is the North American version of the EOS 10. It was introduced in 1990, officially discontinued in either 1994 or 1995, and was Canon’s second-best camera at the time of introduction. (only the EOS 1 was better) In the early 90s Canon’s EOS product lineup looked like this, from most expensive to cheapest:

  EOS 1 > 10/10s > 100/Elan > 1000/Rebel

(at least, it looked like this after the very first Canon EOS cameras had been discontinued - the 620, 650, 750, etc.) By the mid 90s the lineup had changed to:

  EOS 1n > 5/A2 > 50/Elan II> 500 > 5000/888

and it is now essentially:

  EOS 1v > 3 > 30/Elan 7*> 300/Rebel 2000 > 3000/88

The 10s and the 10 are virtually identical cameras except for the names. At the time Canon’s North American marketing department was using the letter S to indicate that the camera in question had a built-in flash. (Yes. S. Very logical letter to indicate “flash”. Presumably they meant “strobe.”) So the EOS 10 was sold under the name 10s in North America for the sake of marketing consistency. The only difference between the 10 and 10s is fairly esoteric. The 10 is capable of automatically popping up the built-in flash when light levels are low but for patent reasons the 10s does not do this. Note that there was also a version with a date-stamping back called the 10QD which was available in certain markets.

In August of 1991 Canon introduced a collector’s EOS 10 to commemorate the company selling 60 million 35mm cameras. This model was simply a regular EOS 10 painted a silver-grey colour, much like the recently-released 3000N consumer camera. It came with a matching silver 35-135mm 4-5.6 USM lens and a little plastic medal.

Summary.

The EOS 10 represented a kind of transition camera between the first-generation 600-series EOS cameras (sturdy, metal internal components, square lines, poor user interface design, interchangeable backs, grips and screens) and the current consumer models (mainly plastic build, rounded Luigi Colani-inspired curved shapes, better user interface, nothing interchangeable).

It’s an odd camera, though. It has a number of unique features in the EOS lineup, is sturdy and quick and has a great feel to it. However it’s also missing a lot of modern convenient features. So frankly I think a used Elan/100 is a better deal for most peoples’ needs.

The 10/10s is faster and of a sturdier build quality, but the Elan/100 is simply more convenient. Unless, of course, you need one of the 10/10s’ unusual features - the intervalometer and a shutter that does not require any power to stay open, or you need an EOS camera that doesn’t fog infrared film or you need a higher winding speed (5 fps versus 3) or the faster AF. Since I like shooting Kodak HIE infrared film and I like the intervalometer, I’m definitely keeping this camera.

Finding out more about the EOS 10/10s.

The old EOS FAQ had a good comparison between the EOS 600/630, Elan/100 and 10/10s. (section 7.15)

Unfortunately Canon don’t make copies of their old manuals available online as downloadable documents or anything, though apparently you can order reprints from them. There was also a third party Magic Lantern Guide/Hove book published on the 10/10s which you might be able to find in camera shops. I haven’t bought one of these, though I’ve flipped through one in a camera shop. It looks much like the Elan/100 book - an introductory book aimed at beginners.

If you want to learn how to use this camera please check out my online 10/10s mini-manual.

Stuff I like about the 10/10s.

• For a plastic-bodied camera, it’s quite sturdy. The fit and finish is good and it has a solid rubber handgrip rather than a plastic one coated with rubber material like the Elan/100. It also has a steel lens mount, not plastic (polycarbonate) like the low-end Canons. Keep in mind, however, that although the lens mount is metal it’s attached to a plastic frame, so it’s not as sturdy as a pro EOS camera that’s metal all the way through. The key advantage of metal mounts is that they’re superior to plastic in wear resistance, which is important if you change lenses a lot.


• It’s a good size. A bit big for a lot of occasions, perhaps, since people tend to get apprehensive when they see a large camera looming towards them (compared to a typical consumer camera, it’s sizeable. Compared to a pro camera it’s small) and tend to associate big camera with professional photographer. So it’s not that great for casual snapshots. But neither is it a monstrously heavy solid metal beast like an EOS 1 or 3. It feels solid in the hand; good heft. Like all cameras these days it’s designed for right-handed people, but frankly left-handed users haven’t got much choice in that regard.
  Physically the 10/10s is similar in shape to the slightly later Elan/100, but with a slightly thicker (about half a centimetre) bottom plate that accommodates four pushbuttons. It’s rounder than the earliest 600-series EOS cameras, and more streamlined than the Elan/100. The main reason for the latter is because it doesn’t have a zooming flash, so the flash housing is smaller and more gracefully shaped. However, its flash housing is still larger than the very small ones on new cameras such as the Rebel 2000/EOS 300 and Elan 7/EOS 30. I have to say, though, I prefer its streamlined lines to newer blockier cameras such as the EOS 3 or Elan 7/EOS 30.


• All the usual metering modes - manual, full auto, time and aperture priority. Built-in flash, albeit one with rather limited features (see below). Lots of custom functions. Plus piles of other stuff like the usual idiot modes (portrait, landscape, macro, sports - night mode being the only missing one), auto bracketing, depth of field exposure mode, multiple exposure settings, AI servo focus tracking, etc.


• Very fast winder at 5 frames per second shooting speed in one-shot mode. (3.3 in AI servo) Which I’ve only really ever used once, but it’s nice to know that it can handle high-speed shots if I want. The 10/10s even shoots at this speed when auto-bracketing, which is pretty cool - it blazes through AEB shots in a split second. In fact, the 10/10s is about the fastest affordable EOS camera. The pro cameras shoot faster, but often require external boosters to do it.


• It’s fairly quiet for an SLR, though still much noisier than a quiet camera like the Elan/100 or the Elan 7/30. As it doesn’t have a zoomed flash, as noted above, there’s no zoom motor noise. The drawback to not having a zoomed flash, of course, is that the flash range is much shorter when using longer focal lengths. The 10/10s internal flash only covers the area of a 35mm lens.


• Doesn’t fog Kodak HIE infrared film. This is the main reason I got this camera, really. It doesn’t use an IR diode in the film path and the 10/10s also doesn’t have cutout holes in the pressure plate. Interestingly the EOS 10QD also lacks cutout holes in the pressure plate - I understand it’s the only EOS model ever built like that.


• Discreet red autofocus assist light. The Rebel 2000/EOS 300 and new Elan 7/EOS 30 flash the main flash unit for AF (autofocus) assist, which is extremely annoying and distracting for your photo subjects. Not to mention a huge battery drain. I much prefer the patterned red light, which bothers subjects considerably less. I guess Canon moved to using the flash since large lenses can block the AF assist light and to save a few yen by eliminating the high-intensity LED. Custom function 8 lets you disable the AF assist light if you want.


• Flash sync (X sync) of up to 1/125. Some lower-end Canons (eg: the Rebel 2000/EOS 300) can only go as high as 1/90. Of course, the high-end ones go up to 1/250, and E-TTL Canons also have pulsed FP flash which simulates even higher flash sync.


• The 10/10s was the first Canon EOS to feature more than one focussing mark, and the camera boasts three AF sensors, all of which are designed to work with slow (f 5.6) lenses. The AF sensor is a cross sensor and thus sensitive to both horizontal and vertical lines, but the outer two sensors are only sensitive to horizontal lines. (this is quite different from contemporaneous low-end Canons with single sensors, which usually are sensitive only to vertical lines)
  Each active focus point is outlined in red in the viewfinder. Since the finder screen is edge-lit there’s a slight haze of red light scattered around the viewfinder immediately below each illuminated rectangle, which looks a bit cheap but obviously doesn’t affect the performance of the camera at all. The flash metering system supposedly biases flash exposure to the selected AF point.


• Autofocus speed is pretty good, and seems quite accurate. It feels a tiny bit snappier and more precise than the Elan/100’s focussing. It was the first non-pro EOS model to have decent focussing, as the earlier 600 series cameras are a little erratic sometimes.


• The wireless RC-1 remote control. Optional, and very useful indeed. It has the obvious application of letting you trigger group grin photos from within the group, but its utility goes beyond that. You can do 2-second mirror prefire lockup with it. In bulb mode you can press once to open the shutter and once again to close it, and since it’s wireless you aren’t bumping the camera.


• Mirror prefire lockup. It’s not true mirror lockup, since you can’t just lock the mirror when you feel like it, but custom function 13 lets you set a 10-second mirror prefire lock on timer mode or 2-second when using the RC-1 remote. Which is all I’d use MLU for anyway - reducing the mirror-slap vibrations which might blur slow-shutter exposures.


• Built-in flash won’t pop up automatically in the idiot modes, at least not on the 10s. (I don’t know if the flash pops up automatically on the EOS 10) But the thing is, I like being in control of whether flash is needed or not, so I consider this a bonus and not a missing feature.
  One fun feature of the 10/10s is that the flash automatically lowers when you push the flash button if it’s up. Most other Canons I’ve used require you to lower the flash by hand. This is cute, but since I’m not used to it I tend to push down the flash manually out of habit, which probably doesn’t do good things to the flash popup motor.


• You can move focus control off the shutter release button to a back button if you like - the famous Custom Function 4. Ironically, much as I like this feature, I don’t enable it, because my primary camera (Elan/100) lacks it. And I find it confusing switching back and forth between two cameras with different AF interface settings.


• Holding open the shutter does not require any power. This is unlike most EOS cameras (past the original 600 series), which drain the battery when the shutter is held open. If you’re doing astrophotography or other forms of long-exposure night photography this no-power shutter feature can be a real boon, since it means you can shoot a bulb exposure photo without worrying about the battery failing midway through the night and ruining your picture.


• Built-in intervalometer (interval timer). This is the only EOS camera with such a feature built in, I think. A number of other cameras (1, 600 series, etc) had optional backs that let you set up intervals, but the 10/10s has it built into the body. Basically you just set the time (from 1 second to 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds) and the total number of exposures and the camera will automatically take your photos, one per time interval.
  You can even combine the intervalometer with the multiple exposure feature. Which is cool, because you can take one of those cool moonrise photos automatically if you want. You know the kind - camera’s on a tripod and set to take a multiple-exposure photo once every few minutes, so you end up with a bunch of pictures of the moon rising on the same frame. I tried it a couple times and it worked, though the picture turned out to be somewhat disappointing owing to wind causing the tripod to vibrate.


• Custom function 2 enables leader-out for rewind. This is a very useful thing if you want to be able to change films midroll and resume shooting with that roll later on - when the film rewinds it keeps the film tongue out of the cartridge rather than winding it all back in. Note that this only works in creative zone modes, so the film will rewind all the way back if you’re shooting in PIC mode and run out of film.


• The shutter lag (the time between you pushing the shutter button all the way and the camera actually taking a photo) is very short, though I don’t know the actual value. It’s definitely shorter and snappier than the Elan/100. The mirror blackout is also wonderfully brief. Very nice to operate.


• Barcode reader. Actually, this fits partway between “like” and “don’t like.” You can scan in various settings into the camera from a custom barcode reader and list of barcodes. This is clearly a feature aimed at novice or braindead consumers. “Oh, I’m taking a photo of a flower, so I flip through my barcode book until I find a picture of a flower, then scan in that barcode!” And unfortunately you can only store one custom barcode at a time, unlike the Elan/100.
  However, this feature is rendered slightly interesting by the fact that people have reverse-engineered the barcode data format and, if you have a program that can print out the interleaved barcode style, you can actually write your own settings. That’s sort of fun if you’re of a nerdy bent.


• Unlike the Elan/100, Elan 7/EOS 30, etc, cameras, the battery door on the 10/10s has a proper moving hinge! Hooray. It doesn’t just have a stupid flexy bit of plastic, which eventually will break off, rendering the camera useless unless you keep the battery pushed in with your left hand.
  Additionally, the camera back has a locking mechanism. You have to push in a little button in order to get the sliding latch to move, which I think is an excellent feature. Unfortunately the latch is plastic. Oh, well.


• The metal tripod socket is in line with the lens axis, unlike the Elan/100. This won’t affect most people but if, for example, you want to shoot a QuickTime VR panorama and need to locate the camera on a bracket so that it rotates around the lens nodal point then this might be handier than the Elan/100 arrangement.


• The internal flash appears to charge up only when you pop up the flash, and not each time you turn the camera on, the way the Elan/100 does. Unfortunately the 10/10s still sucks up battery power like there’s no tomorrow, so this doesn’t seem to make much difference.

Stuff I don’t like about the 10/10s.

The 10s is a pretty decent camera with a lot of handy and several unique features, but on the whole I’d go for the Elan/100 if I had to choose between the two. The 10/10s is just missing too many useful features and its user interface isn’t as well organized. But, as noted above, the 10/10s does not fog HIE film, which is why I have it. Anyway. My comments and complaints:

• There’s no rear quick control dial. Arrr. The Elan/100 was the first consumer EOS camera to have this brilliant feature, which was introduced with the professional EOS 1 camera. And boy do you miss it if it isn’t there!
  The 10/10s has a shift button instead of a rear dial. To operate it you have to hold down the right-hand rear button with your thumb (mild degree of contortions required, and for comfort you’ll probably have to support the camera with your left hand while you do it) and turn the main dial with your forefinger.


• You can’t freely choose metering methods. Recent professional and advanced amateur Canons let you choose whichever mode (evaluative, partial, centre-weighted average, spot if available) that you like. The 10/10s defaults to evaluative unless you hold down the partial metering button and keep it depressed whilst taking the photo. This is a hassle.
  The manual doesn’t fully document it, but there is one exception to above. And that’s that the camera appears to switch to partial metering by default in the M and closeup PIC modes, and you can’t use any other metering methods in those modes. This is really unfortunate. Note that some sources say that the 10s switches to centre-weighted averaging in M mode. But neither the manual nor the Canon camera museum site say that the 10s is capable of centre-weighted average metering, so I’m skeptical about this claim. (but please email me if you have any information to the contrary) Either way the 10/10s definitely does not support fine spot metering.


• Exposure compensation interface is very weak. The Elan/100 and most later Canons have a graphical scale from -2 to 0 to +2 EV. You dial in the appropriate setting, usually using the rear dial, and this information stays displayed at all times.
  On the 10/10s you have to press an awkwardly placed black button, located at the bottom of the black plastic camera base, that’s marked +/-. Then you have to hold down the selected shift button with your thumb and dial in the compensation amount. It’s displayed using digits and +/- rather than a visual scale, and is only displayed in the top-deck LCD - you can’t do this whilst peering through the viewfinder!
  When you switch out of the exposure compensation mode that information vanishes, leaving only a +/- symbol in the viewfinder and top-deck LCD. This simply tells you that exposure compensation is not 0, so if you forget what the actual value is you have to push the +/- button again. And exposure compensation does not get reset when the viewfinder display extinguishes, so there’s the risk of shooting a bunch of pictures with the wrong setting if you forget to change it back. All in all, very inconvenient.
  As slight consolation, the exposure compensation range is from -5 to +5 EV, compared to -2 to +2 for the Elan/100 and the other non-pro Canons which have a graphical sliding scale.


• The 10/10s is maddeningly forgetful. It’s worse than the Reagan White House. Let’s say you set the shutter speed to 1/90 sec in Tv mode. Then you switch to Av mode to check it out. Then you switch back to Tv. Magically, the shutter speed has reverted to 1/125 sec. Frustratingly, the camera insists on going back to 1/125 f5.6 all the time. Newer Canons don’t do this, and retain whatever setting you had before.


• The 10/10s has an eight-zone evaluative metering system. This was pretty advanced for its time, but newer cameras have improved evaluative metering with more zones. (eg: the Elan 7/EOS 30 has 35 zones) It’d be nice to have a camera that handled backlit or high-contrast subjects a bit better without having to think about it.


• The 10/10s is an older B-type EOS body and so has no E-TTL flash metering or FP mode (high-speed flash sync) support. Utterly unsurprising, since E-TTL didn’t exist when the 10/10s was made. Sadly, TTL and A-TTL flash metering are really pretty lame.


• The partial metering mode covers 8.5% of the image area around the centre AF mark, and it doesn’t meter around the selected AF mark if it isn’t the centre one. Which is better than 9.5% for the newer Elan II/50 and Elan 7/30 cameras but worse than the 6.5% coverage of the original Elan/100. Either way, the camera obviously hasn’t got a spotmeter or a fine partial metering feature.


• Making things worse, the partial metering/AE Lock button doesn’t actually lock. On later cameras you can press the AE Lock button and it’ll retain your settings for a few seconds. The 10/10s requires you to keep this button (or the shutter release) held down in order to retain the settings, which seems to me to defeat the point of “locking.” You have to hold the camera steady with your left hand, press the AE Lock button with your right thumb and take a photo with your right index finger, or keep your finger pressed on the shutter release button halfway. Talk about gymnastics.


• In manual mode there’s no actual metering scale. Just + or - symbols telling you whether you’re over or under exposed. Annoying. These symbols are displayed in the viewfinder but not the top-deck LCD.


• And speaking of the viewfinder, the data display is a bit unattractive, as inactive segments can still be faintly seen. The Elan/100 avoids this problem quite neatly by simply brightening the entire data area of the viewfinder. This lowers the contrast slightly between the illuminated characters and the ground, but does prevent the distracting inactive segment problem.


• People with newer EOS cameras, such as the Elan 7/EOS 30, will be annoyed to find that the positioning of the focus mark selection button is reversed on the 10/10s. Of course, this is hardly an issue if you don’t have such a camera.


• The 10/10s, like the A2/5, does not use the AF assist light on an external shoe-mounted Speedlite flash. It keeps using the built-in AF assist light instead. This wasn’t done utterly capriciously - there was reasoning behind the decision, (the AF lights on the external flash units of the day did not provide adequate coverage for more than one focussing point, and the external flash unit AF lights have vertical patterns rather than horizontal patterns required by the 10/10s) but it’s still frustrating because the internal AF light is easily blocked by a large lens or lens hood meaning you get no AF light coverage at all in such situations.
  This should have been made into a custom function. Or at the very least the camera should have allowed the external flash’s AF light to work if the camera was set to use the middle of the three AF points.


• Speaking of flash, the built-in flash is pretty darn limited. It uses TTL and has no second-curtain shutter sync, no red-eye reduction and also lacks flash exposure compensation. It doesn’t zoom and only covers 35mm wide lenses. The Elan/100 has all four of these features, for what it’s worth. Personally of the four I’d say the lack of flash exposure compensation is the most problematic, since Canon’s fill-flash algorithm tends to result in the flash spitting out a bit more light than you’d want.


• As with all of Canon’s cameras the 10/10s lacks a (post-exposure) flash confirmation indicator in the viewfinder. This is apparently for patent reasons, but still annoying for the end user. The 540EZ and 550EX external flash units have a flash exposure confirmation lamp, but that means you have to check the back of the flash unit after each picture - you can’t just keep peering through the finder. Also, it doesn’t help me - I have the 430EZ flash, which lacks this lamp.


• No battery pack grip was ever made for the 10/10s. You can’t use easily-obtainable and cheap AAs to power the camera - you always have to use expensive lithium 2CR5s. It’s true that AAs don’t last very long, but having that option can be a lifesaver if you’re in the Middle of Nowhere and run out of lithium photo cells.
  There was an add-on optional grip extension (GR-60), but it’s just a lump of rubber with a hand strap. It doesn’t give you any additional buttons (so it’s of no additional benefit for portrait photography) and it doesn’t contain batteries.


• The 10/10s has metering controls which are adjustable in half stop increments only. It does not have the ability to adjust exposure settings in third stop intervals like newer EOS cameras.


• Speaking of batteries, the 10/10s eats a lot of batteries. Always carry a spare or two.


• No wired shutter release socket, unlike the Elan II/50 and 7/30. Quite mysterious, given the fact it was Canon’s second-best camera at the time and must have been used in studios. (needless to say it also lacks a PC socket.) The wireless remote is great, but since the sensor for it is on the front of the camera you have to move around and point the remote at the front. Great for when you want to be in the picture; not great if you don’t.
  Also, the IR sensor is tucked away on the body right below the AF assist LED. This can be blocked by a large lens or lens hood, which is annoying. The Elan 7/30 is improved in this regard - the IR remote sensor is built into the handgrip on the front. Incidentally, I’ve taken an RC-1 remote and hacked so that the IR LED is on the end of a little wire with a piece of velcro. That way I can use it as a wired remote if I want to stand behind the camera in a studio-type setting. A bit clunky, but it works. Doesn’t help with the timeout value for the IR receiver, though. (see below)


• The internal beeper is used both for indicating successful focus and also during the self-timer countdown. You can turn off the beeping outright, but unfortunately this isn’t what I want. I want the beeper disabled for successful focus but enabled for the timer. There doesn’t seem to be any custom function or whatever to permit this. There’s only a custom function to disable the camera-shake beeper warning.


• No separate DOF (depth of field) preview button. However, you can enable custom function 11 and have the partial metering button double as a DOF preview button. This is sort of an okay substitute, since unlike the AE Lock button on the Elan/100 the partial metering button is spring-loaded and doesn’t lock in a setting (a problem in most other areas), but separate buttons are still handier.


• No manual focus indicator in the viewfinder. A little MF symbol in the viewfinder would save you that extra second of wondering whether the lens is in auto or manual focus mode and fumbling for the switch to double-check. The top deck LCD doesn’t display any text in the yellow-orange rectangle area if you’re in manual focus mode, but that isn’t very helpful.


• Viewfinder has only about 92% coverage. Oh, well. Note that this is slightly more coverage than the Elan/100, which has only 90%. The 10/10s viewfinder also isn’t very easy to look into if you wear glasses. Nikon’s cameras generally do a much better job of accommodating spectacles wearers.


• I don’t like the command dial lock, because you have to push the centre lock button down to release it. This is both fiddly to use and may be vulnerable to the same infamous problem of command dial breakage that the EOS 5/A2 suffers from - it’s not entirely clear.
  The Elan II/50 and the new Elan 7/30 have the lock button on the side, which offers the same positive locking functionality but is far more convenient to operate. (though admittedly is less aesthetically pleasing than having the lock in the centre.)


• The latch on the camera back is made of plastic, not metal. And the catch is exactly the sort of thing that will snap off with use. For that reason I always push the door in and release the catch, then open the door with the catch open, in an attempt to minimize stresses placed on the catch and thus the chances of it breaking on me. Maybe I’m paranoid, but it doesn’t take any extra effort, and I’d hate to have the catch break in the middle of a shoot.


• No backlit top dial and LCD. Makes it a bit of a pain to operate in the dark. Would’ve cost peanuts to add a couple surface-mounted LEDs in there for night operation. Or, for a bit more money, an EL backlit screen like on the EOS 620. (one of the oldest EOS models around)
  Hopefully this will change in the future. The EOS Kiss III L, a minor revision to the Kiss III (Japanese name for the Rebel 2000/EOS 300) sold only in Japan, has an illuminated top-deck LCD. Let’s hope Canon continues this through the line.


• This applies to pretty well all cameras these days, but the LCD itself is only supposed to last 5-10 years or so before it fails. Mine’s about a decade old, and is still working, but the fact that it might fail and have to be replaced at my expense is pretty annoying.


• Making things worse, the camera was discontinued several years ago and in a few years’ time it may not be possible to get it repaired if replacement parts are no longer available from Canon. The company is only legally obligated to keep parts on hand for about a decade, I think.


• Many late 80s/early 90s EOS cameras, including the 10/10s, have a known problem of black sticky tar-like stuff appearing on the shutter. This is caused by a foam piece inside deteriorating and turning into sticky black glue. Fixing the problem requires replacing the shutter and replacing said piece of foam. Moderately expensive, as you have to open up the entire camera to do it. You can also clean the shutter yourself if you feel like taking the chance.
  This isn’t a trivial problem. I recently lost about two dozen shots on a recent shoot because of a gluey shutter - the pictures simply turned out blank or occasionally grossly underexposed. Frustrating.


• The six-second timeout on the exposure settings. If you’ve pushed the shutter release halfway and have customized the exposure settings and then let go, you’ve only got 5-6 seconds before the viewfinder display shuts off and it forgets whatever you’ve put in. That’s a bit short sometimes. All EOS cameras seem to do this, yet only the 1V and 1D has a funtion that lets users extend this time if they want.


• There’s also a timeout on the remote-control sensor. The camera won’t recognize the RC-1 control signals unless you’re in self-timer mode, which can be annoying in itself, but after a few minutes it shuts off the remote sensor as well.
  I presume this is some sort of power-saving measure, but it’s certainly one that eliminates the possibility for many fun hacks. Let’s say that you wanted to take a photo of a bird flying into its nest. If the remote-control sensor didn’t time out you could rig up a nifty hack so that the bird could trigger the camera when it crossed a beam of light, say. Sadly you can’t do tricks like this with the 10/10s. And since there’s no wired release socket you can’t hack anything together that way, making the 10/10s utterly unuseable for long-delay triggering.


• No frame counter information in the viewfinder - just on the top-deck LCD panel.


• No textual or mnemonic explanation for what the custom functions are. If Canon were to use a simple dot-addressable LCD they could easily throw a few bytes of extra data into the ROM that would actually explain what CF 1 or 7 does, so you don’t have to tape a photocopy of the manual onto your camera bag. The digital D30 and D60 have full text of custom functions displayed on the rear screen, which is handy. But oddly the new Elan 7/30 actually has a smaller LCD than older cameras like the 10/10s. The 7/30 also uses cheesy triangular arrow symbols which point to printed icons on the edge of the LCD, rather than actual symbols on the LCD for some reason.


• No film-plane mark. People who do precise macro photography want to know where the film plane is actually located, so they can measure off exact distances. The film plane mark is a circle with a long line through it, like a sort of Plimsoll line on a ship. The 10/10s lacks this. Makes no difference to me, really, since I don’t do this sort of macro photography, but it might bother someone out there. All the new Canons, even the cheapest Rebels, now have the film plane mark printed on the top.


• Unlike the Elan II/30, the self-timer doesn’t display countdown information in the LCD. A shame - it’s a cute feature.


• Back isn’t removable. So you can’t replace it with a bulk-loader or Polaroid adapter or date-printer or whatever. This doesn’t affect me at all, but as above, I suppose it might affect someone. There was the 10QD, which was a version of the 10 with a date-printing back, but since the backs aren’t interchangeable you either have a date-printing camera or you don’t.


• No interchangeable finder screens. The 600 series cameras were the last non-pro EOS cameras to have interchangeable viewfinder screens. I’d love to have a split circle focus screen for easier manual focussing.


• It ain’t sealed. Okay, so I’d have to spend ten times more money and get a top of the line EOS 1v or 3 to get a fully-sealed weatherproof camera, but it’d be nice to have some basic rubber seals around things, even if they weren’t up to the 1v standard. As it is, it’s a bit annoying to shoot for a couple days in a dusty location and finding the battery compartment lined with a layer of dust. Even a lot of cheap portable CD players have little rubber O-rings around buttons and dials these days.
  I’ve had to wrap the whole camera in black gaffer tape (not cheap silver duct tape, which leaves ghastly gluey residues, but expensive gaffer tape used by film crews) to deal with this. This makes it hard to operate the controls, of course, so I've also resorted to taping small pieces of transparent cling film (sandwich wrap plastic film) over key button controls and the top LCD.

- NK Guy, PhotoNotes.org.

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