I haven't owned the 5D, but have 1D series. I liked the feel of the 10D. The build quality was so so. Though I never had any major problems, the AF was usually spot on except for servo mode which was slow, niggly things like the alignment of the viewfnder bugged me.
trenchmonkey wrote:
I remember my 10D as having one of the quietest shutter sounds of any body I've had.
I agree. My 10D is very quiet and smooth, and as for the build quality, I think it's better than any of the later XXD bodies. It'll probably go down in history as a classic.
I am still using a 10d after almost four years for wildlife and landscapes. I print up to 20x30 with it and do pretty well with gallery and website print sales. For wildlife when iso800 is often necessary the shadows are not too clean, but considering I used iso100 or 50 film before and rarely had enough light to stop the motion of the animals, a little noise bothers me less than blurring.
As far as build quality and durability, the body has been dropped from 4 or 5 feet onto concrete and still works fine (busted off the mode dial faceplate though, doesn't matter cause I know how many clicks from one end M and A modes are). It has been rained on and snowed on, only malfunctioning due to water once when it was just above freezing and melting snow got into the rear focus point button. It has paint worn off all around the front of the flash and all along the sides, and chips and dents on every corner, and it looks awesome that way! When I upgrade I will not baby the new camera, but let it break in naturally at the hands of nature and see how the new models compare in longevity to the 10d.
I'm with the OP on this one also. I don't own my 10D any longer, but I always felt like the build quality was better than the 5D. It just felt more solid and I think they did a much better job with the battery grip integration.
Still have my 10D and at least compared to the 20D I had (now sold) it is quiter, has for my hands a better slightly larger size and the grip looks OK and matches the body lines. It's unbearably slow compared to current cameras though, and the image size makes it very important to use the whole frame (not a bad thing). High ISO is of course also not impressive nowadays, things have moved along dramatically in just a few years. It's still a favourite, though not competitive anymore in terms of the images, and that just makes the whole discussion about other things rather moot.
