I would go for the 30D and the Canon IS 100-400 lens. It costs more than the IS 70-300 lens but on the other hand you may want to upgrade to the 100-400 lens at some time anyway. Look at it this way, go for the IS 100-400 now if you can and avoid having to spend an ‘extra’ amount on the IS 70-300 lens first. I have had my IS 100-400 lens for three years now and it is working perfectly.
What type of images do you want to take? With action photography a lot of photographers take their pictures in high quality fine JPEG mode but for low light photography you may want to take pictures in what is known as RAW mode. You may then find you would want to take pictures of aircraft in RAW mode as well.
With the 30D you can take at least 11 pictures in one burst in RAW mode. That is just enough fo my picture taking at airshows. Sometimes you could get 12 in one burst if you use an extreme compact flash which downloads the images quickly for you to start shooting again. You should get all of the action. Of course if you want to take JPEG images on the 30D you can shoot more than 20 images in one burst. JPEG picture taking on the 350D and 400D would be no problem either.
The 400D can take 10 images in RAW mode but only at a rate of 3 images per second. Canon did not offer a higher shooting rate in case it started competing with their own 30D. In terms of area, the 10 million mega pixels on the 400D is not a huge improvement on 8 million megapixels on the 30D when compared to the improvement from 6 millon on the 10D to 8 millon on the 20D/30D.
Canon have a habit of replacing their cameras in March or August in roughly 18 – 20 month intervals. The rumours of the 40D replacement is a Camera of 10m megapixels but this will bring the new Camera closer to 5D area so I think the 5D will be replaced first to maintain the gap with the 30D hanging on until August/Sept next year. Of course this is speculation but with the airshow season almost over in the UK what I would consider doing is waiting until March/April 2007 and see what happens. If it is replaced then the price of in stock 30Ds would come down
Lastly, I do not want to put you off but my 20D died the day before the Abingdon Air Fayer this year. As it would not have been repaired in time the prospect of not taking pics at airshows for a few weeks horrified me much more than the cost of a new camera. I went out and purchased the 30D which I had originally intended to give a miss. My 30D died later at the Bigging Hill air show but was replaced immediately with a new 30D under retail guaranty.
On looking back my first 30D was a duff Camera anyway. My current one works perfectly and I have not even had a single error message. I am extremely happy with it.
I have no idea how much you know about photography but as you are serious about it then at the moment I think the 30D will give you the flexibility you may want at a decent price.
Good luck.
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