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Taken with Canon 18-55mm EFS @28mm @ f/9, iso 100
The best part about the Digital Rebel is the PRICE! It has maintained a price gap of $500 dollars for over two years now. As of November 2004, it can be purchased for around $700, not including $100 to $300 in rebates should you decide to buy a few lenses. The next camera in Canon's lineup is the 20D which costs an extra $700. Dollar for dollar, you're better off investing the 700 bucks you'll save buying the Rebel, and putting it into an L lens. You'll see more of an improvement investing in glass than you will upgrading to the 20d.
Buying an expensive camera body and a cheap lens is like buying an expensive amplifier and cheap speakers. Pictures will only be as good as the lens, just as sound will only be as good as the speaker. A junky speaker may sound ok at low volume, just as a cheap lens may look ok at small apertures.
The above picture was taken with the $100 lens included in the Rebel Kit. While it's not a great lens, it does ok when stopped down.
Here is a photograph taken with one of Canon's "L" lenses, the Canon 70-200mm F/4L (about $600).
original file straight off camera, no photoshop or sharpening, using default camera settings
Taken with Canon 70-200 F/4L, F7.1, 200mm, ISO 100
Looking closely at the original file you can actually see the fishing line from the end of the pole to the lure.
My gripes about the Digital Rebel:
1. Connectivity; having to install software to enable usb seems rather crude, especially with XP. Once the usb connnection is made, files must first be downloaded to be edited, I consider a usb 2.0 card reader a necessity. A card reader will seamlessly give you high speed access to your files as if it were a hard drive.
2. Rattles; I noticed the rattles about a minute after I took it out of the box. Once I put the battery in and poped the flash I found the rattles comming from the flash pop-up mechanism. I suppose this is normal.
3. Depth of feild preview button is in a funny place, and displaying the ISO setting in the viewfinder or LCD would be nice.
5. Users who like using the LCD to compose their pictures should know the LCD screen on the 300d is used only for reviewing pictures. This is an SLR with a mechanical shutter, the fun factor of playing with white balance and exposure settings on the fly is lost.
My Praises:
1. This camera was made for low light. There is less noise at 800 ISO than most cameras have at 100 ISO, even Sonys latest top of the line ($1000) 8MP camera. Pictures from other cameras are pretty worthless when compared to Canon's. ISO comparison between sony and canon
2. EFS Lens Compatablity. It just doesn't make sense to have all that expensive glass if you only use 63% of the image, Im glad Canon followed Nikon in making "digital" lenses. Hopefully they continue the copy cat tradition, Im eagerly waiting for a Canon EFS 12-35mm, or even a 12mm prime. The weak link on these new pocket-sized 8-12 megapixel cameras is the glass. It makes no sense to shoot a picture at 12 megapixel when you have a poor quality lens , there really isn't any gain in resolution.
3. Turbo fast Auto focus!
In daylight the auto focus is super fast, especially with an ultrasonic lens. Focus is achieved at the blink of an eye with my 70-200 F/4L Lens.
In the dark, I thought not having an AF Assist light was a real downer, but i think using the strobing flash works better than any LED powered assist light ever could (although it is rather distracting). Ive seen a few rebel owners piss off a few band members =)
If one wants an assist light you can add an external flash, the 420EX flash assist light covers all 7 AF zones, the 550EX covers only 5, also check out the canon ST-E2 wireless flash transmitter with af light.
4. "No" shutter lag! The days of holding a shutter release and patiently letting the camera decide when it wants to shoot are over.
5. Battery life seems exceptional, the battery pack is about the size of 2AA batteries but has the Watt/hours of 4 NiMh AAs. At first I was a bit disappointed by having a proprietary battery pack, but the supplied 90 minute charger makes me very happy. I bought a generic battery from Best Buy for $40. This camera uses much less power than most digital cameras because of its CMOS imaging sensor, and the LCD is not used for taking pictures. Perhaps Canon will make a more compact 550EX flash that takes the BP-511 battery.
6. Large, well balanced hand grip, I hate holding those tiny camreras.
7. Plastic. Admittedly a plastic camera doesn't feel as nice in your hand as a camera made from 12lbs of cast iron, but it is travel friendly. My plastic Elan has lasted 14 years with no issues and Im sure this camera will do the same.
8. 1600 ISO (3200 ISO with the firmware hack). I use 800 speed film almost exclusively, its nice to have a digital camera that gives me the same ability.
9. Contrast, color and saturation all look good (as it should!). Grass would always appear florescent (oversaturated) green with my Sony camera, as is still the case with new Sonys.
10. Ability to "sorta" cancel preflash.
The 300d can work with youroptical slave flash. The built in 300d flash will not fire a preflash if you use the flash exposure lock. This will allow you to trigger optical slave flashses.
11. What a deal for $999
If you've just bought your Digital Rebel and you are seeing purple fringing, it is most definatly due to your lens. Even my 50mm f/1.8 prime lens seems to be very prone to purple fringing. Click here for more detail
Canon 18-55mm F3.5 - 5.6 EFS ($100) Vs.
Sigma 12-24mm F4.5 - 5.6 ($600)
canon_28mm f/3.5 (wide open)
sigma_24mm f/4.5 (wide open)
Sample Pictures using the kit lens 18-55mm EFS
These pictures were taken the first few days of owning the Digital Rebel, they are further compressed for bandwidth sake, but otherwise straight off the camera.
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Taken with Quantaray 70-300mm DL @ 104mm 1/125s, F5.6, ISO 100, no enhancements
Notice how the black lines of the building in background appear slightly purple, this is purple fringing. The lens used was a cheap consumer lens.
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Taken with Canon EFS 18-55mm @ 18mm 1/125s, F7.1, ISO 100, no enhancements
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Taken with Canon 18-55mm EFS @18mm @ f/4.5, iso 400 with Canon 420ex flash bounced off the ceiling.
Ive developed a technique for taking hand held night time shots with a flash which seems to work well. I use the Manual mode, and I set the shutter speed to something slow, around 1/focal length, or 1/18 sec at 18mm. The aperture is set wide open, or stopped slightly down to improve sharpenss. I set the ISO to 400 or 800, and use the flash exposure lock to balance the light. This technique helps bring in as much possible ambient light as possible, its hard to tell a flash was used in most cases.
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Taken with Canon EFS 18-55mm @ 54mm 1/125s, F8, ISO 100, no enhancements
Of course the best part about owning and SLR is the choice of lenses available, heres a few examples....
Sample Pictures using "Expensive" glass
Taken with my Zenitar 16mm f2.8 , f/8, 0.8", ISO 200
Notice the image is slightly curvey at the edges because this is a fisheye
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Taken with Sigma 12-24mm, 12mm, F4.5, 1/60", ISO 100
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Taken with Sigma 12-24mm, 12mm, F11, 1/200", ISO 100
Notice how everything from 5" to infinity is in focus
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Taken with Canon 70-200 F/4L, F4, 200mm, ISO 400
Notice how everything 5" behind the subject is out of focus.
The camera was set to "Sports" mode to achieve predictive auto focus since the subject was walking toward me. It would be impossible to get an infocus picture otherwise. When taking portraits, make sure the subjects eyes are in focus.
