Surprising find from Canon
by Nick Griffin
on
Jul 13, 2007 at 6:58:20 pm
My primary still camera is Canon's top of the line 1DS Mark II so when I wanted to get something simple and cheap(er) that my kids could use (without me grinding my teeth every time it left the room) I decided on Canon's Digital Rebel XTi. Figured the ability to share lenses (occasionally, mind you) would be a good idea and might even come in handy when I wanted to inexpensively boost the focal length of my longer lenses.
While the Rebel has some nice dumbed-down features and functions I've been very surprised that they are additional options and that the various things I need like full manual, time priority and aperature priority are still there. This $700 camera is very similar to its big brother -- right down to its ability to record JPEG and RAW at the same time. The sensor cleaning function which is on the new 1DS Mark III is also on the XTi. (Hopefully some day Canon will be adding that to the full size sensors like the Mark II and 5D.)
The long and short of it is, at least so far, I can highly recommend the Rebel XTi. It won't replace my Mark II but at 1/10th of the price it's sweet.
Re: Surprising find from Canon by tony salgado on Jul 16, 2007 at 6:45:51 pm
Nick,
My back up camera is a Rebel XTI.
The XTI packs alot of punch for the cost but it is no not as clean in high ISO as my primary camera the 5D.
The smaller size does make it ideal where weight or size is an issue.
I do wish it had a user selectable kelvin temp along with the presets.
Regarding the self sensor cleaning it is a great feature but no replacement for a real cleaning which will really get rid of dust spots which will not shake off.
Overall given the price point is it a great value. I am really looking forward to the forthcoming 40D which will replace the 30D as well as rumored 7D which will replace the 5D.
"The sensor cleaning function which is on the new 1DS Mark III is also on the XTi."
Whoa... I think you mean the 1DMkIII. The S isn't announced yet.
There are features that you have to dif threough to get at which are right there on the back and other easy spots on the 1 series bodies. Other things such as AF and resolution are differentiators, weather sealing, etc... I really don;t think they are _that_ close.
Re: Kinda by Nick Griffin on Jul 21, 2007 at 11:58:29 am
Haven't done anything critical with it yet, so this is all just a "first blush" opinion. I would certainly hope that my initial investment in the MK II when it first came out has not been matched a couple of years later by a body at one tenth of the cost.
For me the XTi has been an extremely cheap way to add a second body, not a second system.
