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Canon Digital Rebel Xsi 12.2 Mp Digital Slr Camera Reviews

Great camera, one of the best low(er)-end DSLRs on the market
My journey with DSLRs began back in 2003 with the original Digital Rebel. DSLRs changed my photography for the better like nothing else. Five years and some 25,000 shots later, it's still going strong. Along the way I upgraded to the Canon 30D, which is a fantastic camera as well. When the 40D was announced, I decided to wait until the 50D sometime in 2009, but wanted a newer backup/second body for my photography needs. So when the XSi/450D was announced, it sounded like a perfect fit for my needs.

I got it from Amazon.com three days ago, and have given it a pretty good workout since then, having shot about 650 shots under a variety of shooting conditions and with a number of different Canon and third-party lenses. The following are my impressions.

The build feels very good. The camera feels wonderfully light yet well built. I'm 6ft tall with average size hands, and the camera feels good in my hand. The battery grip, to me, defeats the purpose of having a small, light DSLR, so I opted for a Hakuba/Opteka grip (it's a plate that screws into the tripod socket that enables you to use the excellent Canon E1 hand strap with it) and I couldn't be happier. I'm not a fan of neck straps, so this works well for me (see the uploaded photo for the configuration).

Most of the menu buttons on the back feel different from the ones on the original Digital Rebel and the 30D; the XSi buttons feel more tactile and have a definite "click" to them when you press them. The exception are the Exposure Lock (*) and AF selector buttons, which have retained the deeper, softer feel of the older cameras. Just different, not better or worse, for me.

The LCD is now 3" with 230K pixels. The playback images look great, and probably because of the higher resolution of the sensor, there's a very slight delay when you zoom in to 10x while the image loads and displays properly. People coming from other cameras or brands might not even notice it--I only did so because of the difference between it and my two other Canon DSLRs (which have lower resolution sensors). The viewing angle of the LCD screen (how clearly you can see the screen from side and up and down) is excellent; you can still see the screen holding the camera almost straight up for an overhead shot (more on this later). I'd estimate the viewing angle is about 160-170 degrees both horizontally and vertically.

The Digital Rebel has a separate status screen above the main LCD screen, and the 30D had one on top of the camera, so I wasn't sure if I was going to like the big LCD acting as the status screen and no top screen. I'm happy to say that this arrangement works well, at least for me. The back screen makes it really easy to take all the settings at a glance. The viewfinder is much larger and brighter than that in the Digital Rebel. A humongously welcome feature for me is the always displayed ISO value in the viewfinder.

The camera is only 1/2 of the image quality equation, the other being the lenses being used. Coupled with my favorite lens, the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L telephoto lens, the XSi turns out fantastic images. The supplied kit lens is very light and compact for being an image stabilized lens, and turns out good performance. The IS is certainly very useful.

Two features that used to be missing from the Digital Rebels and found in the more expensive DSLRs are now featured in the XSi: spot-metering and flash exposure compensation (these may have been available in the previous Digital Rebel model, the XTi, as well). The inclusion of those two features make the camera a much more complete and compelling photographic tool. The timer function now has a custom mode, where it'll count down from 10 seconds then take a number of shots (specified by you) in succession. No more running back and forth to reset the timer after each shot! There's also the traditional 2-second timer.

Let's talk for a minute about sensor and the ISO values. XSi/450D has five ISO values you can choose: 100 (best image quality), 200, 400, 800, and 1600. Higher ISO increases the camera sensor's sensitivity to light, thus you can achieve faster shutter speeeds for a given lighting condition. However, the trade-off is that the sensor "noise" (think grain for film photography) increases with higher ISO, so you get a degraded image quality in return for less blurred photos from hand shakes (thanks to faster shutter speed). This may come in handy in situations where flash photography is not permitted, such as a museum or a concert or theater. HOWEVER, compared to point-and-shoot digital cameras, the larger sensors of DSLRs, including the XSi, means that even at ISO 800 and 1600 you get very usable images right out of the camera. Running the images shot at those ISO settings through any number of third-party noise reduction software will improve them even further.

This ties in to another very useful feature of the XSi/450D that makes life easier for the photographer: The Auto ISO function. By default, Auto ISO sets the ISO (the sensor sensitivity to light) between 100 and 800 (by using custom functions, this can be changed to 200-1600). If you are, for example, shooting your kid's indoor basketball game and you know that you need a shutter speed of at least 1/200 sec to "freeze" the action, then you can set the camera to Tv (shutter priority mode) and set the value to 1/200, and set the camera to Auto ISO. Then the camera will match the aperture and the ISO to achieve proper exposure at that shutter speed. With my other DSLRs, setting the camera to shutter priority only allowed the camera to adjust the aperture value; ISO setting had to be adjusted manually. With the XSi/450D, the ability for the camera to adjust the ISO value automatically makes it one less thing for you the photographer to worry about.

I've only tested the Live View function to see how it works, but I can already see how useful it's going to be in studio and macro shootings. Just a note, you can't half-press the shutter to autofocus while in Live View mode. You can either manual focus, or use one of the two autofocus methods, quick (the mirror flips up, the LCD goes dark for a short while, and flips down with focus locked) or live (the camera uses the LCD's contrast detection to achieve the focus--this method is slower than the quick method), both by pressing the exposure lock button (*) while in the Live View mode. Using either the RS-60E3 wired remote or RC-1 wireless remote in Live View mode will ONLY trigger the shutter, and has no bearing on focusing.

Some people seem to be under the impression that the inclusion of the Live View feature will enable them to use the XSi/450D as they do point-and-shoot digital cameras, to compose their shots. That is not the case. You can't really make a functioning use of the Live View feature unless the camera's securely mounted on a tripod or on a flat surface. Both Live View focusing modes, while precise, are too slow to be used for hand-held shooting.

Having said that, there is one use of Live View in hand-held shooting that I've come to value. When shooting overhead or over an obstacle, I can, with the same hand holding the camera, trigger the Live View, compose the scene through the LCD monitor (even if it's out of focus, it's easy to get the general framing right), disable Live View, and take the photo normally. With a little practice, this can be accomplished very quickly. Very handy when you're just holding the camera overhead and hoping for the best.

The Direct Print button that's been much ridiculed and maligned in most Canon cameras now double as the white balance menu button. The Set button in the middle of the four-direction arrow keys can be programmed for a number of different functions: Change image quality, flash exposure compensation, LCD monitor on/off (same as Display button, but can be triggered by the same hand holding the camera), and Menu display (again, can be triggered by the same hand holding the camera).

There is a dedicated ISO button, which is also very welcome. It can easily be accessed during shooting with the right thumb, thereby minimizing the interruption to shooting.

The battery life seems very good. I've shot about 500+ shots on a single charge and the status monitor is still showing charge at full.

I'm using Transcend 8GB Class 6 SDHC card with it. At ISO 100, the camera reports it can fit 396 RAW+JPG (highest quality) on it, but in reality it can probably fit about 420-450 (the camera's always conservative when estimating). With RAW only, it can fit 507. With highest quality JPG, it can fit 1,822. Note that as ISO increases, so do the file sizes and thus you can store less images per card. For example, on ISO 1600, the same card can only hold 323 images, compared to 396 at ISO 100.

My only gripe, and this is more about me than the camera, is the RAW+JPG buffer. I always shoot RAW+JPG, and the buffer will only hold four images at that speed (this is a limitation that's built into the camera's memory buffer system, and thus using a fast memory card doesn't help--see p.64 of the manual). When the buffer's full, you can take two additional images at about a frame a second, then have to wait until the buffer empties (finishes writing to the memory card). When shooting RAW only, it's 6 images. When shooting JPG only, then it's no problem at more than 50 frames. I've found myself switching the mode dial to Sports mode when I'm shooting a fast-moving subject and the buffer simply can't keep up with it. Well, that's why Canon produces different grades and ranges of DSLRs.

I've uploaded some photos that I shot of the local wildlife. Most if not all of those were taken with the EF 70-200mm f/4 L lens.

All in all, it's a fantastic camera. Pretty amazing to see how far the entry-level DSLRs have come in just a few years in terms of features, interface, ergonomics, and quality. I'm very pleased with my purchase and intend to have lots of fun shooting pictures with it.

Great camera, amazing battery life, now the perfect price!
I have had the XSi for about 3 months now and I am thouroughly impressed with it. This is my first DSLR and I was a little wary about going with a brand-new and untested camera, but I have always like Canon (I used an ELAN II in High School and I bought a SD600 about 2 years ago to take snapshots of my son). Overall, I have not been disappointed with the quality of the photos that the XSi produces. The IS lens works great and I have taken some pretty amazing photos (for me at least). I do have just a couple of issues, both good and bad, that I think those who are looking at buying this may want to know.

Battery life -- Great battery life. I should say, AMAZING battery life. I have taken over 5000 photos and I have only had to charge the battery twice.

Live View -- LiveView is not for beginners. It is not a replacement for your Point-and-Shoot. You can't use it in the AUTO mode (Green Square). This isn't that big of a deal for me, I prefer full manual myself, but the whole point of this feature, I thought, was to make it more user friendly for the Point-and-Shoot photographer. My wife can't use Live View in it's current form (I specifically bought a DSLR with a live view function so she could still use the camera). So, if Live View is a big selling point for you, You may want to look at some others (If it isn't that big of a deal to you, then this is still an amazing camera -- added 4-23-2008). If you do studio work, though, you can hook the camera up to your PC and use it as a remote viewer. But it is not a point-and-shoot camera in Live View. In my earlier review, I said that it would be nice if Canon fixed some of the Live View issues with a firmware update, I was mistaken. Live View is a nice feature once you figure out it is not meant for beginners. Studio and landscape photographers will find Live View a great tool.

Image Quality -- I have had some great success shooting in a studio setting as well as some great outdoor shots. In the studio, I used tungsten "hot" lights with the subjuect against a white background. The photos turned out great. Skin tones are perfect and there is very little, if any, chromatic abberation at the edges. It shoots great outdoor shots as well. We just got into beekeeping and I was able to get some AMAZING shots of our bees up-close outdoors. The bees looked dirty and not very interesting from a distance, but the macro photos I got up close are beautiful and full of wonderfully crisp details. The lens is a little short, the image quality you get from it is pretty good considering it only costs $100. I do plan on buying a longer lens in the near future.

Overall, the camera is solid and feels nice in the hand. It isn't too heavy, yet still feels sturdy. If you can afford the higher price, I don't think you will be disappointed. If you can't, the XTi is still a great camera. And if you can afford to wait a few months for the price to drop a little (LIKE IT ALREADY HAS!!) I would. I was able to work a few extra weekends so I could afford to get this, and I can tell you, I don't mind it a bit, because the quality of photos I am getting has been totally worth it.

--- Update ---
I was incorrect when I said you couldn't use the 9-Point autofocus in Live View. You can use the 9-point autofocus while in Live View, but the mirror flips down and focuses so you can't see what you are trying to focus on until after the camera has actually gone through the autofocus process.

--- Update #2 ---
I have now had this camera for almost two months and I am happy to report that the more I use it, the more I love it. Once you learn the layout of the camera and you load the MyMenu with the tools you use most often, the camera becomes an absolute delight to use. I have taken over 5000 photos with it so far and now I need an extra hard drive to put them all on.

I was able to rent a Canon EF 24-105 IS L lens and a 580 EX II Speedlite for my sister's wedding. WOW! What great photos. The camera interfaced with the flash flawlessly and I am more convinced than ever that much of the quality of your photos comes from the glass you use and not as much from the camera itself (I think it is about 65% lens to 35% camera body give or take a few points-- I know there will be those who disagree, but that is my take on it, and I am sure if I had a 1Ds MkIII I would think that there wasn't a peice of glass good enough for my camera).

This is a great beginner dSLR and a great camera all around. I am very happy with my purchase and I have had no regrets whatsoever about spending the $900 to buy such a great tool. Amazon now sells it for $799, you can't go wrong at that price!

Wonderful digital camera!
This camera is impossible to beat at this price. I won't write a lengthy review, but, you can set this camera in fully automatic mode and hand it to a "point and shoot" person, and they will obtain fantastic results. For the amateur photographer, this has all of the bells and whistles, what I love is I can reset the camera rapidly for multiple shots of the same scene on very different settings. Married with a decent photo program on your computer, it is possible to achieve professional results.

Many reviews say, get this with the stabilization lens.... I wholeheartedly agree... the extra $100 is a bargain price for this lens... It is almost (and I do say almost) like having a tripod. I set the camera for 1/10th second exposures with no support, and obtained steady pictures with it, slower than this, and the stabilization did not fully correct for any unsteadiness.

We'd buy it again in a heartbeat, and I wish I could get one for everyone I know!! Best photos that I have ever taken and a joy to use! Connecting it to the computer and downloading photos takes a matter of seconds.

Get the largest SD card you can afford with it... We have a 2GB card with it, and it fills fairly rapidly. 1GB is far too small for this camera (primarily because you will take numerous shots with it, not because the pics take up a great deal of memory), I'm guessing 4GB would be near perfect (or a couple of 2GB cards, but one 4GB is safer, the cards are too easy to misplace).

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Digital SLR Camera Reviews reviews and lowest prices.

5 Supplies And Applied Sciences That Just Might Get Rid Of Digital Camera Shutter Delay

Bob pushed the shutter launch button and…NOTHING HAPPENED. The football passed into his son's arms and the actual photo he took was one in all a cheerleader's pom-pom. Bob missed the landing too. He resisted an insane urge to slam the camera to the ground and bounce on it.

This was his first digital camera, and Bob had just experienced an unpleasant surprise. He had used film cameras all his life, but when his Yashica went into the shop a pal loaned him a digital camera. He naively decided to take some motion shots and found the most maddening "function" of digital cameras – the shutter delay.

MADDENING AND FRUSTRATING

Articles on this subject have attributed shutter delay to:

1. The digital camera's focus system

2. The time it takes the digicam to digitally process the image

3. Response time of the photographer

Numbers one and three are lag occasions that most individuals using digital cameras are accustomed to. Most have used a film camera and realize it wants a couple of milliseconds to focus.

The no-brainer resolution is to scale back the aperture of the lens to increase depth of field, or purpose the digital camera at the object you want to be in focus and depress the shutter button half manner so as to "tell" the camera what to deal with, then transfer the digital camera to center the picture and depress it the rest of the way.

As far as human reaction time, properly, it hasn't really modified a lot for customers of film cameras, and people skilled in taking motion pictures usually get what they want.

So let us take a look at quantity 2, the time it takes to course of the picture.

TIME TO DO THE PROCESSING

Processing the picture (so the digicam could be ready for the subsequent one) comes in a number of steps to maneuver it from the image sensor to flash card storage:

1. Shade corrections. The digicam has to examine each Cost Couple Device (CCD) ingredient on the photo sensor. It provides inexperienced, blue, and crimson to realize the fitting coloration balance. For a 3 mega pixel camera, the processor has to make 9 million calculations.

2. Sharpening. This boosts the contrast by detecting and sharpening edges.

3. Compression. This course of converts the 12 to 14 bits of every CCD sensor to sixteen bits by "padding" the knowledge and compressing it to 8 bits. This compresses the file size to 9 megabytes.

These steps require an incredible amount of computational time. No marvel Bob missed his shot!

CATCHING THE ACTION

There are {two} ways of capturing motion:

1. The "consecutive mode". If the digital camera has this mode, you'll be able to take a series of speedy shots moving by the event. This requires a camera with a big ‘buffer" to hold photos for processing.

2. Anticipating shots by depressing and holding down the shutter launch prior to the event. This requires a capability to predict the longer term, something most of us do not possess.

THE FUTURE OF FASTER SHOOTING

Obviously this would all be simplified if micro processing had been faster. Even with massive buffers, the pace wherein information is transmitted to the processor is prohibited by the speed at which knowledge is conveyed from the CCD. Micro processing pace is the subsequent bottleneck.

Faster clock rates and information transfer speeds would reduce and even remove "shutter lag" time. There are several applied sciences within the wings that supply hope:

1. Nanotube and nanowire technologies. These are each the offspring of "nanotechnology", the ability to make tiny machines on the "nano" level, a billionth of a meter in dimension relatively than a millionth of a meter (micrometer) and offer hope for a 500 GHz clock price or more.

2. DNA Yes, you heard me right. Computing based on DNA strands in which information is stored and processed.

3. Other supplies

• Gallium Arsenide with a lot a sooner velocity has been used for years for army purposes.

• Silicon-Germanium chips enhance the transfer of sunshine signals to silicon. These traditionally have worked finest at ultra cold temperatures, but many laptop simulations have proven that they could be made to strategy a thousand GHz (1 THz) at room temperature.

• Indium-antimonide. Much sooner than silicon

•Optical transistors. A glass materials often known as chalcogenide turns into a switch as its refracting properties are changed. No must translate those photons into anything else.

• Coated Viruses. The newest analysis includes coating viruses with a conducting material. Much increased speeds at the molecular stage can be obtained. This may give a brand new that means to the term "pc virus".

4. Parallel Processing. As we have observed these days with the war between Intel and AMD over the number of parallel processors crammed right into a CPU, digital digital camera processing would profit from parallel processors dealing with the focussing, sharpening and squeezing.

5. Improvement in instructional effectivity by reducing the lines of code would make the whole process more efficient.

HOLD ON AND WAIT FOR THE FUTURE

The REAL resolution to this maddening shutter delay seems to be in the material the processor is constructed of, in addition to advancements in the software.

But we have got awhile to attend for it. Though a number of alternate materials have been round for awhile, every thing else continues to be in the research and improvement phase. Even when it finally trickles out of the labs, it would in all probability make your future digital camera cost round $ten thousand - $15000.

Fairly a price tag for the flexibility to take footage as fast as a movie digital camera! Nonetheless…

Aside from the lag, the digital digital camera has it throughout film cameras, once the photo is captured by the reminiscence card. The brand new expertise shall be well worth the wait.

Digital camera homeowners are identified for their means to wait…as they desperately punch the shutter launch attempting to grab the fleeting smile of their new baby, or the football that lands in his palms eighteen years later, when he scores the profitable touchdown.

About The Author

Christopher has been writing articles on-line for practically 4 years now. Not solely does this creator concentrate on Computers and Technology, you can too take a look at his latest website on easy methods to convert 3GP to AVI with 3GP to AVI converter which also helps people find the best 3GP to AVI converter on the market.

why is it not possible to determine the activity of lipase in the pH 2.0 buffer using the meter assay method?

The optimum pH for lipase in the stomach is 4-5. The acidity of the solution is too acidic - too low. Try raising it, and maybe you'll start to see some activity.

Want To Charge Your Car For As Cheap As Possible? There's An App For That (fastcompany)

If you're like anyone else, you have no idea how much you pay for electricity.
A new app will let you use your phone to see when it's the cheapest, and pick
that moment to charge your car. Much better than driving miles to find the
cheapest gas.

It is a curiosity of the energy market that people tend to have a good idea of
what gasoline prices are--so they might drive five or 10 miles to a different
station to get cheaper gas--but don't know what they’re paying for electricity
at home. What's my charge per-kilowatt-hour this afternoon? Couldn't tell you.

That is likely to change, as utilities roll out home smart meters, and systems
like one being developed by IBM for charging electric vehicles come to market.

IBM’s system, which it is developing with the Swiss utility EKZ, allows
customers to see from a mobile handset what the current cost of electricity
is, and to decide the best moment to charge their EVs. It works from a simple
app, which links to a book-sized unit in a car, and the grid itself, which
relays information on power availability. Drivers can see whether ...

fastcompany

Fredericton citizens rally to protect the 80-metre wetland buffer in the UNB Woodlot