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Canon EOS Rebel T1i 500D

Gordon Mah Ung — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:33:55 -0500

DRebel, you've come a long way, baby

Canon’s original Digital Rebel 300D lit the fuse that started the sub-$1,000 digital-SLR war. With the “DRebel” now in its fifth iteration, it’s hard to believe just how far this camera has come.

The original DRebel sported a dust-sensitive 6.3MP CMOS sensor and a pathetic four-shot JPEG buffer. The new EOS Rebel T1i 500D ups the megapixels to 15.1 and features a massive 170-shot JPEG buffer at 3.4fps. Dust cleaning, once rare in DSLRs, is featured, as is Live View, or the ability to use the LCD screen to focus and frame a shot. The three-inch screen is a gorgeous 920K pixels and makes smaller and lower-res screens seem antiquated.

The real eyebrow-raising feature of the Rebel T1i, though, is its support for 720p and 1080p video modes. While we once believed that DSLRs would never do video, it’s now the top checkbox on newer models. The T1i supports 720p at 30fps, but at 1080p resolution the frame rate drops to a nearly unbearable 20fps. Video is compressed using H.264 and is stored in a QuickTime .MOV container.

HD Video comes to budget photography.

We found the video quality to be mixed. The low-light performance was surprisingly noisy considering the T1i’s relatively large CMOS sensor. It’s not terrible, and it’s better than the majority of pocket HD cams, but we were hoping, perhaps foolishly, that the T1i’s low-light video would rival that of the superb and pricey EOS 5D Mk II. Sadly, audio is only mono and there’s no provision for mic-in. The trigger for the video is also poorly placed.

The low-light capability of the still images was far more satisfying. Although we’ve heard complaints of noise issues at high ISOs with the EOS 50D sensor that the T1i is based on, we felt the noise control was quite good. And when compared to an older-generation body, such as the 10MP EOS 40D, the T1i has the advantage. The T1i’s 3200 ISO is on par with the 40D at a lower 1600 ISO, which is quite a feat when you consider how many pixels Canon has jammed onto the APS-C sensor format in the Rebel. Generally, as the pixel density increases on an imaging sensor so does noise. The maker can increase the sensor’s size, but that adds cost. Today, the APS-C size is all budget consumers are going to get.

Is the T1i the perfect budget DSLR? Certainly not, but it is hard to ask for more in a body at this price. Sure, we’d love to see 24fps 1080p, a mic-in jack, and perhaps a higher-performance autofocus system (as is, it’s fine for the majority of folks), but for $900 those wishes are unrealistic. Of course, there was a time when our wishes for a large buffer, video mode, and a high-resolution screen in a sub-$1,000 body were unrealistic, too. Overall, the T1i is the pinnacle of the sub-$1K DSLRs—it will make anyone looking for a step-up from a point-and-shoot grin from ear to ear.

Photo Finale

Gordon Mah Ung — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 02:53:18 -0600

Remember when your high school counselor asked you about your life goals? Remember when you told her that you just wanted to finish high school? Remember when she sighed and told you to set your goals a little higher? The folks at Trevoli should do the same thing with Photo Finale.

Photo Finale should compete with the digital-imaging set—you know, Firegraphic and Photoshop Album—but it seems to only aspire to smoking weed, hanging with the fellas behind the 7-Eleven, and grooving to the new AC/DC album. Maybe, just maybe, it will one day be accepted alongside photo-management apps that are given away for free.

Photo Finale just feels uninspired to us—almost listless. Sure, Trevoli pushes it as an “easy” way to get photos from your camera, organize them, and even make CD or DVD slide shows from your pics. But most digicams come bundled with software that handles those simple tasks. And Photo Finale’s image-tweaking features are along the lines of cropping and red-eye removal—nothing more complex than that. The slide show titling tool is so frustrating to use that we want to expunge the software from our system permanently, and the limited clip art selection seems like it was lifted from a CD-ROM circa 1995.

To be fair to Photo Finale, plenty of other programs are technically in this slacker category, including Google’s Picasa. But Picasa is free. And Picasa is at least able to process RAW photo files, something you can’t do with Photo Finale.

Not everything about the app is negative. We actually like Photo Finale’s ability to sort photos by the camera’s exposure setting—if nothing you’ve shot looks sharp, it probably means your technique is weak.

But this does little to chip away at Photo Finale’s flaws—the biggest of which is its lackluster performance. On a dual-core Athlon 64 FX-60 with 2GB of RAM and a 400GB hard drive, the app just chugs. The program takes roughly two seconds to move from image to image. XP does the same thing in half a second. Indeed, there are just too many negatives in Photo Finale’s column to recommend it.

Month Reviewed: November 2006
Verdict: 3
URL: www.trevoli.com

Kodak EasyShare One

Steve Klett — Fri, 19 May 2006 14:37:08 -0500

Wireless is the new tech race in the compact digital camera field, and Kodak was first out of the Wi-Fi gate with the EasyShare One. This 4 megapixel “compact” camera has 802.11b connectivity that not only lets you print your images wirelessly but also share them on the web.

Kodak calls its Wi-Fi “integrated,” but it requires you to use a separate wireless card (included) that you insert in the top of the camera much like an SD card (same formfactor). You press the top of the card, causing it to pop up, to turn on Wi-Fi. You can then email pics to friends or upload them to the Kodak EasyShare Gallery—where others may view and print them—using your Wi-Fi network at home or some other hotspot. You can also show people your online gallery of pics on the camera’s swiveling 3-inch LCD touch-screen. (The camera comes with a stylus, allowing you to navigate its menus just like a PDA.)

The stylus and graphical menu make it simple to browse and organize your pics (you can even crop pics in-camera and save the results). However, enabling the full wireless capabilities inevitably involves messing around with WEP keys and can involve quite a bit of trial and error (plus, using Wi-Fi severely drains the battery). We had trouble getting our test unit to work with our wireless network at home until we switched from a shared-WEP key to an open key, which was not specified in the instructions.

Wi-Fi aside, don’t let the 4 megapixel rating fool you: This camera takes very nice photos, particularly outdoors. Unfortunately, the video quality is sub-par. Performance-wise, the EasyShare One is a slow starter and is heavier and bulkier than most other 4 megapixel cameras.

If you must have wireless, the EasyShare One is the only game in town—for now. However, it’s still nearly twice as expensive as more full-featured non-wireless cameras with higher resolution capabilities, and we’d really love to see the ability to upload files to other photo-sharing services or a simple FTP site in a future revision.

Month Reviewed: May 2006

Verdict: 6

URL: www.kodak.com

Sanyo Xacti C5

Steve Klett — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:26:09 -0600

Hybrid digital camera/video recorders have historically let us down. They tend to be slow performers that fulfill neither role well. We did, however, think that Sanyo was on to something with its original C1 hybrid, released in the U.S. by Fisher as the FVD-C1. The second-generation Xacti C5 proves our hunch was right.

The C1’s video suffered from severe grain in anything approaching even moderate lighting, and overexposure was a problem in bright sunlight. The C5’s video, however, captured at the same VGA resolution (640x480, 30fps), is dramatically improved in both conditions. (While better, noise is still an issue in low-light scenarios.) The C5 also sports wind-noise-reduction and image-stabilization technology, which help deliver a better video-viewing experience. A 1GB SD card holds 60 minutes of video shot at the highest resolution, which conveniently is about the length of one battery charge.

The boost in video performance comes courtesy of a new 5x optical zoom lens and 5.1-megapixel CCD. This combo also produces crisp, well-saturated stills—particularly outdoors. (Plus, the zoom is much quieter than with the C1, so you can use it freely when shooting video.)

The C5 shouldn’t be confused with a full-featured point-and-shoot camera, however: It doesn’t offer a burst mode, for example, and shot-to-shot performance is a bit slow at two seconds (without flash). Plus, its flash range is extremely limited. The C5 boasts the ability to capture stills while shooting video, but using this “feature” results in noticeable pauses in your video when stills are shot at the highest resolution.

The Xacti sports a slimmer formfactor that makes the C1 look antiquated, and the bright, 2-inch LCD displays sharp video playback and is serviceable for composition—even in direct sunlight.
Like the C1, this camera talks to you, which is a little creepy, but the C5 is the best compact hybrid digital camera/video recorder we’ve tested yet.

Month Reviewed: March 2006

Verdict: 8

URL: www.sanyodigital.com