El_Terrible's Full Review: Canon Digital Rebel XT / EOS 350D Digital Camera w...
Again, let me say that I won’t address most specs unless I find a lot of confusion being caused by other reviews so for the most part this will be based solely on my opinion of the camera as this truly will be based on my personal experience owning the body.
Improvements To The Digital Rebel Line.
Lets start by saying what this camera is not; it is not the Nancy Kerrigan, crippled to eliminate competition, body that the original Digital Rebel was. Now lets also add that pretty much everything about this body was an upgrade over the original in that it was given an 8 MP Sensor, Smaller Body, smaller battery, more advanced flash system and a better kit lens. Pretty much this whole camera is an upgrade of the very unworthy Digital Rebel (300D for you Europeans).
LCD Screen
The LCD on the Rebel XT is actually one of the most useless LCD’s ever put on a Digital SLR because not only is it not calibrated (these displays never are and can’t be trusted for Color Accuracy) but it’s only 115,000 pixels so there’s really no way you’re going to be able to verify focus or anything else at this depth and like many of the other LCD’s it has a max resolution of 320 x 240.
Lens mount
The lens mount that Canon has used since the introduction of the EOS line is the EF lens mount but with the advent of the APS-C (stands for Canon because they pretty much invented the 1.6x Cropped Sensor) the mount has been slightly tweaked to use to allow lenses designed for the 1.6x format to be useable (mostly this was an adjustment to mirror box assembly) and much like Nikon’s DX branding Canon has labeled these new Lenses EF-S; At any rate this mount is 100% backwards compatible with the EF lenses.
Auto Focus
The AF System is pretty much the same EOS-30 AF System that was present in the Digital Rebel which is actually pretty decent for this level camera. I will say this, it may not be as accurate as the Nikon Cam 900 in lower light but it is certainly faster.
Connectivity / Add-ons
Canon offers a high speed USB 2.0 port, power connector, remote release connector and A/V Out Connector which is pretty standard on Digital SLRs’ at this point in time.
The big area where Canon has an advantage with add-ons and Features is with the Portrait Grip and while this may seem like a moot point to some it adds an incredible amount of stability to the body while shooting in portrait orientation.
Now of course the big marketing gimmick that drives prices above where they need to be is in the USB 2.0 high speed output… There are write and read tests on the CF Card interfaces with these cameras and the fastest Sandisk Extreme III only managed a throughput of 5 Megs a second which means that Nikon’s USB 2.0 Normal Speed of 14 Megs a second was plenty fast enough and didn’t require the several hundred Meg throughput that Canon put in this body and could never utilize.
Battery Life
This battery when compared to that in the Digital Rebel, 10D or 20D is physically smaller and yet Canon managed to get just as many shots per charge out it (mostly due to the redesigned electronics in the body) and on top of this adding the Grip allows for a second battery but sadly even 2 batteries will not match the life of the battery in the D70s (En-El3a).
Metering
The Rebel XT Metering system is pretty much Identical to that of the 20D and yet it is tuned less conservatively; this body features the same 35 Point Evaluative System, the same 13mm Center Weighted Meter and the Same 9mm Partial Meter that is present in the 20D.
Now the interesting thing about this metering is while Canon’s Evaluative Metering is actually very good (in some cases provides more pleasing results than the D70 Matrix Metering without any user intervention) and yet they offer no real precise method of metering as even the 9mm Partial Meter is 50% larger than the smallest D70 Center Weighted Meter (6mm) and Spot Metering while available on every Canon Power-shot Body was unwisely omitted from the Rebel Line up until the new XSi was released (and even that isn’t a True Spot Meter).
White Balance
Honestly, I found Canon’s white balance system extremely impressive under most lighting and even mixed light sources seemed fairly reliable (up to two light sources, three sometimes gave it a little bit of trouble) which made this one less step required while shooting.
Image Quality
The best place to start with good image quality is with good Source Data or Raw data…
Well, Canon has been second to none when it comes to Sensor Manufacturing as they’ve consistently been the Low Noise King even with Increased Pixel Density; Canon manages to achieve this feat by using the advanced CMOS Sensors Noise Canceling abilities so that it is capable of eliminating noise at each photo-site instead of using a blanket Noise Reduction on the output the way that CCD requires; this is kind of like handing a surgeon a machete when he asks for a scalpel , you see with CMOS the surgeon actually gets the Scalpel but with CCD he gets the Machete so ultimately more of the finer details are lost with CCD Noise Reduction in the camera (basically, each independant pixel can have noise removed independant of other pixels).
Another area where Canon wins is in the smooth transitions, as their tone curve and 8.2 stop minimum Dynamic Range tends to produce some very natural even looking transitions in the highlights where as the D70s (the Rebel XT’s main competitor tends at times to have just an abrupt harsh fall off.
Still yet another area where Canon gets it right is that their RAW Compression is Lossless so you’re actually getting the 12-bits of data to work with should you shoot RAW and this certainly helps when it comes to Dynamic Range.
Overall, I would give the XT Image Quality Top Marks.
Missing Features
The most notable feature missing from the Rebel XT is the lack of any form of Spot Metering and as I noted, I can buy cheap little Canon Power-shot A series body and get a spot meter but I can’t have it in a body that originally retailed for 5x the price? What exactly is this all about, is Canon afraid if people get spot metering in the Rebel Line they’ll never buy the Enthusiast or Pro Lines of bodies?
The Biggest Weakness
This again all comes back to the metering and not having a spot meter limits my ability to get the most accurate reading I can get even in harsh lighting and that’s just unacceptable in the digital age, it was almost a deal breaker for me (I over looked it and gave it a try).
The Biggest Strength
This is clearly the sensor, as I stated before Canon is unmatched in Sensor Technology as of this time and although Sony is catching up pretty fast they’re not there yet.
A Few More Notes
Ironically, the D70s’ biggest weakness is a feature of the Sensor and this is the Rebel XT’s biggest Strength and yet the D70s’ biggest Strength is the Rebel XT’s biggest Weakness… It’s almost like this is the Anti D70s and in some respects that is both good and bad.
Conclusion
If you compare Image Quality, Build Quality, Metering, Flash System and Feature Set this body really is fairly well inline with the D70s over all and it’s very clear that the strengths of this body are the weaknesses of the D70s body so it’s really a pretty competitive little camera and surely neither is truly in the class of the 20D at this point in time.
Below are a few links to images for you to decide what you think of the cameras capabilities.
http://www.pbase.com/image/59113070/original.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/58681219/original.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/43480533/original.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/43480375/original.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/41548145/original.jpg
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 799 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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Expect superior results with the Digital Rebel XT. Small and lightweight, it's equipped with a professional 8.0 megapixel CMOS sensor for images that ...More at QVC
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