Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Canon 300D SLR

Canon Rebel 300D Review

/drool

6.5 megapixels 3172x2048, digital SLR, focal length factor of 1.6, CompactFlash I/II - and a price under US$1000. Figure $1500-$1800 since I'd buy some sort of long-distance zoom lens.

While at the zoo last week, it really hit me how much I missed my old manual Pentax K-1000 SLR. The Mavica that I use a 3 megapixel with a 3x optical zoom (equivalent to a 35mm 34-102mm lens), which gives me roughly the same capabilities as my old primary 28-70mm lens on the K-1000. However, I also had a 500mm zoom lens (bouncing mirror design) with a fixed focal length and fixed apeture (f 8.0) on the Pentax which was great for getting nice close-ups of wildlife (at least, when I had the right speed film loaded for the light conditions since shutter speed needed to stay above 1/250 sec if I wasn't toting a monopod/tripod).

While I don't miss the 2-week delay in getting my shots back (had to send to a lab that would create PhotoCDs, and about 1/3 of the time they'd either screw up which type of PhotoCD to create, or lose the film altogether... I'm *not* sorry that I switched to digital!) - I do miss the 3072x2048 image resolution that I used to get with PhotoCDs. The 3 megapixel purchase was a compromise 2 years ago, most cameras on the market were 2 megapixel so this was top-of-the-line -- but I always wished I had held out for a 5-6 megapixel version. (Sony came out with a 5 megapixel version of the Mavica this year.) The fact that the Mavica would write to mini-CDR media was a big bonus since it's a lot cheaper then any of the various flash media. Now that the 6 megapixel cameras are here, I'm considering upgrading (and moving back to SLR).

Eliminating the film cost is also a big deal. I remember on my trip to California back in 1992/1993 I shot around 10 rolls of film or 250 shots. It cost me around $0.75/shot to get PhotoCDs and prints developed. On my trip to the zoo last week, I shot 2 CDs worth (200 shots) for about $5. Even if I printed out 20 of those images, I'd probably only end up spending $100(?). Because the media is so cheap (and each individual shot is cheap), I can shoot multiples and take the best one of the bunch. I've shot somewhere around 1500-1600 shots with the Mavica so far.

I also miss looking through the SLR viewfinder. Using a LCD screen on the back of the camera just isn't as personal to me. It's twice as hard to adjust focus manually, it washes out in bright light - but it also makes it possible to do "overhead" shooting. (There were a few shots at the zoo where I just held the camera as high as I could reach and shot over the heads of the people in front of me.)

Anyway, list price for the 300D is $999 and I figure in a few months that price should slip a bit down to the $800 mark. Compact Flash cards are very reasonable price now ($65 for a 256Mb which would hold 25? shots, $120 for a 512Mb card). With the focal length factor of 1.6 I can get away with a 75-300mm lens and have it perform like a 480mm lens for around $450. It comes with an 18-55mm lens which would be close to what I'm used to from my old SLR, but I might swap in a 28-105 (45-168 factored) as my standard lens to get more versatility.

posted by Wuphon's at 4:49 PM