Camera 500D

The Camera 500D is an even better value even since I bought it, as it has dropped in price significantly since it was first released. It was great at $800, and it's even better at $200 less

I've been using the Camera 500D regularly since I got it around June last year - my current shutter release count is 6372. I had to get the version with the included cheap zoom, which I was fortunate enough to sell for the $100 it added to the kit cost. I have used only three lenses on it (I tried the cheap 28-90mm III from the film days for a few shots), and only two regularly - the 50mm f/1.4 and the new TS-E 17mm f/4L. First I learned to shoot with the 50 (which seems to overexpose a bit, leading to bright, cheery portraits) and the 17mm.

I'd never used a SLR (let alone a DSLR) before this, and just had messed around with a few other smaller digital cameras. Coming off the ancient Sony F707, the ergonomics of this camera were astonishing.

I've already had a couple photos of mine used in a medium-sized banner. In good lighting conditions, you can easily take great photos, and with the right lenses you rarely need flash. Simple.

The viewfinder doesn't show you everything that will be in the final image (the edges aren't all visible), so you often must use Live View. The screen is a godsend, and I didn't realize how useful it was until I got my TS-E 17mm f/4. Live view is to DSLRs as the ground glass is to large format view cameras. The screen is "only" 640x480 (and 3 inches - both best-in-class or darn close), but with 5x and 10x (pixel-level) "magnification" modes you can use the d-pad to move about the image, and you can see many fine details and critically focus in a way that would be impossible with the viewfinder, even after carefully adjusting the diopter. The only problem is that Live View tends to shut off too quickly for my liking.

The bad: I wouldn't have preferred to buy a 17mm lens with a fragile bulb on the front and susceptibility to flare just to get a 28mm equivalent tilt-shift lens (though that is a good investment regardless). On the other hand, the 50mm's perspective on the Camera 500D is similar to an 80mm in film terms due to the crop sensor, making it a very good camera for portraits - and not quite as big and obvious as a full-size camera might be (though I found the Camera 500D and 50mm combination still garnered lots of attention in some settings). The tradeoffs between full-frame and crop sensors have been covered extensively elsewhere, but in this price range (and even further, as with the much more expensive 7D) you don't have any choice. Enjoy the longer lenses, and if you absolutely must have the widest coverage possible, there are EF-S lenses made for this range (like the zoom starting at 10mm).

I found myself fighting with the pop-up flash until I started using the Aperture Priority, Time Value, and Manual modes in addition with manual ISO. The other spots on the dial are basically wasted clicks for me, and I usually prefer they were used with something else (though the Closeup mode still gets used occasionally). That said, comparing the difference between how the automatic modes liked to interpret a scene with how I would set it up manually has made me more careful and knowledgeable. Quite often the manual modes will ruin a scene, but likewise there's not a lot of merit in just pegging the aperture priority to 8 and ISO to 100 and wondering why your shots take forever and still look noisy. I find the manual modes tend to do better when a thin depth of field is called for (then again, I was learning with the 50mm which is renowned for its thin depth of field).

This camera really cries out for the fastest lenses you can find, because I find that the ISO performance is horrible in no-light situations. Now, that's relative: Most of the time the camera does brilliantly; sunsets should be no problem. But night photography, even with relatively fast lenses, is tough (though it's tough to begin with). Exposures more than 10 seconds result in hot pixels, which appear as nasty bright points of light (though dust can cause similar effects). Of course, I'd rather have the extra pixels instead of a lower-resolution but less grainy sensor - I'm not dedicated to macro-, astro-, or night photography, and downsampling is underrated as well.

The video mode is a great extra. It's no replacement for a dedicated camcorder for professionals, I'm sure, but honestly for Youtube (for example) I don't think you can do much better and the flexibility has me venturing into (very amateur) cinematography in addition to still images, which is wonderful.

My major gripes with the video are:

a.) Videos are short, limited by the 4GB limit per video. Then again, Youtube knocks this down further to 10 minutes (a bit shorter than the longest single take possible with the Camera 500D) and 2GB, at this writing. Unless you're trying to recreate Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope," though, I doubt you need an unbroken take.

b.) ISO performance again - at night, everything but light sources will appear to have ants running all over it. It's not a deal-breaker but it is generally distracting. There's also the potential for nasty moire effects (so stay away from airplane propellers).

c.) It tends to overheat - I had a lot of trouble trying to do some video in August as the camera kept quitting on me, and it wasn't even a hot day.

d.) Obviously the ergonomics aren't perfect, but you can look into the famed "$14 Steadycam" [sic] for a solution. A nice, fast zoom lens with a quiet manual focus ring (such as the L series provides) should work fine; otherwise, you can use a cheap zoom and just dub over the noise of zooming and focusing. The L series lenses may sound like overkill to most, but keep in mind that you can get a great lens for really not much more than the value of the camera, and you'll be able to use it for some years to come on future SLRs.

I haven't noticed any undue "jello" wobble effect in video, even when handheld, but I haven't critically reviewed all my handheld videos, either.

The 1080p / 20 Hz format is a joke, but I don't see that as a problem as 720p @ 30Hz is great for 'net video.

I've already alluded to it, but the microphone isn't perfect - it's only mono, recessed into the body of the camera, and while very sensitive it is omnidirectional and picks up sounds from anything mechanical in the camera. It's not bad - it doesn't sound like putting your ear to a solid surface, say - but you need a quiet lens and quiet breathing if you're going to zoom or focus when shooting video. On the plus side, it makes commenting while taking video very easy since your voice will be picked up just as well as if you were speaking directly into it. On the whole, I like the mic, but folks who need a shotgun condenser microphone are going to hate it.

You've heard this before, but the wide range of Canon lenses available really mix up your video options, and the tilt-shift lenses in particular allow some amazing effects for video that you can't find elsewhere: Cheap (certainly by video standards) interchangeable lenses + limited view camera movements + fast primes and good zooms = oh yeah. The TS-E 17mm f/4 isn't quite fast enough for shooting broadcast-quality on the Camera 500D in darkness (as I discovered with the noise occasioned by high gain), certainly not as well as the 5D Mark II does, but the longer tilt-shift lenses should start to get there (particularly the older 45mm and 90mm models).

Some handy basics I discovered that shouldn't be forgotten (aside from shooting in RAW, which is incredibly useful for me when doing fine art style photography, but this is a decision which every person must make for themselves; casual snapshot shooters ought not to worry too much about it):

1.) Look for the preview time setting. I turned the preview off entirely, since it's easy to hit the Play button to quickly view the last picture and go back to shooting.

2.) Don't forget to adjust the diopter on the viewfinder to match your eyesight.

3.) When needed, hit the left directional button to bring up the option for delayed shutter release, so you can take a picture on a tripod without moving the camera (even pressing the button can do that). Unfortunately, you can't reduce the time below 2 seconds.

4.) Don't use the basic modes if you can help it - the flash loves to come up at bad moments and you can't use many important basic features.

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I upgraded to this camera from an earlier Rebel XT, and I have to say I love it. I was choosing between this and the more expensive 40D, and for the price difference figured a lighter construction and slower shutter rate was easily worth the $ savings.

The camera has a beautiful feel to it, and is significantly enhanced compared to the earlier Rebel line.

The LCD back panel is much larger and is very sharp, and there are more dials for rapidly setting options such as ISO, which was harder to access in the Rebel.

The shutter has a very firm action to it, the camera is very responsive, and there are a broad range of image control settings; far more than the earlier models. I find the image quality is also much improved from the Rebel, especially with landscapes.

I also like having the broader ISO range it supplies. I still havent' figured out how to access the extended ISO settings to get to 12800, but have shot at 3200.

The lens kit comes with an image stabilizer; it sounds cool but i haven't experimented with it.

It is very easy to view the settings on the back panel and the view finder, and there are lovely details such as the back display shutting off when you near the view finder so as to prevent light overload on the eye.

The camera features a video recorder as well, which is beautiful. I shot some video of my daughter ice skating. The video quality was excellent, with no skipping issues, and with a 16G memory card there is room for 40 minutes of video (in theory). It is fantastic to be able to leave my dv camera behind and just use this one, along with the SLR lenses.

Like the earlier Rebels, it is a light body, with convenient button placement, diopter adjustments, etc. I find the button placement and menu layout much improved.

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Even though I am biased, being overenthusiastic after a few years without a decent camera, I still believe I can fairly say that the t1i does a great job with the pictures.

I would mostly consider myself an above-average amateur. However, I do know what feels right. The t1i takes great photos and makes it feel easy. Controls need some getting used to (I stumbled upon the Live View feature because it's kind of hard to find, and then had to figure out how to Auto Focus using a different button than when using the viewfinder), but other than that, the buttons are very intuitively placed. The auto focus in Live View mode is harder to use, however, as it is placed on the back of the camera and also seems slower to me than the regular autofocus. Adjusting ISO, aperture, and lens time in the Live View window is no problem, and makes using the t1i a blast. I also really wished that Canon would follow Nikon in putting in a swivel screen so that you could get better angles, especially since the t1i relies heavily upon that one Live View screen (something to expect from future cameras).

Although on the soft side, the images were very detailed at 15MP (large) and even tolerable on small size. I don't know if they'd be detailed enough for prints, but I'm sure with stitching, HDR, and all that sharpening hocus pocus in Photoshop, I expect you can get better results. The images do swell for desktop wallpapers on my 15" Mac, but that's not saying a whole lot. They said that the t1i would have issues with noise, but I don't really notice a lot (maybe the noise is degrading the sharpness?).

As for movie mode (which I plan to use just as much as the photo capabilities), it works fairly well. There is rolling shutter issues that happen with most CMOS sensors or whateva (like the d90), but it's only an issue when you're full on whipping the camera (not when turning). My biggest complaint would be the microphone, which is mono, and the lack of a mic jack, which is suckable. The mic picks up every single sound, even when adjusting focus on my Tamron lens manually. I would not use it for moviemaking or documentaries by any means, where sound is important (unless you have some other equipment that I would love to get my hands on). However, this is not so much an issue for me, as I like putting tracks over my video (music videos and such).

All in all, great camera for the price ($808 when I bought it). The t1i works for all my needs and a little bit more. I still have stuff to work out (exposure bracketing), but I don't think I missed out on too many other features.

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The new Rebel Camera 500D is Canons first DSLR camera to feature HD video. The camera is a great DSLR to use for a great price. It includes all of the standard DSLR shooting modes and has an easy to use interface.

Ease of Use: The Camera 500D falls in line with other 'starter' DSLR in the Rebel series. All easy to use, with buttons and a navigation menu that is logical. No need to read through a manual to figure out how to operate in different modes, most standard functions are self explanatory.

HD Video: New to the Rebel series the Camera 500D features HD video, with liveview so you can video by just looking at the screen. The HD video is at first difficult to find how to use, the manual explains clearly what needs to be done. The video is not perfect and does not have many features besides, but for the price and the first release of video for a DSLR it is a wonderful function to have.

Kit Lens: Surprisingly the Canon lens that comes with the camera is perfect for beginning photography, and when ready a more advanced lens can be purchased. The 18-55 lens does the job for standard pictures of friends and at family gatherings. Though the aperture is not great, for the price it does the trick in low light settings. If you plan on using the camera for good close ups, a telephoto lens will need to be purchased.

If you are wondering if its worth purchasing the top of the line newest Rebel, versus buying an older model. The Camera 500D is worth the little extra cash. With a larger CCD sensor and HD video, it is well worth it and something that can be used for life.

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I am a rank amateur when it comes to cameras. My last camera was a simple digital point and shoot. I wanted to upgrade to a better camera but I don't really care to be an expert photographer. So after hours of research I picked the Canon Camera 500D. I'll leave the technical evaluation to the more experienced folks. My simple analysis is this camera was built to take great pictures.

I have two kids, two dogs and my wife. They are my most favorite subjects. The problem with my old camera was it was awful in dim light, terrible with the flash on anything less than three feet and more than four feet away. Frankly outside of perfect camera light (sunrise and sunset) it was just okay outside. So I get the Canon and set it on completely automatic settings. WOW! Great pictures inside, great pictures outside, great pictures in near dark settings (with the flash) and it is so fast that I always shoot two to five pictures when I have something good in the frame(like the one with my five year old son eating a dripping ice cream cone).

I also bought the camera for the "grip and grin" on stage award shots that go with my job (I am an association exec.). It does a great job. I take lots of shots (very quickly even in low light) and pick the best one. I previously paid a "professional" photographer for 2008 award dinner and I wasn't impressed with the shots (plus a $550 bill for services). This year I took my own shots and while a few were terrible, I was able to pick the best twenty, including the five "must have" pictures and I am thrilled. (no offense to professionals - just not everyone calling themselves that deserve the title).

So I am reading the Dummy's guide to the Canon Camera 500D and yes, I am learning how to use the settings to my advantage. But to me that's the beauty of this camera. You can use it with all the bells and wistles, or you can hand it to your brother and he can "point and shoot" with beautiful results.

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