Great camera with few drawbacks

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 2:34 pm

Mike from Mesa “MikeFromMesa”

I was planning to upgrade my Olympus SP-510 to a point-and-shoot most recent, but when I asked my wife to get a “very good” camera I upgraded to T1i instead. It ‘was obviously a significant increase in the price ($ 350 to $ 700, body only), but seems well worth the cost. Along with the camera I also bought the Canon 18-200mm Lens, not wanting to be constantly changing lenses.

My overall impression of the last 6 weeks has been very positive. The pictures are full of deep, rich colors, the images are clear and do not seem to have a very distorted. I find that I can take pictures at ISO 800, without any noise really noticeable and, if necessary, to 1600. The camera has a rich feature set and, in general, have not been disappointed by much. On the positive side I found the following:

1) The camera fits nicely in my hands and the buttons are all easy to reach and use when taking pictures,

2) The auto-focus using the viewfinder works well (OK, this is a function of the lens, not the camera, but when you take pictures, I tend to group and two together),

3) As I said I found the images through ISO 800 to be clear and 1600 more than a useful

4) There seems to be much less shutter lag with this camera compared to my previous point-and-shoot,

5) Write the time for the memory is very short with my Olympus,

6) I like the ability to bracket my exposures so I can be reasonably sure it will actually get a decent picture,

7) I have had the opportunity to use the photos environment and works very well,
The HD movie mode (1280 x 720), gets good movie. This was important for me and was the reason I bought the T1i the Olympus E-620, however,

9) I like the ability to create and use my series of menu items for most of the functionality that is usually necessary

10) The battery life for the battery supplied is very good. I can usually do 600 + photos without changing the battery.

There are, however, some things about this camera that I found disappointing:

1) When taking panoramas using the optical viewfinder Canon provides a way to lock the exposure setting images will be done so successfully using the same approach. The manual says to press the * key and use it to subsequent images. This method works well, but since the button * is co-opted as auto-focus when using Live View, it seems that there is no way to stop the exposure when using Live View. Canon suggestion is to use the full manual mode and set the shutter speed and exposure that way. However, since there is a way to lock the exposure when using the viewfinder, it seems reasonable to expect that there is a way to do the same thing when you use Live View. And there

2) The camera seems small for the 18-200mm lens. The goal is so heavy that the car ends up facing the ground at all times when carrying it around. The lens has a lock on it to prevent “creeping” across its length and use this all the time, but the weight of the lens for the camera seems high. Once again, I know this is a problem of slowness, but it seems difficult to separate from the camera,

3) Autofocus seems to not work so well when you use Live View, as when using the optical viewfinder. In low light, when I have trouble finding a block of focus with the optical viewfinder, which often can not obtain a lock when you use Live View,

4) How I love the video this camera produces, using the LCD screen while shooting video and I have often found that the LCD screen almost useless in daylight, because the LCD is so faded by the sun. So unless I’m in some shade I can not see the scene I had to make a movie. And I hope that goes well,

5) The size of 15 images of MP on the disk is usually more than 5 MB of default. This seemed a bit ‘big and I wanted to set the size slightly smaller. However, the size of the next image is smaller than 8 MP. 8 MP to 15 MP seems hardly seemed large. I was hoping for a middle ground (perhaps 10 or 12 MP), but there is no intermediate size. At the moment I set the picture size to 8 MP, but I want something a little ‘bigger half the size.

Although these elements are somewhat of a disappointment for me, I must say that overall this is a great camera. It takes great pictures that are sharp and full of color, it handles well, it focuses quickly and takes pictures and writes very fast. I’m glad I bought it and recommend it to those who, like me, moving up to their first DSLR. And, as big and heavy it is, I also recommend the 18-200mm lens. Its size is more than offset by the convenience of not having to change lenses all the time.

I wanted to give this camera about 4 1 / 2 stars, but since I can not give partial stars are giving him 4 stars because of the items I listed above. But I find that I really like this camera and others like me think too much.