Hey.
As you guys know, I'm all about the Nikon. It's like my own personal Apple.
But that said, a friend of mine just got a Canon 300d. He had previously been using a Fuji 602 and it got stolen, so he added some cash to his insurance payout and bough the 300d with lens kit from Ritz for $999.
Now, when you figure that a 10d costs $1499, and a D100 $1699, PLUS lenses, this camera really sneaks in the under a grand pricepoint magically, and comes with a lens to boot.
You'll have to buy your own CF card, I'd recommend a 256 card-- about 80 bucks-- and you'll fit appx 80 photos on it.
For those of you coming from a P&S digital world, or low end film SLR (nikon n65, n55, canon rebel series) you'll find nothing wrong with the build quality of this camera or lens. It's made of plastic, and it DEFINITELY feels it, compared to my D100. Get past the silvery color (which is usually used to denote "consumer" cams for some reason) and the plasticky body and what you have is a stellar shooter for under a grand.
The 6.3mp CMOS sensor is the same as in the 10d, and delivers vividly colored images with very little noise, even at ISO 1600. The Digic/CMOS combo doesn't need noise reduction, as the images are clean straight away, and they are comparable to the D100, The 10d, The Fuji S2 and the Pentax *ist.
The operation of the camera is smooth, though some options are buried in menus, which is probably why I prefer my Nikon-- everything is on a dial, and easy to get to quickly.
The viewfinder is nice and bright, and the shutter operation is quick and fast, though seemingly a bit noisy (though just about as noisy as my D100 with anti-vibration on).
The auto focus is fast, though it lacks a bit in accuracy in low light situations. We took it to a church to shoot after dark, and my D100 focused quickly, with no problems, while the 300d hunted for awhile but inevitably gave up.
We had to manually focus it to get the shot of the church. A little disappointing, but not much different than the 10d.
I've read some articles about the AF being a bit picky in the action/motion/sports regard, being that AF Servo (or continuous focusing) doesn't kick in unless you hold the shutter for 10 seconds (more depending on your aperture or f-stop).
This makes for precarious sports shooting situations, in that in tends to "back focus" a bit, and you don't necessarily get what you intended to shoot. That said, in our quick tests (shooting cars flying down the street) we didn't seem to have much of a problem.
Your mileage will vary.
The focusing issue also crops up when you use all seven focus points at ones. I'd recommend turning off that option and manually selecting your focusing point.
The lens that comes with the 300d is a nice addition. Adding $100USD to the price, it's definitely worthwhile, though it feels a bit plasticky, and the focusing ring is a bit quick and hard to get used to.
The zoom ring feels a bit stiff, but i'm guessing with use it will loosen up.
It's not a particularly fast lens (f/4.5-5.6) but for a hundred bucks, it'd definitely Canon quality as far as the glass goes, and much more worthwhile than similar low-end offerings from Sigma, Tamron and Quantaray. I'd definitely get it. It's sharp all around, with a bit of falloff at the corners, and it loses a bit of sharpness at full telephoto, but that's not unreasonable for a $100 lens.
It's a 17-55, which gives it a bit of distortion, and due to sensor crop of 1.6 (magnification) makes the lens an effective 28-80 lens. Kudos to Canon for recognizing this limitation of digitals and making an affordable alternative (Nikon's DX series, for example, is $1600USD. Ouch).
This camera also accpets all Canon EF mount lenses, which gives you a wide range of options, from $200 telephoto zooms all the way up to 300mm prime lenses with Image Stabilization that cost thousands.
The camera can shoot in both JPEG and RAW mode, though to edit RAW files, you'll need Canon's software bundle.
The software bundle is excellent, giving you PS Elements, and all of the Canon software to edit images in RAW mode (a "digital negative" style of shooting, if you will).
It's all OSX compatible too.
That said, the image quality is stellar, vivid, with good dynamic range, though a bit drab compared to the d100. The controls feature the standard P-S-A-M as well as "scene modes" for P&S type shooting. There's a nice little LCD on the back, above the main LCD, which displays all of your settings.
If you're looking for something with a bit more control than your P&S camera and you wanna capture high quality shots of your family or vacation, or are looking to shoot at high ISO with little noise, and your budget is under a grand, the 300d is for you.
If you're a bit more advanced and make any sort of living with photography, you'll want a more rugged machine, with more flexible focusing and controls, i'd opt for the 10d or even better the D100.
If you're thinking the 300d will replace your P&S camera, think again and look at the offerings from Sony and Minolta. They'll probably satiate your need for bigger P&S images.
That said, the 300d is available all around now, and maybe people are posting images that are quite stunning. I'm looking forward to the price of DSLRs going down, and I think the 300d (and whatever answer Nikon has up their sleevs) will be with us for a long time, only getting more and more affordable.
I'd give the 300d 3.75 stars out of 5, subtracting only points for the AF issues (pretty large if you ask me, and varied from camera to camera it seems) and for the construction of the body. If Canon fixes the AF issues in a future firmware update, i'd certainly give it a 4 out of 5.
As you guys know, I'm all about the Nikon. It's like my own personal Apple.
But that said, a friend of mine just got a Canon 300d. He had previously been using a Fuji 602 and it got stolen, so he added some cash to his insurance payout and bough the 300d with lens kit from Ritz for $999.
Now, when you figure that a 10d costs $1499, and a D100 $1699, PLUS lenses, this camera really sneaks in the under a grand pricepoint magically, and comes with a lens to boot.
You'll have to buy your own CF card, I'd recommend a 256 card-- about 80 bucks-- and you'll fit appx 80 photos on it.
For those of you coming from a P&S digital world, or low end film SLR (nikon n65, n55, canon rebel series) you'll find nothing wrong with the build quality of this camera or lens. It's made of plastic, and it DEFINITELY feels it, compared to my D100. Get past the silvery color (which is usually used to denote "consumer" cams for some reason) and the plasticky body and what you have is a stellar shooter for under a grand.
The 6.3mp CMOS sensor is the same as in the 10d, and delivers vividly colored images with very little noise, even at ISO 1600. The Digic/CMOS combo doesn't need noise reduction, as the images are clean straight away, and they are comparable to the D100, The 10d, The Fuji S2 and the Pentax *ist.
The operation of the camera is smooth, though some options are buried in menus, which is probably why I prefer my Nikon-- everything is on a dial, and easy to get to quickly.
The viewfinder is nice and bright, and the shutter operation is quick and fast, though seemingly a bit noisy (though just about as noisy as my D100 with anti-vibration on).
The auto focus is fast, though it lacks a bit in accuracy in low light situations. We took it to a church to shoot after dark, and my D100 focused quickly, with no problems, while the 300d hunted for awhile but inevitably gave up.
We had to manually focus it to get the shot of the church. A little disappointing, but not much different than the 10d.
I've read some articles about the AF being a bit picky in the action/motion/sports regard, being that AF Servo (or continuous focusing) doesn't kick in unless you hold the shutter for 10 seconds (more depending on your aperture or f-stop).
This makes for precarious sports shooting situations, in that in tends to "back focus" a bit, and you don't necessarily get what you intended to shoot. That said, in our quick tests (shooting cars flying down the street) we didn't seem to have much of a problem.
Your mileage will vary.
The focusing issue also crops up when you use all seven focus points at ones. I'd recommend turning off that option and manually selecting your focusing point.
The lens that comes with the 300d is a nice addition. Adding $100USD to the price, it's definitely worthwhile, though it feels a bit plasticky, and the focusing ring is a bit quick and hard to get used to.
The zoom ring feels a bit stiff, but i'm guessing with use it will loosen up.
It's not a particularly fast lens (f/4.5-5.6) but for a hundred bucks, it'd definitely Canon quality as far as the glass goes, and much more worthwhile than similar low-end offerings from Sigma, Tamron and Quantaray. I'd definitely get it. It's sharp all around, with a bit of falloff at the corners, and it loses a bit of sharpness at full telephoto, but that's not unreasonable for a $100 lens.
It's a 17-55, which gives it a bit of distortion, and due to sensor crop of 1.6 (magnification) makes the lens an effective 28-80 lens. Kudos to Canon for recognizing this limitation of digitals and making an affordable alternative (Nikon's DX series, for example, is $1600USD. Ouch).
This camera also accpets all Canon EF mount lenses, which gives you a wide range of options, from $200 telephoto zooms all the way up to 300mm prime lenses with Image Stabilization that cost thousands.
The camera can shoot in both JPEG and RAW mode, though to edit RAW files, you'll need Canon's software bundle.
The software bundle is excellent, giving you PS Elements, and all of the Canon software to edit images in RAW mode (a "digital negative" style of shooting, if you will).
It's all OSX compatible too.
That said, the image quality is stellar, vivid, with good dynamic range, though a bit drab compared to the d100. The controls feature the standard P-S-A-M as well as "scene modes" for P&S type shooting. There's a nice little LCD on the back, above the main LCD, which displays all of your settings.
If you're looking for something with a bit more control than your P&S camera and you wanna capture high quality shots of your family or vacation, or are looking to shoot at high ISO with little noise, and your budget is under a grand, the 300d is for you.
If you're a bit more advanced and make any sort of living with photography, you'll want a more rugged machine, with more flexible focusing and controls, i'd opt for the 10d or even better the D100.
If you're thinking the 300d will replace your P&S camera, think again and look at the offerings from Sony and Minolta. They'll probably satiate your need for bigger P&S images.
That said, the 300d is available all around now, and maybe people are posting images that are quite stunning. I'm looking forward to the price of DSLRs going down, and I think the 300d (and whatever answer Nikon has up their sleevs) will be with us for a long time, only getting more and more affordable.
I'd give the 300d 3.75 stars out of 5, subtracting only points for the AF issues (pretty large if you ask me, and varied from camera to camera it seems) and for the construction of the body. If Canon fixes the AF issues in a future firmware update, i'd certainly give it a 4 out of 5.
