A few days ago, my friend and I were looking at each others cameras and messing around with some of the features. It was actually quite fun comparing. I have the older Nikon D100, a 6 megapixel camera. He has a newer Canon EOS 350D (same thing as the Rebel XT, for some confusing marketing reason), a slightly larger 8 megapixel camera.
So, they are not really intended to be compared. Mine was a higher line (in its day) and his is the entry level digital SLR for Canon. Yet, I wanted to see how they differed and what had improved in digital cameras in the three year period between the release of our two cameras.
As a quick side note, I was going through deleting quick test shots from my camera when I ran across this one of his Canon 350D. My camera was just sitting on the table in front of his, and we were talking, and playing with settings. In the meantime, I quite accidentally captured this wonderful perspective on his Canon. If you were wondering, his camera has his tripod mount on the bottom, making it lean forward like that.
Anyway, back to this little impromtu review. A couple weeks ago, I was sorrowfully disappointed in the focus speed of the Nikon D40. Well, that should be qualified, I believe the motor which drives the focus is actually in the lens, not in the D40 itself. So, I am assuming that some lenses could be better than others, and the only lens I played with was the kit lens which came with the D40.
I expected the Canon 350D to perform similarly to the Nikon D40, since it is the comparable Canon entry level digital SLR. I was pleasantly surprised, though. The little Canon had a very quick focus. And like the D40, the focus is in the lens. To give Nikon a break here, this Canon did not have the cheaper kit lens, but the nicer 50mm f/1.8 you see pictured above. That is a more expensive lens, and it may well be the deciding factor in focus speed…I do not know for sure.
Not a bad little camera, though. Like the D40, a few buttons are missing. Some of those commonly needed buttons are not easily available, and can only be accessed through the menus or by reprogramming buttons on the camera. That is a downside for both, but for cameras that small, we have to sacrifice those convenient buttons, dials, and displays of the larger bodies, I guess.
Yes, the D40 kit lens’s focus speed is quite slow. On another side though, I’ve compared color produced by the D40 and the XTi (EOS 400D) that a friend has. I was looking at some of his XTi images, and while they were great, the color was just not very vibrant. The D40s color was much more appealing to me. And it wasn’t wrong white balance either as I tried all his WB settings too. Could this be the default saturation of the images on his XTi?? Of course how appealing the color is kind of opinion too i guess. Anyways, sticking with the focusing speed, the XTi focused much faster than the D40 too.
I would try some comparison shots setting the XTi and the D40 both to manual settings and make everything as similar as possible. For white balance, I would use the white balance preset function by setting it to the same white/gray surface under the same conditions.
I have wondered about this a lot. I would be surprised if there was much of a difference, but there may be.
A quick correction to your log:
The Canon 50mm 1.8 is actually a cheaper lens than the kit lens…however, it is widely agreed upon by Canon users that it is the best value for the money in the Canon lens line. The same cannot be said of the XT kit lens.
Good on Canon! I would much rather have a 50mm f/1.8 than any kit lens! Though, that is just the kind of guy I am, I will always pick a low f/stop, fixed length lens.
I would still say “cheaper”, but in the sense of quality and not price. It is an excellent lens, and if Canon wants to sell it for less money, well, more folks should go buy those up!