Rebel, rebel...

Funny. That Rolling Stone song came on the radio at I headed up the freeway on ramp on my way home with my new toy.

You go boy!!!

Any quick first impressions Herb?

Rolling Stones? Are you sure you don't mean David Bowie. Also interested in initial reactions.

Rolling Stones? Are you sure you don't mean David Bowie. Also interested in initial reactions.

You're probably right.

Since this is my first DSLR, I can only compare it against the olympus 5050.

It feels BIG to me. Can't imaging what shooting a D100 or S2 is like if they are significantly bigger.

The camera response very fast, autofocus and snap seem almost instantaneous. The 18-55 EF-S lens that came with the kit is very good. It's sharp and will focus down to frame size of a 2 - 3 inches. I'll post a shot when I get home tonight.

I've been following the forum on dpreview.com . One of the issues is no flash exposure compensation with the builtin flash, and the camera tend to underexpose flash photos. Both are true as far as I can tell. However you can do exposure lock with the flash: point the camera at something further away than your subject, push the button and the camera fires a preflash and sets the flash duration. I managed to get good exposures that way after a little practice.

Any reasonably-priced housing systems available?

This looks to be the camera that makes me go digital!

Jack

Hi Herb and Jack,

I had a hard time finding a good wideangle lens for the D60 when I had it. So be fore-warned.

The fisheye is good for underwater but horrible for topside shooting. The 16-35 is great for $1,500...:-/ and it still only gets you to equivalent 27mm. The 17-40 is a little less but still, you only get to an equivalent of 27.2mm on the wide end...

IMO, Canon needs something like the 12-24 to cover the wide end. Hopefully one of these EF-S lenses... But my gut feeling is that Canon won't make one as this camera isn't designed for folks who shoot really wide.

So do the math before you buy - remember, you're buying into a camera SYSTEM, not just the body. If you don't need anything on the really wide end, then this is a no-brainer though. Or if you can live with the fisheye.

Cheers

James

Since this is my first DSLR...

Herb - You need to change your signature to include the new supertoy!

I had a hard time finding a good wideangle lens for the D60 when I had it. So be fore-warned.

I thought the rebel was the equivalent of the E10 with a less expenisve body. What do those users do for w/a?

Jack

Olympus shooters use a $1,100 wetmate wideangle lens - ouch. That would cost more than the camera!

Cheers

James

I don't know that I'd call it the equivalent of an E10, it definitely shares more in common with the 10d / d60 / d30 / d100 / s2 than with the E10. The prosumer digicams all had much smaller sensors, and had wider native lenses designed specifically for them. Like James said, there's some options for add-on wide-angle lenses, but they are pricey for the UW versions, and even then, it's a different style of usage.

I guess I'm just wondering aloud in this thread.

Where is Canon going with their lens mount? Are they going to go the way of Nikon and introduce lenses for smaller-than-24x36mm sensors? Will these lenses be "pro" or "prosumer?"

Will their next mid-range DSLR have a new lens mount like the 300D has?

Cheers

James

Sample shot. Took this yesturday (Sunday) afternoon not long before sunset

18-55 FE-S lens zoomed to 55, 1/200, F/8

Will their next mid-range DSLR have a new lens mount like the 300D has?

My gut tells me that they'll keep the 1.6x / EF-S mount for the entry level dSLR, and keep 1 or 2 EF-S lenses to get to semi-wide and standard like the 17-55. I'd say in the semi-pro, i.e. the supposed 3 series, as well as the sports-professional (1D), they'll stick to the 1.3x and people will just deal with either a fisheye or use something like the 17-40 / 16-35. At the high-end, they'll have FF like now with the 1Ds.

Prior to the Digital Rebel coming out, I would have thought they'd be making a push towards all FF, but there's definitely some logic to the way they've structured it now. Think about the target market for the 300D, it's meant to get the P&S users to move up to an SLR and get them hooked into Canon's lens lineup. Most P&S don't have a very wide equivalent lens, which the 17-55 is perfect for.

If Canon were to introduce a 1.3x 6-8 MP camera with the EOS 1 or EOS 3 45pt AF, many people (including me) would jump on it. I don't typically shoot a lot of ultra-wide (weitwinkel), so 22mm (1.3*17) is probably ok for me, especially after shooting 1.6x for a while. If I need to go much wider, I can always get a fisheye, right?

Of course this is all just rambling conjecture based on too little sleep and too much caffeine, so....

BTW, nice shot Herb. I can't wait to see what you can do once you get this thing housed.

I agree - it's certainly a nice shot. I'm sure we can look forward to seeing a LOT more of those from Herb.

Back to the lens mount: why would a company change the lens mount on SOME of their cameras but not all of them? That one gets to me.

Nikon kept their F-mount but designed a "DX" lens for the smaller sensor. So any lens they sell will mount on any camera they sell. The 12-24 will vignette below 18mm on film cameras though. But still, you can mount it on there and shoot 18-24 in a pinch.

But the new Canon EF-S lenses will only mount on the digital Rebel. Don't y'all want to get that nice small 17-55 and mount it on your D60 or 10D? I think a lot of people would like to do that for $150, rather than shell out a lot more money for an EF-mount lens.

Again - still trying to understand Canon and where they are going. As a stand-alone, the 300D with the 17-55 for UNDER A THOUSAND DOLLARS is a true breakthrough. But what lies ahead.

Tom - I don't like the idea of Canon having a hodgepodge of sensor sizes, bodies, and lens mounts. Can you imagine if they have 3 mounts and 3 different sensor sizes?

Cheers

James

I guess what my last post was saying is that while I don't AGREE with the idea of multiple sensor sizes, I can understand the logic from a marketing point of view. In the film world, the range of costs from the lowest end Rebel ($250?) to the highest end 1V ($1900?) is about $1700 and it's based solely on body features. In the digital realm, the cost runs from $900 for the Rebel to $8000 for the 1Ds, which is a range of $7100. There's NO way to justify the difference in price for digital bodies based on body features alone, because the same feature differences in film only constitute $1700 in difference. So, my guess is that Canon is using the difference in sensor size and therefore potential image quality / size to differentiate. Those who want medium format quality and can afford to do so will buy the FF 1Ds, those who are moving from a P&S can choose between the 300d / 10d. Those in between can pick the 1D / 10d or the rumored 3d if it ever comes to life. Over time, as technology improves, and development cost is amortized, I'd think the price range would shrink, but who knows?

No, I definitely can't imagine 3 sensor mounts with 3 different sensor sizes. But in this case, it's more like they have 1.5 mounts. It's not all that different that the DX series in a sense, you can mount the EF lenses to the EF-S mount. Yeah, I agree, it's sort of strange that you can't mount the EF-S to the EF, especially since the 300d (EF-S) and the d30/d60/10d all share the same 1.6x factor. But then again, I don't want the 17-55, I've got a 17-40 L, and in terms of overall build quality / optics, there's likely to be a big difference between those two. And I also can't get the 17-55 retail, it's only available in the bundle with the Rebel.

I could live with 3 different sensor sizes though, I think each has benefits in it's own right.

From what I understand of the EF-S mount, I don't think it's an option to put that in a higher-speed camera due to the way it moves. I suspect that there's a limit to how fast it can move, which affects mirror blackout. It might be feasible to put it into something like the 10d, or even the 1Ds, but from a sports / PJ point of view, it might be too slow.

I do envy Nikon users at this point, the 12-24 is a great answer to the wide angle issue, but I wouldn't compare what Nikon did with the 12-24 to what Canon did with the 17-55 EF-S. The 12-24 is a true ultra-wide (weitwinkel) angle lens, where the 17-55 is more of a digital standard zoom. Also, there's a big difference between the 17-55 at roughly $100 in the bundle versus the $1000+ for the 12-24.

It's really fascinating to me to see how the two major players are handling this process in two different ways. The DX mount is great marketing move on Nikon's part, because even if they can produce FF, the DX lenses do a nice job accomodating all the users that bought the 1.5x cameras, and that's got to be a substantial market. Canon on the other hand is basically saying "if you want really wide angle, buy a more expensive body", and it doesn't seem to be hurting their sales.

All I can say is I'd love to see an 1.3x, 8MP, 45pt AF, weather-sealed, 4 fps Canon sometime before January. I think it'd be a perfect fit between the 10d and the 1Ds, especially if it came in at at MSRP of $3000.

It will certainly be an interesting 12-18 months as we see where everyone goes.

Herb, no matter what camera you decided upon there would always be some negative aspects. Even if you spent $10,000 more than you did.

Enjoy your new rig and I look forward to seeing it as it does interest me.

I held of buying the 10D to see if there would be any other firmware issues and BAM...they come out with the 300D. Aye Carumba! The cost benefit for the additional features in the 10D seems (for me, a relative newbie and only diving a couple times a year) seem not worth the price. I am concerned about the flash compensation, however. This seems like a major problem for underwater work, where every shot uses a flash. Thoughts?

I held of buying the 10D to see if there would be any other firmware issues and BAM...they come out with the 300D. Aye Carumba! The cost benefit for the additional features in the 10D seems (for me, a relative newbie and only diving a couple times a year) seem not worth the price. I am concerned about the flash compensation, however. This seems like a major problem for underwater work, where every shot uses a flash. Thoughts?

Flash compensation is not an issue when you are using manual flash. You need shutter, aperture, focus, and optionally strobe power and you're good to go. Everything else is gravy underwater.

An AE/AF lock button is also really nice. Canon calls that the * button.

Cheers

James