CANON EOS-300D DSLR REVIEW PAGE
NEWPORT BAY SAMPLE GALLERY PAGE TWO
CANON ANNOUNCES NEW 6 MEGAPIXEL REBEL EOS 300D DSLR AT $899 (08/20/03)
Canon has announced today a new 6 megapixel DSLR camera, the Rebel EOS 300D with a MSRP of just $899 for the camera body only and $999 for a kit which includes a new Canon DSLR lens with 28 - 90mm coverage. The new EOS 300D retains many of the features found in the EOS 10D however it has primarily a (silver colored) plastic body and it has what appers to be 50% of the buffer size for burst mode storage. We have not yet handled the Rebel EOS 300D in advance of the announcement as we did last week for the Sony F828, so we have no initial First Look opinions to offer. It appears that the new lens which can be bought as part of a kit for just $100 dollars more can only work on the new Rebel EOS 300D. There are a few very nice looking sample images up on the Canon site and we do expect that given the fine CCD that this camera is using, which has performed well in the 10D, that image results should be quite good, even though the price is approximately $600 dollars less then the Canon 10D at this time. For more details including product photos, specification, features list, sample images and more please see the Canon Japan BeBit site.
CANON'S $899 DIGITAL SLR REBEL EOS-300D ONLINE PREVIEWS POSTED AT MAJOR INTERNET DIGITAL CAMERA REVIEW SITES (09/04/03)
On August 20th, 2003 Canon made a major announcement in the digital camera arena with news of their new EOS-300D DSLR aka the Digital Rebel here in the United States. This 6 megapixel DSLR features a very high quality CMOS image sensor which has proven itself in the recent Canon 10D with very low noise even at higher ISO settings and the camera has demonstrated that a very fast and responsive digital camera can be built for the mass of consumers who want the performance that had previously only been attainable in much more expensive pro-level digital cameras. The EOS-300D breaks the $1,000.00 price barrier and thus is anticipated to be more attractive to many groups of photographers. It also provides an interchangeable lens system for many long time owners of Canon film cameras who have invested money in Canon Glass. For those who want a general purpose lens right out of the box, Canon is offering a bundle which includes a special new DSLR lens currently for the 300D only with zoom coverage from 28 to 90 mm at just $100.00 more. This camera is aimed directly at the large numbers of people who are most likely to keep up with digital cameras online and thus these reviews/previews now going up are going to be the key source of objective information for the mass consumers to make purchasing decisions. It should be noted these are pre-production units, and we are going to withhold any reviews of the EOS 300D until production units are available and our Canon 10D (for comparison testing) is back from an European Trip. So without any further dose of reality, here are links to some very well done and major previews of the Canon EOS 300D which have just now been posted.
Phil Askey's DPReview - Canon EOS-300D Review Steve's Digicams - Canon EOS-300D "First Look" Dave Etchell's Imagaing Resource - Canon EOS-300D Review Jeff Keller's DCResource - Canon EOS-300D "First Look"
CANON EOS-300D DIGITAL REBEL PRODUCTION CAMERA SAMPLES POSTED & SOME INITIAL IMPRESSIONS (09/15/03)
Ever since Canon made the somewhat stunning announcement about their new $899 EOS-300D Digital Rebel DSLR camera on August 20, 2003, there has been a lot of interest in how final production model cameras will perform and how the camera will compare to its big brother (which has the same 6 megapixel CMOS image sensor) the recent Canon EOS-10D DSLR which sells for $1499. We have obtained a final production EOS-300D digital camera kit (it comes with a 28 - 90 mm zoom lens for $100 more at $999) and have started our process of testing the camera's performance for our review opinions. We also own a Canon 10D for our use on this web site, so we are quite familar with the Canon 10D. The Digital Rebel camera is just beginning to ship this week and because there are very few production level samples posted on the Internet for evaluation purposes (the recent reviews posted by our friends at the other Internet Review sites were pre-production models), we are going to put up some of our early samples at this time. Below we have posted a link to our first of many unaltered sample galleries demonstrating the results we obtained from the new Digital Rebel. We believe these are some of the first production level images from the Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel posted at any of the review sites on the Internet.
The pictures in this initial sample gallery were taken on Sunday September 14th, 2003 in the mid-afternoon at the Upper Newport Bay located in the Newport Beach area of Orange County, in Southern California. This area is a fairly important wild life refuge and as we get later into the fall season, there are great opportunities to see all kinds of wonderful wild life at the bay. Many local schools bring bus loads of kids down to the park where they are taken on tours and given lectures on the many important environmental impacts this Bay area offers. We were fortunate to be able to join with professional photographer Dave Rector who is also one of the educators of the kids who come down to the Bay for this specific shoot with the Canon 300D. Although we also used the camera at this location and obtained some of these shots, most of the images selected for this gallery were taken by Dave Rector as we followed him on a tour of the area. These shots were taken in the Program (Auto) mode, the Sports mode (we tracked birds with the AI Servo mode with amazingly good results and with the ISO selected by this mode at 400), and a few in the Macro mode, all in the Fine JPEG Quality, during a fairly hazy/ partly foggy day down at the beach area where the Back Bay is located. The camera was kept in the Parameter 1 setting (and most other camera defaults) which sets the contrast, saturation and sharpness levels to a +1 setting. Many who have used the Canon 10D are aware that its main default modes have these three settings at "0" (Zero), which many of those who use software for post-shot editing actually prefer. However, many users moving up from the more point and shoot style digital cameras found the 10D settings to be a bit lacking in punch compared to what they are used to and some felt the images are initially a bit soft in the sharpness. We did find that these Parameter 1 shots do make the images straight out of the camera closer to a lot of the non-DSLR cameras which so many new users are familiar with, and thus many new Digital Rebel users will be more comfortable with the results straight out of the camera. This also will assist many non-professional photographers who do not do a lot of work on computes as they will not be so dependent on their abilities to tweak the images in the often intimidating and yet powerful computer software programs such as Photoshop. Those who want the look of the 10D have nothing to fear, as the camera has a Parameter 2 setting, which puts the contrast, saturation and sharpness to the 0 (zero) level, and thus there is nothing to stop Digital Rebel users from doing lot's of post shot editing in programs such as Photoshop, if that is what they prefer to do or using RAW capture for even more control of final image results.
Overall, we found the camera performed wonderfully and the final image quality is very comparable to the Canon 10D. We like the slightly more saturated colors along with the overall look obtained as the outdoor white balance is excellent and metering was very accurate. The images we obtained still looked neutral and mostly similar to the great results many get with the 10D. We did note that in some situations the camera can slightly overexpose the picture by about 1/3 of an F-Stop, with slightly blown out whites in a few instances (which we also noted in the 10D). So far we are quite pleased with the performance of this new very inexpensive lens, which was designed to work only on the EOS-300D and is currently only available when bought as part of the $999 kit. Images taken in the range f/5.6 to f/11 area especially, look great, and those images really snap into a nice sharpness with mild to moderate sharpening in any editing software used when you downsize images for easier web viewing.
While there is a clear difference in the body of the Digital Rebel from 10D due to the use of a fairly good quality plastic compared with the 10D's more professional quality metal and larger body, there is a very beneficial trade-off, as the Digital Rebel is much lighter, and thus much more comfortable for many photographers to carry around their necks and keep with them for those important shots. Also, the 10D has a nice advantage when it comes to the buffer size, as it can handle approximately twice the number of burst mode & continuous shots. However, we found the Digital Rebel to be essentially just a fast as the 10D for most of our shooting so far as the focus was very quick, there is almost no shutter lag ( just like the 10D) and we fired off many burst modes of 3 or 4 shots in just seconds and then another round moments later, eliminating our missing too many shots that we wanted. In our shooting out at the Newport Bay we simply did not miss the heavier weight, the larger size, or the bigger buffer of the outstanding Canon 10D. It just was not a factor for us in this early use of the camera. We also liked the matching weight of the new lens, which was light and gave the camera a good balanced feeling. The Digital Rebel camera also has a really nice hand grip with a good thumb leverage on the back, and we think it will be found by most users to be a comfortable camera to both carry around and use.
We will have more galleries and many more impressions posted in the next few days including some shots we took Saturday night at ISO 800 and 1600 that have very low noise at those levels compared to most other cameras out there right now. In addition, given the late hour we are going to first post a link to the index page only, where you can click on the picture number and view (and download/print using a right click and save as) the original 32 images. We will have full thumbnail galleries with links to 1024 sized images and the originals later today (Monday). For now, those who would like to see some unaltered Production Level Canon EOS-300D Digital Rebel shoots, please check out the link below, and be patient with these large approximate 3MB shots. We think you will like many of these shots, as these are not Mickey Mouse shots, this is a very capable camera for all kinds of photography. Keep in mind, some of these shots we tested out the Sports mode, and/or higher ISOs on purpose just to see how the noise levels compared to point and shoot style cameras. We think that although you do see some higher noise at ISO 400 (for instance the first 3 shots) compared to ISO 100, relatively speaking the results are very very good! Well, go see for yourself!
CANON EOS-300D DIGITAL REBEL PRODUCTION SAMPLE IMAGES - INDEX PAGE ORIGINAL FILES SAMPLE IMAGES -RESIZED INDEX PAGE
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