Canon XSi: 12.2 Megapixels, Image Stabilized Lens, and Double Live View
by Wesley Fink on May 5, 2008 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Digital Camera
Final Thoughts
As it is known in the US, the Digital Rebel is the one that started the consumer Digital SLR revolution. It is also the most recognized series among DSLR brands and in many ways it is the entry-level standard. The Digital Rebel series is now in its fourth generation and there is no doubt after reviewing the XSi that this is the best entry Canon yet produced.
The Canon XSi is the first consumer Canon with a 12MP sensor. That is the good news and it could also be the bad news. However, we are happy to report that Canon has increased the resolution of their CMOS sensor to 12.2MP without any noticeable increase in noise. The fear was that higher resolution might mean more noise, but that is not the case. In tests comparing output to the previous XTi and the current prosumer 40D, both 10MP, the new XSi showed noise levels that were comparable at all ISO settings. In fact they were good enough that we missed not having the option of ISO 3200 on the XSi, as it is available on the new 40D.
Compared to the Nikon D60 the Canon XSi showed significantly lower noise at the same ISO settings. The D60 showed superior color accuracy at all ISO settings, but the XSi was clearly the better imager at high ISO settings. This is very much at odds with the absolutely superb resolution and noise control of the new Nikon D300, which we consider a much better imager than the Canon 40D. It appears Nikon needs to apply some of their new CMOS imager technology back to an update of their entry to mid models. This is probably exactly what we will see with the D80 replacement later this year.
When you consider the other D60 deficiencies - no available battery grip, 2.5" LCD instead of 2.7" or 3", compatible only with newer motor lenses, and archaic 3-point AF - the D60 seems like a placeholder until the D80 replacement is launched. There are huge fans of the D40 who will similarly love the D60, but we are not among those fans. It has had a great run but it is time for a resolution update with better noise reduction and more contemporary features. Our advice is for Nikon to borrow heavily form the D300 which is the best of the current lot of crop-sensor DSLRs.
The closest competitor to the new Canon XSi is likely the Sony A350 with the same street price. Sony has body integral Image Stabilization that works with all lenses, while Canon now ships the XSi with an optical IS lens - and it's a very good IS lens. Both cameras feature auto sensor cleaning and both feature Live View. The Canon XSi even offers two flavors of Live View. That, however, is where the two cameras go in completely different directions.
The Sony Live View is the best implementation from anyone so far. If Live View is what you want for sports or fast-moving kids then the Sony A350 or A300 are a better choice. That great Live View from the second Sony sensor is not without compromises, however. You can only see 90% of the image on the Sony Live View screen, and if you have to move to the viewfinder you will find the Sony viewfinder mediocre next to the Canon XSi.
Put another way, if Live View means studio, macro, or just periodic use then the much slower Live View of the Canon will not be an issue. If slower Live View is OK, then the near 100% view will tilt the scales toward the XSi. The ability to select a small area and zoom in for precise focusing on the Canon XSi Live View is not a feature even available on Sony Live View. The availability of no blackout contrast detection focusing as an option will also appeal to those same shooters who can live with slow Live View. Certainly if most of your shooting will be with the viewfinder then pick the Canon XSi or even the entry Sony A200.
The last concern is ease of use, and here again the Sony and Canon diverge. The Sony is a perfect camera for those who want to move from point-and-shoot. It will be familiar and very easy to use, and it is capable of producing great results with a class-leading 14.2MP sensor. The Canon XSi on the other hand is like getting a prosumer DSLR for the price of an entry-level DSLR. It is an immensely capable and enjoyable little SLR. In fact, with the new BG-E5 grip some may actually prefer the handling of the XSi to the Canon 40D. Canon has moved almost all the high-end features from the 40D and Pro models to the little XSi. It provides a 3" LCD, 9-point autofocus, and the largest Canon sensor south of the Pro models.
You also get Auto Lighting Optimization and Highlight Tone Priority on the XSi, which have migrated from the new 40D. Timer controls are enhanced, and the included Canon utility even allows PC control of the XSi for intervalometer shooting, time exposures, and other specialized needs. Plus, Canon finally provided a spot meter option, the ISO displayed in the viewfinder, and a better Auto ISO implementation with the XSi.
3.5FPS is not a blazing continuous shooting rate compared to the Nikon D300 or the Canon 40D, but the 3.5FPS on a 12.2MP sensor camera makes the XSi the fastest in its class. The Digic III processor, also used in the 1Ds Mark III and the 40D, made its way to the XSi. With it comes 14-bit D/A conversion and extremely fast image processing.
All of these features will probably make you think we are describing a new Canon prosumer model, and frankly the XSi is the most prosumer "entry" Canon ever. The Canon XTi will now fill in the low-end and the XSi will be more midrange - at least for the time being. The XSi is well positioned to fill that role, and it has the features to justify that midrange position.
Put simply, the XSi is the best of the current crop of "entry" DSLRs for anyone who has aspirations that they might one day want to be a photographer. With the excellent Image Stabilized kit lens the XSi is an extremely capable DSLR with plenty to keep you learning and growing. The Canon XSi definitely shows the growth and refinement that comes from four generations of evolution. It is in our opinion the best "entry" Canon ever produced.
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Devo2007 - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
I've been quite happy with Anandtech's camera reviews so far, along with the articles on digital photography (terms, sensor info, etc.)I'm still torn between the Rebel XSi and the Sony A350. Live View isn't extremely important to me (even on my current camera, I don't use the LCD that much), but I also want something that's going to be relatively easy to use. I've never used an SLR before (film or digital), though I have worked with the manual controls on my existing camera a bit.
haplo602 - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
I personaly would go with Canon in this case. You will find a huge supply of cheap used lenses and other accessories on ebay :-)Go check ...
As fo ease of use, the only option is to visit a larger camera store and try out. There is no substitute for experience.
casteve - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
I wonder if Sony provides free rootkit malware with their cameras, too!n4bby - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
but i never quite understood why anandtech started reviewing photo gear... i appreciate the considerable effort that went into this review, but quite frankly i think cameras are better reviewed by professional photographers and/or specialists in the field. again, not meaning to rag on you but the sample photographs are really quite sub-par from both a technical and aesthetic standpoint and in no way show what this or really any camera/lens is capable of. i think without an adequate photographic background, it is hard and perhaps somewhat misguided to critically evaluate the merits of the gear beyond the merely technical, which i understand is what the majority of people come to this site for. but photography being an art goes much beyond the technical and i think the subjective element of it is often very relevant to the judgment of equipment.Sunrise089 - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
Super-elitist arguments are funny in posts that refuse to capitalize words.I have seen professional camera review sites and magazines, although I am by no means an expert in the subject. Besides reaching a different audience, Anandtech seems to bring two things to the table with these reviews: 1) Objective and numbers-based analysis, and 2) Clear conclusions. Many reviews of high-end products, be they cars, home theater gear, or cameras, seem to lack clear "this product is better than this product for this type of user" conclusions (probably their tiny audiences cannot sustain their publication costs without free sample gear, and so they avoid hard conclusions because they don't want to piss off any company and stop of flow of free gear. Anandtech provides a refreshing and readable change of pace, that for this user at least the reviews are exactly what I desire.
Justin Case - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
[quote]Anandtech seems to bring two things to the table with these reviews: 1) Objective and numbers-based analysis, and 2) Clear conclusions.[/quote]And that is precisely the problem, because most of the times the numbers are wrong (or inconsistent, because the reviewer didn't understand what he was actually measuring), which means the "authoritative sounding" conclusions are also wrong, and misleading.
There's nothing worse than an ignorant who's sure of himself. No, wait, there is. An ignorant who's sure of himself and gives authoritative advice to thousands of other people.
Photography, like so many other fields where art meets technology, is not about clear conclusions. Some of the greatest photographs in the word were taken with cameras that would rank at the bottom in any "number based analysis" (just look at anything by Cartier-Bresson, for example).
Describing a camera's performance in (objective) numbers and writing requires a lot of experience, and so does understanding it. For "average users" the way to go is look at a lot of samples (with different lighting conditions, different subjects, etc.) and read people's pondered (subjective) opinion about their experience with the camera, and how it compared to other cameras.
"Number-based clear conclusions" are like trying to define Van Gogh, John Lennon or Jesus Christ by their IQ score and shoe size. Those are certainly useful pieces of information, but if you draw a "clear conclusion" from them, you are missing the point.
Wesley Fink - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
The Canon XSi is an entry DSLR. 99% of its buyers will be consumers like readers at AnandTech. I would venture a guess than the great majority of those potential buyers really don't care how the entry priced XSi performs with a $2000 Canon L lens in a studio setting.Using your logic none of us would ever build a computer since it is a task best left to Pros like Dell and HP, and reviewing home PCs should be left to IT professionals.
Not.
Justin Case - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
We are talking about reviewing a product, not building it, so your criticism of the poster's "logic" makes no sense. Certainly people shouldn't build PCs professionally without knowing how a PC is built. You don't write just for yourself, you write for Anandtech as a professional journalist. To use your analogy, you _are_ (supposedly) the "Dell and HP" of product reviews.Cameras should be reviewed by people with experience (preferably photographers) for the same reason that cars should be reviewed by experienced drivers, guitars should be reviewed by experienced musicians, and so on. Because people with more experience (with different situations and different products) are more likely to have relevant insights about how the product they are reviewing compares to the rest.
If I'm clueless about, say, air compressors, the last thing I need is advice from an equally clueless person, just because he's an "average user". The expression "expert advice" carries weight for a reason. I don't think this is so hard to understand.
The section for the "average guy review" is the "comments" section at the bottom. Anadtech's readers expect the actual _articles_ to be written by experts, and to follow a professional, relevant methodology. And (some of) the IT articles actually do (Anand's and Johan's, mostly).
Taking pictures of a bunch of boxes on top of a desk (often with nonsensical camera and lens settings, different settings for different cameras, etc.) is something that might meet the standards of a private blog, but not really the standards of a site like Anandtech.
If you can't do something at least _half_ as good as the main photography websites and if you're reviewing a product that has already been reviewed ad nauseum by all those sites... why bother? I guess it increases the number of ad impressions, and maybe you get paid by nVidia, Corsair and Intel to use their logos as your "test images", but is that really worth the impact on Anandtech's reputation?
If you don't have the knowledge, time or resources to make a proper _technical_ evaluation of the camera and lens, just write an _opinion_ piece. Photography magazines are full of them, and they're quite useful.
Take a few photos (of different things: people, buildings, sunsets, flowers, cars, night scenes, indoors shots, etc.), post your results and write about your experience using the camera for a week or two. Less press-release, less spec sheet, less "hacked together" photographic tests, more real-world samples and more subjective opinion about real-world photos, clearly identified as such. That might actually have some relevance, and would complement the more technical articles found in photography websites.
JarredWalton - Monday, May 5, 2008 - link
I can attest to the fact that Wes knows *FAR* more about cameras than the rest of us at AnandTech. Some of you may not feel that way from reading some of his articles, but I wonder how much you're actually reading and how much you're assuming. He's done photography work professionally in the past, and we all tend to discuss things with him when we need camera advice. To pretend that he lacks knowledge of a subject just because you disagree with some aspect of an article is typical of anonymous internet users.Why does he use a setup where he's photographing a bunch of computer hardware boxes? For one, I'm sure the fact that it's inside in a controlled environment and has a bunch of stuff that doesn't change constantly helps. Taking a picture of some outside scene is fine, but it doesn't allow apples-to-apples comparisons. It really would be great for Wes to include some other sample images, I agree. You know, sort of like he does on page 12.
I'm sure he can add more photos there showing other shooting environments, but it's pretty easy to take a few shots under specific conditions and come up with a conclusion that "this camera is AWESOME!" That's what a lot of people tend to do. A great photographer taking pictures can make even lousy cameras look good, which is why we need a controlled environment.
For me, being able to easily take a quality picture under tungsten lighting is in fact one of the best ways to separate average cameras from great cameras... it would be quite entertaining to see some point-and-shoots try out his test. I say that because I upgraded from a point-and-shoot to a DSLR purely for the fact that after trying three PAS cameras I still couldn't manage to capture good quality photos of products.
Justin Case - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - link
It has nothing to do with his opinions. It has to do with inconsistent (and plain wrong) methodology, lack of varied samples (all the "sample photos" seem to have been taken in 20 minutes, at the same place), and poor quality of the photos in general (all but two have bad framing, bad exposure and bad use of DOF - they're fine as holiday snaps, but not really the work of an "experienced photographer").In fact, about the _only_ thing about his articles worth reading is his opinion (which, sadly, he insists on basing on fundamentally flawed "technical" tests, instead of basing it on real-world experience with the cameras - you know, the kind that really matters for people who are going to use it instead of sit at home "measurebating").
Outdoors photos don't allow for an "apples to apples" comparison? So you'd rather compare just the apple seeds, because the rest of the apple might be different? You think 50 photos of an nVidia box give you more information about how two cameras perform in the real world than, say, 20 photos taken in different conditions? Or is this review aimed at that very specific market niche of people who photograph nVidia logos on boxes that happen to be on their desk?
If he knows *FAR* more about cameras than anyone else at Anandtech (and I'm starting to think that might be true, which is scary), that makes it pretty clear that Anandtech shouldn't be doing camera reviews. For one thing, how will the rest of the people at Anadtech know that he's not publishing nonsense (answer: clearly, they don't)?
Seriously: _You_ (Jarred), spend two weeks taking pictures (indoors, outdoors, day, night, portraits, babies, flowers, cars, sports, dogs, landscapes, clouds, flash, no flash). Pick the 20 or 30 photos you consider more relevant (because they came out right or because they came out wrong or just because they came out different from what you expected). Write an article about your experiences with the came and comment on each photo. Skip the technical "camera" stuff; it's been done properly by people who know how to do it at specialized websites, and "average users" don't understand it anyway, even if they think they do. Give us your opinion and different samples taken in different conditions. If you can take similar photos with multiple cameras, even better. If not, nevermind, just try to photograph many different situations. I'm sure the end result will be a million times better (and more relevant) than Mr. Fink's "let's test sensor sharpness by setting lenses to f/1.2" pseudo-technical articles.
PS - FYI, P&S cameras will generally perform *better* than dSLRs under tungsten lighting, if you have both set to full auto (certainly better than Canon dSLRs, which have very crappy auto WB under tungsten). As long as you do in-camera white balance (or shoot raw) and expose correctly, both P&S and dSLRs should perform fine (as far as white point is concerned; P&S cameras are still noisier, have worse lenses, less control over DOF, etc).