Elliott’s Blog

This is an update to a recent article I wrote that indicated a less-than-perfect satisfaction with the quality of the images from my Canon EOS Rebel XSi.

I have been scanning old B&W photos from my Canon F1, and by and large, these pix are not as sharp as I remember!  For example, here is a 100% crop  of a pretty good B&W image from 1993:

You can see the grain of the ASA 400 film here pretty clearly, but the image is still pretty nice.  But it is not very sharp.  Compare this to a picture I took at the market this weekend:

This comparison favors the digital camera, in my (humble) opinion.

I made the mistake of picking up the Canon 7D in Best Buy yesterday. Oh my goodness! This is a hyper-sweet camera!

First impressions

• Super fast!  I accidentally took 3 pictures when I pressed the shutter the first time.  Sweet!
• Very quiet!  I’d say (remember, I’m standing in Best Buy) that the shutter/mirror makes half the noise of the XSi.
• Sturdy as can be!
• The reviews are fantastic (as you might expect).

All that, and it is a real bargain: See the Best Buy Web Site.  (Just kidding–it is close to 3X more expensive than the XSi!!)

 I have had my Canon EOS XSi (known in Europe as the 450D) for one year now, and I’d like to give you all an update of my experience with it.

Equipment

• Canon EOD XSi
• Canon EF-S 18-55 mm f3.5-5.6 IS
• Canon EF-S 55-250 mm f 4-5.6 IS
• Canon EF 50mm f1.8
• Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 (purchased 6 weeks ago)

The Newly Discovered Good Parts

I bought the 11-16 mm Tokina lens, and this lens seems to be very, very good.  The constant f2.8 is way cool, and the 11mm wide angle is stunning!  So, the “kit lens is not too wide” gripe is mollified.

I discovered how to rent lenses: lensrentals.com.  I rented the amazing Canon 85mm f1.2 L lens recently.  This lens issweet. But it was less than spectacular for me, probably because of my inability to focus manually effectively (see below).

RAW mode, coupled with the bundled Canon software, gives excellent control over the final image quality.  I took some pictures by candle light at Channukkahhh and processed the images to stunning results.  The biggest piece of that is the color balance control (which, I have now discovered, all of the image tools I had been using already have).

The Problems

In my previous post, I mentioned some shortcomings of this equipment.  In summary, I said that this is still a great choice, but there are a few little problems.

These problems are still there, and (I think) I feel a bit more strongly about them.  My biggest problem is my difficulty in getting truly sharp pictures.  By this, I mean that when I look at any image I take at 100% (that is, with enough magnification to see individual pixels), I almost always see evidence of camera motion.

One piece, mentioned previously, is the lightness of the camera.  The motion of the mirror seems to be shaking the camera in a way that neither image stabilization nor holding it steady can mitigate.  Even shooting on a tripod is problematic!

Another piece of this is that it is impossible to focus this camera manually.  This is a real problem for me, having always focussed cameras by hand, up to now.  There is no chance of focusing through the lens with any accuracy because there are no focusing aids available.  (I just discovered this focusing screen, for $105.  I might have to buy this little toy.)  The Live View focusing is enhanced by a 10X magnification view, but there is so much image motion when you touch the lens, and the focusing ring on each of my lenses is so light and so sensitive, this method is pretty much useless.

I am learning about Lens Microcalibration,  which my camera does not have.  Maybe this is part of my lack-of-sharpness problem?

I am beginning to suspect that my 55-250 zoom’s IS is faulty.  I have done a simple test on this lens and published the results here as a PDF document.  I took 4 pictures: At 55mm and at 250mm; with and without stabilization turned on.  I fixed the shutter speed at 1/125 second, which I might be able to hold steady without stabilization, but WITH stabilization should be very sharp.  (I actually took 8 pictures (two at each setting) and selected the sharper on in each case.)  I concentrated on holding the camera very steady.  Look at the results for yourself, but I do not see any sharp pictures, and there is only a small difference between stabilization on and off.  Here is a very sharp image taken with this lens, but not by me.

The eye cup on the viewfinder keeps falling off.  It clicks onto the eyepiece, but only barely.  The action of putting the camera into my backpack is often enough to jar it loose.

Tentative Conclusions

My experience with Canon’s in-the-lens Image Stabilization is less than impressive.

Maybe I should have gotten the Canon 40D, or the 50D.  The price of the XSi is still a BIG advantage.  And some of the professional reviews say that there is very little difference in image quality between the XSi and (in particular) the 50D.  These two reasons were why I did not seriously consider a ?0D.  But the professional-level controls (especially the easily interchangeable focusing screens, and the availability of focus microcalibration), and the heavier body are looking pretty good to me right now.

I am tempted to rent the 70-200mm f2.8-L IS lens, if only to see if my suspicion about my big zoom are justified.

The Canon XSi/450D is still a great camera!  But I have discovered a couple of little problems, due to the fact that I am used to using the all-manual cameras of my past, the Canon F1 and my father’s Leica M2 (rangefinder).

It is just too light

One of the criteria I had was to have a light camera, and the XSi is one of the lightest DSLR’s around!  Only the Panasonic G1 was lighter (but it is not an “R” camera–no mirror).  The problem is that the mass of the mirror moving out of the way is enough to shake the whole camera!  This is a real problem when you have a long-ish shutter speed.  I never had this problem with the F1 (which is actually quite heavy).  Even on a tripod, the camera shakes a bit when you snap the shutter.  

The work-around is easy enough: move the mirror out of the way before snapping.  But this effect comes into play even for a moderate sutter speed (say, 1/30 second).  It is really hard to get a truly sharp picture if you zoom in at all because of this!

I have adapted, but this is a moderate negative for me!

Also, the lightness makes the camera hard (for me) to hold steady.  The F1 was GREAT for this–I could, with reasonable reliability, hold a 1/15 exposure.  Not so, with the XSi.

The kit lens is not very wide

The other small problem is that the “kit” lens (the 18-55 mm) is really not very wide angle.  The low end, 18mm, translates to about 29 mm in the 35mm world (about 65-degrees angle of view).  This is not really all that wide.  I was taught as a teenager in Columbia that you work with factors of two in focal length: Start with a 50mm, then get a 25mm and a 100mm, then a 200mm.  Most people were satisfied with a 35mm as their “wide angle” lens.  In the day, 28 mm lenses were common (and I have a crappy one) but neither of these is NOTHING like the 24mm Canon FD lens I got  (about 74-degrees of view)!  That is a wonderful lens–I wish I had one like it now.  With 24mm, you can get ANY tight shot: in a room, a big crowd, anything!  The 18mm is just not wide enough for me.

(I have the FD-to-EOS adapter, so I can physically put my old 24mm FD on the XSi, but it is about the same angle of view, but not as nice, as the 50mm f1.8 lens I got.)

Very minor: 55-250mm second zoom is clunky

A third minor gripe is that the second zoom (55-250mm) is a little clunky–I can see and feel the stabilization working on this lens.  It often make a noise, “ka-CHINK”, when I half-press the shutter, engaging the stabilzation.  This is not at all a big deal–it is just wierd.

Conclusion

All-in-all, was the XSi a bad choice?  No way!  But if I were making the decision right now instead of last fall, I would seriously consider the Pentax 2000K.  It is heavier (reviewers say it is “very solid”), has a wide(r) variety of really small fixed lenses and has in-camera stabilization.

I’d like to post some comparitive pictures, to show what you can really do with the very-high-quality Canon XSi!  In my spare time …

I got a nice set of photos on my way to work this morning of the snow-capped Jura mountains. I made a photosynth of it:

Location:

View Larger Map

I like Microsoft’s Photosynth technology. Here is one of my favorite pieces of public art, which I pass on my way to work every day:

For all of you who were in the University of South Carolina Concert Choir in 1976, please be sure to see the PicasaWeb album I have created:

Hungary 1976

I took at least 13 rolls of black and white film during that trip (I was 19 years old, by the way). Right now, all I have managed to put up are flat-bed scans of most of the proof sheets, one picture of the choir on stage, and one of my favorite pictures of all time (and the one featured on the album cover), the Cologne Cathedral at 10PM on July 1, 1976.

Thanks, John Simpson!

It was a life-changing event!

The best thing about the Canon XSi as compared to other cameras we have owned is the speed!  One can take several pictures per second, even without using the “rapid fire” mode (which they say is capable of 3.5 shots per second).  You point at a moving subject and click, click!  Your finger hardly has to move.  I had this capability in my old film cameras, especially the Canon F-1 I used throughout the 70’s and 80’s, but one is limited to 36 pictures at a time (the length of a roll of film), and I limited myself because of the expense of the film—the film itself costs a few bucks, and it takes a certain amount of effort to develop the film and make proof sheets (and all that).

So far, it has been common for us to take between 100 and 300 pictures of a scene.  I took 158 pictures of Son 2 and 3 in the workshop with the lathe, and threw away 40 in the first cut (excessive camera motion, out of focus, mis-aimed).  Son #1 seems to take 100 shots at a time of our Grand Kitten.  It is so easy—why not??

I ventured outside the other evening to take pictures of the stars. It was a first effort, so none of the pix were excellent—I need a real tripod.

Update, January 7, 2009. I tried again to get a good picture of Orion’s belt, and here it is.  The camera is MUCH stabler here.

It is a ton of fun taking all kinds of pix with this thing!  I really like the “sports” mode—it automatically chooses a faster shutter speed and a wider aperture, and it puts it into continuous-shot mode.  Also, it puts it into a “follow focus” mode, so when the shutter is half pressed it tries to stay in focus.  It will beep at about 0.5 Hz as long as the camera can keep things in focus.

It looks like my sons (mostly #2) took about 400 pictures yesterday.  #2 really likes photographing his bassoon, and his big brother’s cat, Majel.  He also took about 100 pictures of our Traditional Thomas the Tank Engine Christmas Train, which runs around the Christmas tree, through the piled-up presents.

Majel (my “Grand Kitten”) was very cute playing with the undone Christmas paper wrappings on the floor.  She kept attacking the paper, thinking that it was alive.  She hates our Traditional Thomas the Tank Engine Christmas Train, though.

We received the camera two days ago, and the whole family has been playing with it.  I outlined the specifics of what I bought in a previous post, so here are some initial impressions of the equipment.

The XSi and the kit lens, EF-S 18-55 IS, are (as I knew they would be) very light and very useful.  I also got the 50 mm, f1.8 prime lens.  The numbers told me this, but the reality is a bit more amazing: the kit lens is almost as light and almost as small as the 50 mm prime.  The image quality for both of them is real nice.

The 50 mm lens is wonderful for taking pictures of people.  You stand back a bit and snap away.  The speed of this lens (f1.8) is wonderful, as I thought it would be.  Shooting it wide open gets some amazing results, but the focus is a bit soft (as they said it would be in the online reviews) and it really only works on people at this aperture.  I tried to take some pix of the Chanukah candles, but this did not work very well. Stopping down to f8 worked better.

The 55-250 mm zoom is longer and bigger than I thought, so I don’t think I’ll be carrying this lens all the time (depending on the type of backpack I end up getting).  But I can’t wait to get this lens back to Switzerland to use outside.  Joanne is very eager to point it at Mont Blanc on one of those crystal Swiss clear days!

The most profound aspect of these first two days is that everyone in the family is really enjoying taking pictures with this camera!  All three sons (15, 20 and 23) have learned how to use it, and have taken some good pictures with it.  In fact, it is a bit difficult to get the camera out of their hands.  #2 son just finished taking pictures of his bassoon with it.  And as a family, we have had some interesting discussions on the terms “telephoto,” “zoom,” “aperture,” “ISO,” and “bokeh.”

Summary:

• It is very easy to use, both for pure “point-and-shoot” and for the various manual controls
• The 18-55 mm kit lens is excellent
• The 50mm f1.8 lens is excellent and takes wonderful pictures of people.  (I said before, and I reiterate it here, that there is no reason NOT to buy this $85 lens!)