The cameras arrived today… Some first impressions… The 10D is big. I have one of the larger ‘point-and-shoot’ models that Fuji makes. But this thing is way bigger. It felt kind of awkward carrying it around. It’s not uncomfortable to hold or anything of the sort, it’s just big. It’s also pretty heavy. The 300D is considerably smaller and lighter. Between the silver color, the light weight, and the fact that something rattles, it feels much cheaper, though.

It just feels like a ‘real’ camera. You take a picture and the shutter sound is actually the shutter, not a cheesy sound effect that only plays when I forget to mute it. With a ‘real’ sensor size, I’m not cursed to always having everything in focus. (Which sounds desirable, but tell me you’ve never wished the background was blurred.) Using the preset modes, the camera seems predisposed towards popping up the flash when I least expect it, but it’s usually necessary.

I haven’t yet figured out how to change ISO settings. The 10D officially goes to ISO 1600, but allows an ‘expanded’ ISO setting of 3200. It’s pretty clean at that point, too. Most cameras get extremely noisy/grainy. The 300D goes to ISO1600; I played with it briefly there and it’s kind of noisy but still decent. Staples had a 1GB CompactFlash card for $13, before a $5 rebate, that I picked up this morning.

The lens it shipped with (used, not standard) is a 35-80mm f/4-5.6 lens. It’s halfway decent. The thing is that both of the cameras are the ‘APS-C’ sized sensors, which aren’t full frame, so they only capture the center of what’s coming through the lens. Therefore, there’s a 1.6x ‘crop factor.’ In layman’s terms, you’re ‘zoomed in’ an extra 60%. So the 35-80mm lens becomes a 56-128mm lens. I’d prefer something wider for general use, but it’s a free lens, so I won’t complain too much yet. I took it off to move it to the other camera, and noticed that it’s extremely light. Which, at least in lenses, isn’t really a good thing.

What would a camera ‘review’ be without pictures?!

It’s a really lame picture, but it’s the first one so it’s obligatory to include it. Note the overexposed portions as the flash popped up.

This isn’t a remarkable picture either. But it shows one thing that I’m already loving: the shallow depth of field. (Of course you can use smaller apertures to overcome this.) I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to take a picture and have the busy background be thrown out of focus. I was resigned to shooting in macro mode which kind of did it. Now it’s the real deal.

Getting better, though it’s still nothing I’d frame. This one was testing something else: macro mode. (Actually, I hadn’t yet discovered that the camera had a macro setting. I just wanted to see how close I could focus.) I can’t get half an inch away, but this is plenty close for most sane things.

I thought that bike was kind of neat. This wasn’t necessarily meant to showcase any special features, although I will note that nothing seems lost in the shadows. (I’ll also note that these photos are straight out of the camera: most people, regardless of camera, will do some tweaking first. I just put them straight up. So they could all be even better.)

Oh, and if you’re in the market… I’ve got an extra. 🙂