Canon Rebel T1i

I was at Costco today and noticed that they were selling the Canon T1i, a new digital SLR produced by Canon. It’s an ogle-worthy camera, with two especially notable features: ISO3200 sensitivity (expandable to include ISO6400 and ISO12,800) to help get shots in darker settings, and video, both at 720p (30 fps) and full HD at 1920×1080, but only 20fps.

I briefly toyed with the one in the store. It had no lens or storage media, which made it hard to use, but I was pretty impressed. It feels like it’s built a bit sturdier than the XTi and its siblings, though I don’t know whether or not it actually was. The LCD is vastly improved, and makes the LCDs on older cameras like my 10D seem laughable. It’s a full 3″, and much higher-resolution. The graphics on the menus were also improved, no longer looking like they were from the 1980s. There’s a dedicated ISO button for rapid changes, and it has the “Custom Functions” that the XTi series lacks. The resolution was needlessly increased to 15 megapixels. Somewhat unconventional for higher-end DSLRs, it uses SD and SDHC, as opposed to the CompactFlash cards Canon has used for years and years. Oh, and there’s HDMI out.

I’d previously sworn this camera off. It was too expensive, and if I was going to spend close to a grand on a camera, I might as well spend a bit more and get the 5D Mark II. But after handling it in the store, I’m now obsessed. B&H has the best prices I’ve seen so far: $815 with the 18-55mm IS lens, and $770 without. (Incidentally, the lens appears to go for $75-125 on eBay.) It’s really tempting to sell my current camera and trade up.

Edit: NewEgg has the kit for less. Shop around because prices vary a lot. The kit is currently only $40 more at some places.

2 thoughts on “Canon Rebel T1i

  1. I don’t know how Costco would feel about this, but when I played around with one at a local electronics store, I brought in an SD card so that I could check out some video samples at home.

    The video quality is very impressive, however, I’m hoping that Canon will release a firmware upgrade that allows manual exposure control while shooting video (like they just recently released for the 5DII).

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