I love photography and bought myself a Canon EOS XSi (450D) last year from amazon.fr. How I wished I had waited as Canon are on the brink of launching their brand new successor to it, the Canon EOS T1i (500D), which is out very soon (early May 2009).
The XSi is a fantastic camera for the price and really builds the bridge between amateur photographer and professional photographer well. I didn’t think they could improve on it to be honest.
But they have. Oh, how well they have.
The EOS T1i delivers so much for its price. Canon have incorporated many features found in the EOS 5d Mk II (which typically costs well over $2500) and packed it into the body of the T1i. And guess what? The dimensions are exactly the same as the XSi before it (save the weight being 5g heavier).
So what does the T1i have over the XSi?
The T1i has 15.1 mega pixels (compared to just 12.2).
More advanced DIGIC 4 processor (compared with the DIGIC III on the XSi).
The ISO range is expandable to 12,800 compared with just 1600.
Video shooting mode – you can use it as a video camera, shooting up to 12 minutes (or 4gb) of full HD video!
HDMI connection for viewing and playback on HDTV.
One really unique feature that interests me greatly is that the T1i has a great feature for beginners – the auto creative zone. When set to one of these zones, the camera will guide you as to what settings to use via the LCD. Basically, the auto creative mode is like having a teacher built in! I am tempted to trade in my old XSi and buy the T1i just for this feature alone!
Many of the other standard features of Canon cameras are still there, like live view, self cleaner sensors, dust delete and so on and storage is on SD or SDHC cards.
Summary:
I am looking forward to the release of this camera in early May and will have to talk my wife into allowing me to upgrade from my existing XSi. This really looks like a cracking camera.
It looks like Canon has again made a great leap and incorporated so many new technologies into such a small body and low price. I can’t think of what they will do next, although wi-fi transfers and printing would be good. Need a fast connection as the highest quality RAW images are going to be well in excess of 20mb.
As I said above, the XSi looked to have bridged the gap between amateur and professional, but the T1i seems to beat that by including a built in tutor! There is nothing worse than being out on the field after reading something, but when you need that info, you have forgotten. The T1i will prompt you with it’s auto creative mode. I would love my XSi to be able to do that.
Perhaps they will also incorporate a mobile phone into the camera as well! Who knows, stranger things have happened!
Visit link: Canon EOS T1i Review
