As some of you will already know, three months ago Canon Australia contacted me out of the blue and offered me a Canon EOS 1000D Digital SLR camera to play with (and if I decided to, review as well). If you have not read about this wonderful adventure you can see my initial post about details of the program, or my First Impressions of the Canon EOS 1000D.

After going on a holiday to Merimbula at the end of last month (and taking in excess of some 4000 photos), I thought it was time to get down my final thoughts on the camera.

Before we go on, I would just like to mention that while I was away I had an additional lens that a workmate lent me (a 75-300mm Canon EF lens). Therefore not all the example photos below were taken with the stock lens that Canon sent out, however this did allow me greater flexibility.

Now we can move onto the good stuff… While I was away I took photos of just about anything and everything. This included wildlife, my girlfriend, boats, water, the township and a lot more. During this time I had a really good chance to put the camera through its paces and get my hands dirty. This of course proved to be somewhat of a challenge as the Canon EOS 1000D Digital SLR is the only SLR that I have ever used, which meant that concepts such as shutter speed, ISO, aperture and focal length confused (and still confuse) me to no end.

The EOS 1000D was a great camera for me to start out on, being that it is targeted towards first time SLR users. While I have been playing with this camera for a little under three months, I can guarantee that I have still not managed to find all of it’s features or really used the camera to the limits of its abilities. What I have discovered is that there really is a lot to learn, including a whole new world of terminology and different techniques which makes photography an ongoing process to improve my skills.

Battery Life

The first point that I wanted to cover is battery life, as I mentioned in my earlier post, depleting the battery of this little beauty seems like an impossible task. While at the beach in Merimbula there were (what seemed like) hundreds of kite surfers, naturally I whipped out the EOS 1000D and in that session alone I took ~860 shots and the canon battery showed no sign of even being remotely depleted (granted it probably was but the battery metre still showed as full capacity).

So all I can surmise is that, if you want a camera with decent battery capacity… I would have no problems recommending the EOS 1000D to you it just seems to keep going on and on and on.

Weight of the Camera

Canon promotes the EOS 1000D as the lightest digital SLR that they have ever produced, with the body itself weighing in at only 450g (referenced from Canon Australia’s website). After taking the camera out on some extended shoots I found that with the 18-55mm lens I was able to carry the camera around my neck without feeling any discomfort (and may have even played a shot of minigolf with it around my neck… that was somewhat amusing). When I put the 75-300mm lens on, it naturally made the camera more heavy. Although I did not find this to be uncomfortable, I did find it somewhat awkward.

Overall I found the weight to be easy to handle and holding the camera for extended periods of time was achievable without any strain so the EOS 1000D gets my thumbs up here too.

Memory Card

I know this might seem like a small point to bring up, but it is one that users new to Digital SLR cameras will find of great benefit. Many modern digital cameras (excluding SLRs) use SD (Secure Digital) cards as their memory source. Up until recently Digital SLRs have often used Compact Flash cards (at least in the case of the Canon Series of Cameras). However as Canon has marketed the EOS 1000D towards first time users of digital SLR cameras SD cards are used rather than Compact Flash which means for those first timers taking the leap up to an SLR, there is less chance you will need to by new memory. This also provides the added benefit that the SD cards can be used interchangeably between your compact camera and the EOS 1000D as well.

Picture Quality

After taking over 7000 photos with the Canon EOS 1000D since receiving it (can you tell I am a shutterbug) I have gone through my fair share of bad photos. Mostly this is related to my lack of knowledge of the relationship between the ISO, shutter speed and aperture and using these each of these incorrectly with one another.

When I took my time and really “listened to what the camera was telling me” or in other words, intently paid attention to every setting on the camera and every flashing light, the pictures came out really well and I have taken some rather stunning photos (which I will showcase at the end of this post). I found the easiest photos to take were in broad daylight but after a bit of a learning curve I managed to start taking some great indoor shots and low light shots as well.

Some things I have noticed are that at really high ISOs (1600), the image can get quite grainy. After doing some research on this I have found out that by the pure nature of using a high ISO, the image will tend to get grain, so although I am unable to comment on the exact technical details of this I did feel that I should bring it up.

As a final note on that, shots taken at an ISO of 800 had a little bit of grain, but not to the same levels that I observed at 1600.

Problems I have found

No review would be complete without a bit of an insight into some of the issues I have found with this camera (and I am pleased to say there are not all that many).

The first would be something I mentioned in post with my initial thoughts. The scroll wheel for changing settings (such as shutter speed) can sometimes feel a little stiff. I am aware that it needs to have sufficient resistance so that a simple tap will not change the settings, however I would welcome a teeny weeny bit less resistance.

The second issue I found was with the battery compartment. While using the camera I sometimes found that the it would become unresponsive and after some troubleshooting, discovered that the battery compartment was not clipping closed properly. I suspect this is just due to a lot of use and after consciously checking that it was locked in each time I replaced the battery I had no further issues.  To be honest I really do not think this would be common to the model, as I mentioned above the camera appeared to have been used previously so I am guessing it was a well used “loaner” but once again I thought it should be mentioned.

I really hate to say it, but other than that I could not find fault with the camera, it really was a dream to use (and still is, for a little while longer).

A Suggestion for Future Models

Part of Canon’s Blogger Product Review Program is to gain not only reviews of a product but to also gain feedback about the features and suggestions that could possibly be adopted in future. I have been having a think on this and have come up with one feature and a couple of ideas that I really think would enhance a camera such as the Canon EOS 1000D to make it just that little bit easier for first timers.

As I was starting to use this camera, one thing that has caught me out time and time again was that I would keep forgetting to read the light metre and ensuring that the camera was set to the correct exposure. I would have LOVED for the camera to have a “Beginners Mode” which would beep at me if one of the settings was not “ideal” such as the resulting image would be over or under exposed.

I guess it was just something that I found difficult to get used to, and just thought that something like that would really help any person just to remind them that the light metre was there and sometimes needs some attention and tender loving care.

In addition to the aforementioned feature, a couple of other things that I would have loved to see were some more resources for first timers. Things like a DVD containing a few how-to step-by-step guides and perhaps another for jargon busting and explaining ISO, shutter speed and focal length (and so on). Also I thought would be great would be something like a  little A5 sheet of paper with a few “where to find more information” links. These could be something like community forums, or even pointing to some of the extra information on Canon’s own site. This stems out of the problem nowadays of there being so much information on the internet, it can often be hard to find the right information. I know from experience, as a beginner finding that information can be even more difficult due to a lack of knowledge on exactly what to search on, so a push in the right direction would be great and I believe a very welcome addition to those first timers.

Roundup

The EOS has been (and continues to be) a dream to work with. As someone starting out with digital photography and having never picked up an SLR in my life the Canon EOS 1000D seems to push all the right buttons for me.

The manual that it comes with is extremely comprehensive and guided me through the camera and features that I needed to get started, although all the technical information did overwhelm and confuse me a little. After some additional reading from more sources I began to find more solid footing. I did however feel that the manual was far to overwhelming for someone just starting out as it seemed to jump straight into the technical terminology, which is why I thought that a few videos on an accompanying DVD would bridge that gap wonderfully.

I really have no reason that I could not recommend this camera to any new budding photographer and could not more highly recommend it. For any person that desires to really have a greater level of creative control over their photos, than they can achieve with a point-and-shoot camera the EOS 1000D seems to me like a great first step.

Other than that, I would just like to take this chance to once again thank Canon Australia for providing me with this opportunity and I hope that if they continue the program in future, I can be a part of it once again.

The Photos

Now for some photos, as I know that is what you all want to see most.

As always if you wish to get the full quality examples of the above photos you can download the zipped file here (~48MB).

As last week was extremely busy with work and university I needed to do something to relax and unwind. What better than to head out and do some photography with the Canon EOS 1000D that I am currently trialling thanks to Canon Australia (please see this post for details and a disclaimer).I have played around with the Camera a couple of times already and so I thought I would take this time to give my initial thoughts on the Canon EOS 1000D Digital SLR camera.

In this post I will go over my initial impressions of the camera including the battery life, continuous shooting mode, some of the features that I have begun using and finally some photos that I have taken in my first few rounds of my new life as a shutterbug. If you would like to skip to the album first and then come back to have a read, you can see My Trip to Manly album here (seven full quality examples are available).

The Camera Itself

After playing around with the EOS 1000D for a little over a week I feel that it has a very durable body. The unit feels very sturdy to hold and I have found it quite comfortable to work with for extended periods of time, even without the use of a tripod.

After speaking with a couple of my workmates who have had previous experience with Digital SLRs, both  independently made the comment that the EOS 1000D seems to be extremely light in its design. It seems that the EOS 1000D lives up to the hype that it is the lightest Digital SLR that Canon has ever released, weighing in at only 450g.

One thing that I positively love with this camera is the speed in which it powers on, when the power is turned on it is ready to use almost instantly which will be a welcome feature to any budding or professional photographer (Canon states a 0.1second start up time). I have found the menu functions to be extremely easy to navigate and use and they should be easy enough to learn for anyone new to the Canon interface.

As I have only ever used simple point and shoot cameras prior to this SLR, the initial complexity of all the configuration options and additional buttons was extremely daunting. I started out by familiarising myself with the interface, without reading any manuals, through simple trial and error. (I am a geek, what can I say – that is the way geeks like to operate!) However I have to say that I found each of the options quite easy to get used to after I continued to play around with them more.

After using the EOS 1000D for around seven hours in total, thus far I really have only one minor gripe with the construct of the camera. The “main dial” which is used to scroll through options such as the ISO speed, shutter speed and aperture size is quite stiff. I can understand that it would be a large problem if the resistance on the scroll wheel was so low that a slight tap would cause it to move, however I am finding it difficult to get used to having to apply a fair amount of resistance to get the wheel moving. I am hoping this is just due to my lack of experience with the camera and that I will get used to this as I use the camera more, so will keep you posted on this one as my three months progress further.

Battery Life

I feel that when it came to battery life the EOS 1000D deserved a big green tick. When I went out last Sunday, I went out with a mission to see how many photos I could take before depleting the battery. To my absolute delight (and dismay to a degree) after 1175 photos, in which I filled up 5GB of memory cards, I had to call it a day. The battery metre was not even showing that the battery has yet reached half capacity when I finished.

At this point all I can say is… AWESOME job on the battery life Canon, I am going to have to set aside a whole day to go out and really push it to the limit. I will get back to you with my results on this in a future post.

Continuous Shooting

The EOS 1000D has the ability to take up to three photos per second (or 1.5 per second when storing the RAW pictures). I found this feature invaluable when I was attempting to take photos of fast moving objects (such as the seagull photos you can see on page two of the album here).

I have to say that having a continuous shooting mode was a very new experience to me. Although I am very new to the SLR world, I can see many cases where this would be beneficial. This includes taking photos of fast-moving objects, photos of rapidly changing scenes, or photos where a rapid sequence is desired such as sporting events, or when children are running around.

I am sure this must come as a standard on most digital SLRs, but as this is the first one I have used all I can say is I LOVE it.

Features I have used

The EOS 1000D comes with 12 different modes and I will cover some of the most important modes progressively in my coming posts. The one that I wanted to try first was “TV”, which is for the Shutter Priority mode and is primarily aimed at capturing fast-moving objects such as cars, birds and water. Due to my brilliant memory I accidentally took a lot of the initial shots on the “AV” mode. The “AV” mode is the Aperture Priority mode and is used for changing the depth of field of a photo. For those of us who do not understand photography lingo (like me), this provides the ability to take photos where a single object is in focus in the foreground while the whole background is blurred (or vice versa).

Eventually I had to leave my geeky roots behind and consult the manual to really get my head around the features. After a few runs of trial and error and re-reading the corresponding sections of the manual I started to really get the hang of the “TV” function. As I mentioned it was the one I wanted to get my head around first. As I hope you will be able to see in the album of photos taken I was able to fine tune my techniques with this feature as the day progressed.

While I was learning the different features I found that the camera was quite responsive. For example, in the “TV” mode the aperture size value in the viewfinder would flash if the shutter speed was set to a value too high to allow enough light in for a successful photo. Also when I was using the manual focus, the camera provided several forms of audible and visual feedback to let me know when I had acquired the correct focus. The EOS 1000 D really does get points once again for ease of use, I found the feedback invaluable when learning what I should be doing and what I really should not be doing.

My Trip to Manly

As mentioned earlier you can see all the photos in my Secluded Habitat Manly Album, however as they are five pages long I thought I would include a couple here with some descriptions to give a bit of insight into them. If you click on any of the photos you will be able to see several larger versions.

As I was leaving Circular Quay, I managed to get this lovely shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with several sailing boats in front of it. I had to wait for just the right moment to get a few boats in front of it but I have to say I think this one came out really well. I was really happy that I was able to capture the wonder of the harbour on a sunny Sydney day.

To get these above two shots was not easy to tell you the truth, as the Seagulls were flying past quite quickly I went through a lot of shots before I managed to get these two beauties. Using the “TV” mode I was able to capture them in an instant and I feel that they have come out very clearly, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on what you think of these.

These final two photos are the two that I was really hoping to get when I ventured out on Sunday. I have always wanted to be able to capture a moment in time down to the last drop of water and the EOS 1000D did not disappoint. I was really surprised at how easy it was to get these photos with the 1000D. I have a few techniques to perfect but for a first attempt I thought I did pretty well.

So what are your thoughts, do you like my photos, are there any questions you have about the Canon EOS 1000D that you would like to ask and I can try to answer by trial and error? I look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts.

Stuart

Full Quality Examples

If you would like to get some full quality examples of the photos I have taken (as they were downsized and downsampled automatically for my gallery) you can get seven of my favourites as a single zip file here. Please note that the zip file is ~37MB.