Canon EOS 350D Digital Rebel

In keeping with my standard test policy, the comments given here summarize only my key findings. For full details on each of the test images, see the Canon Digital Rebel XT's "pictures" page. You can also find a more detailed commentary on key aspects of the Rebel XT's image quality on the Canon Rebel XT In-Depth Image Analysis page.

For a look at some more pictorial photos from this camera, check out our Canon Digital Rebel XT Photo Gallery.

Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the Canon Digital Rebel XT with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!

• Color: Very good color, generally good white balance, good saturation control. Throughout my testing, the Canon Rebel XT delivered very good color. Technically, it showed excellent hue accuracy, and good saturation. Reds were a bit oversaturated, but not as much as is common with most consumer digital cameras. Greens and blues were also slightly hot (although not very much), and the yellow swatch on the MacBeth(tm) target was a bit undersaturated. Still, overall accuracy was very good, and skin tones were quite natural. The XT's saturation adjustment covered a photographically useful range in nice-sized steps, and had relatively little effect on contrast, something not all cameras manage to achieve. The Rebel XT's white balance system did a very good job with most of my test lighting, but it had trouble with household incandescent lighting in both Auto and Incandescent modes. The Manual white balance option covered a very broad range of lighting conditions though. Overall, I was very pleased by the XT's color handling, but would like to see it do better in Auto mode with incandescent light sources.
  
  
• Exposure: Accurate exposure, excellent contrast control. The Canon Rebel XT exposed my tests shots well, usually requiring about as much exposure compensation as usual, on the shots that typically require it. One exception was my "Sunlit Portrait Test," where the XT needed only +0.3 EV of boost, compared to the 0.7 - 1.0 EV that is more typical. The Rebel XT also showed really excellent dynamic range, preserving detail far into the shadows with minimal image noise, while at the same time holding onto highlight detail better than most cameras I test. The XT's contrast adjustment control deserves particular mention, doing an excellent job of adjusting the contrast up or down across a fairly wide range, with very little impact on color saturation. With the contrast adjustment at the low end of its range, the Rebel XT did a much better than average job at handling the extreme dynamic range of the Sunlit Portrait Test: You'd almost swear that I'd used different, much more forgiving lighting on that shot, the tonality was so good in it. On a technical basis, Imatest gave the Rebel XT a weighted-average dynamic range rating of 9.57 f-stops, and ratings of 9.24 stops for "Medium" image quality and 8.23 stops for "Medium-High" quality final images. These are all excellent ratings.
  
  
• Resolution/Sharpness: Fairly high resolution, 1,600 lines of "strong detail." The Canon Digital Rebel XT delivered good results on the laboratory resolution test, with "strong detail" out to about 1,600 lines per picture height, in both the horizontal and vertical directions. (Some reviewers will no doubt claim higher numbers for it, as there's a lot of activity in the chart beyond the 1,600 line level, but it's essentially all aliasing and artifacts beyond 1,600 lines, so that's where I called it.) "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until right around 2,000 lines. The "Kit" lens generally does a very good job, particularly for such an inexpensive optic. It does tend to get a little soft at the telephoto end of its range, at small apertures though.
  
  
• Image Noise: Really excellent noise performance. Canon's CMOS active-sensor technology and DiGIC image processing have always done very well for them in the noise department, and the Rebel XT is no exception. Noise was pretty much invisible at ISO 200 and below, and could be seen at ISO 400 only by scrutinizing the blue channel in isolation. At ISO 800, noise crept up somewhat, and increased again at ISO 1600, but the ISO 1600 shots looked great, even when printed at 13 x 19 inches on our Canon i9900 studio printer. This is a camera that you'll be able to shoot at ISO 1600 with relative impunity, unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool "noise fanatic." Even if you fall into that tortured cohort, you'll be hard pressed to find any fault whatsoever with shots captured as high as ISO 400.
  
  
• Closeups: Average macro performance with the "kit" lens. Flash throttles down well, but lighting is a little uneven at closest focus. While macro performance with the Rebel XT will be entirely a function of the lens you happen to use with it, a majority of people will probably be using the 18-55mm "kit" lens that's shipped in bundled versions. With that lens attached, minimum macro area was 2.75 x 1.83 inches (70 x 46 millimeters), about average among the consumer digital cameras I test. The flash throttled down quite well at closest approach, but its position high above the lens led to some light falloff across the frame, from top to bottom. You'll probably want to use external lighting for your closest macro shots, but the Rebel XT is a competent macro performer, even with the only-average kit lens attached.
  
  
• Night Shots: Excellent low-light performance, with fairly low noise and good color. Very good for average city night scenes and a good bit darker. Excellent low-light focusing ability, but AF-assist forces use of the flash. The Canon Rebel XT is a really excellent low-light shooter. Its autofocus system will work (albeit slowly, make sure the camera doesn't move the least bit) at light levels as low as 1/16 foot-candle, about four stops darker than typical city street lighting. With the camera's flash pressed into service as a (very bright) AF assist light, it can focus and shoot in total darkness. (Note though, that it's focusing for available light shots is limited to 1/16 foot-candle because the flash must be enabled for the AF assist to operate. That is, you can't focus darker than 1/16 foot-candle unless you turn on the flash.) Image noise is excellent as well.
  
  
• Viewfinder Accuracy: Average accuracy for an SLR viewfinder. With a frame coverage of 95%, the Canon Rebel XT shows about average viewfinder accuracy for a digital SLR. (I just don't understand why manufacturers can't routinely make SLR viewfinders 100% accurate, or at least get close to that level.)
  
  
• Optical Distortion: Average barrel distortion at wide angle, very little distortion at telephoto with the "kit" lens. Moderate chromatic aberration at wide angle, low at telephoto, better than average corner sharpness. (Distortion is entirely a function of the lens used, so I don't generally include a report of it in my SLR reviews. Since the Canon 350D will in many cases be sold with the 18-55mm "kit" lens, I felt it would be important to report results measured with it here.) Geometric distortion with the Rebel XT's "kit" lens is about average at the wide-angle end, where I measured approximately 0.85 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared much better, as I found only 0.14 percent barrel distortion (about one pixel) there. Chromatic aberration was low to moderate at wide angle, low at telephoto. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.) Corners of its images were much sharper than average at wide angle, average to a bit softer than average at telephoto.
  
  
• Shutter Lag and Cycle Time: Autofocus speed about the same as the previous Rebel, but significant speed gains in every other parameter. Shooting speed is one area where improvements in the new Canon Digital Rebel XT relative to the original Rebel are most apparent. Autofocus speed is roughly the same, but essentially every other measure of performance shows significant improvement over the prior model. The feature existing Rebel users will most appreciate/envy is the XT's much greater buffer depth, shooting as many as 13 large/fine images before having to wait for the memory card to catch up. Once the buffer is full, the XT also writes to the memory card much faster as well, emptying a full buffer in just nine seconds, compared to about 17 seconds in the earlier model. While the resolution increase in the XT may not be enough to get current Rebel owners to upgrade, the increase in shooting speed very well might.
  
  
• Battery Life: Very good battery life. The EOS 350D uses a rechargeable NB-2LH battery pack for power, and comes with a battery charger. You'll need to purchase the AC adapter kit ACK-E2 if you need to run the camera from AC power. Because it uses a non-standard power connector (a "dummy battery"), I couldn't conduct my usual tests of power consumption on it, so we're forced to rely on Canon's published battery-life numbers. Despite its use of a smaller, lower-capacity battery, the power savings from Canon's new Digic-II processor chip are great enough that overall battery life is very similar to that of the original Rebel. Based on the CIPA battery-life standard, Canon rates battery capacity at 600 shots without use of the flash, or 400 shots when the flash is used on roughly half of the shots.
  
  
• Print Quality: Excellent prints at 13x19 inches and larger. (Some sharpening in the computer helps though.) Very low noise, ISO 1600 shots look good even at 13x19. Testing hundreds of digital cameras, we've found that you can only tell just so much about a camera's image quality by viewing its images on-screen. Ultimately, there's no substitute for printing a lot of images and examining them closely. For this reason, we now routinely print sample images from the cameras we test on our Canon i9900 studio printer, and on the Canon iP5000 here in the office. (See our Canon i9900 review for details on that model.) Prints from the Rebel XT look just beautiful at the 13x19 inch maximum paper size on our i9900, and judging from how clean they appeared at that size, could be blown up a fair bit larger and still hold together quite nicely. Like many Canon cameras, the in-camera sharpening of the XT is rather conservative (a wise approach that insures no detail is lost to overzealous sharpening), but the result is that its images have a bit of a soft look straight from the camera. A little work in Photoshop(tm) crisps things up nicely though, revealing an amazing level of detail. The harshest tests of print size re always high-ISO shots, but here again the XT came through with flying colors. ISO 1600 shots printed at 13x19 were noticeably grainy, but with most subjects (and viewers), you won't really be able to see it at viewing distances greater than about 18 inches or so. Printed at 8x10, ISO 1600 noise just won't be an issue at all, for any but the most extreme anti-noise fanatics. A very impressive performance.

Conclusion

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The original Canon EOS Digital Rebel made waves in the digital SLR marketplace, offering professional-level features and control at a very low price. Now, the new Canon Digital Rebel XT brings dramatic improvements across the board, with better resolution and speed, and myriad improvements in camera operation and user control. In almost every parameter, the Canon Rebel XT offers significant enhancements beyond the original model, while maintaining the same (original) list price. Despite its advanced feature set, the Canon Rebel XT manages to span the full range of user needs, from the pure point & shoot user interested only in "green zone" operation to the professional looking for an inexpensive second body. As such, it's a nearly ideal option for families or other situations in which users of greatly varying experience levels need to share the same camera. My one biggest gripe with the camera will be some users' favorite feature: The small (tiny) hand grip. While I found shooting with the camera an infuriating exercise in frustration and crunched fingertips, women who picked up the camera immediately loved how it felt in their hands. My advice to ham-handed shooters like myself would be to pick up the optional battery grip. While not doing much for horizontal-format shooting, the battery grip makes for a very comfortable experience when shooting vertical-format images, and generally gives the camera a better sense of balance, at least in my experience. All in all, the Canon Digital Rebel XT is a technological tour de force, delivered in a tiny, attractive package, and with a set of user controls that are equally approachable by novices and professional shooters. Highly recommended, and a shoo-in as a Dave's Pick.

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