Officially Hooked
September 19th, 2006 by Jerry
I’ve been reading up on the new Canon Digital Rebel XTi (400D), and I’ve decided it’s going at the top of my list. It has many features of the 30D at $400 less (or lower, depending on the store). I’ve cleaned up my current Rebel (300D), and I’m ready to trade it in. So if you’re interested in a good deal on a great used camera body, let me know. (You can’t have my lenses, sorry.) I’ll probably aim for Thanksgiving/Christmas time, so that my extra income can accumulate, but I will wait until my trusty drebel has a good home. (Drebel is my nickname for it, since the other non-digital “rebels” were common at the time.)
I’m not so snobby that I have to go for the 30D or better. Inside their magnesium alloy bodies and sturdier construction lies the same sensor, apart from the 2 extra megapixels in the XTi, the same firmware (practically – every Canon camera is different), and now almost the same performance. The alloy body, slight bump in speed, and name aren’t worth $400+ to me. In the very long-term, I might consider a full-frame 35mm camera, like the 5D, since the larger sensor size alone makes the quality of the images much better. With a smaller sensor, fewer photons hit the sensor to contribute to the image, and as I found out from my photon-tracing illumination research, fewer photons means more noise. But such a camera is in the distant future for me.
So let me know if you’re interested in a digital SLR body. I’ve taken pretty good care of it, and apart from scratches and wear-and-tear on the outside, it works perfectly. The sensor and memory card slot are still in excellent condition. I prefer not to ebay it (I don’t think my account is even still active), and I prefer that it is well-loved by its next owner.
Why am I upgrading at all, if my current camera does a good job? It’s not for the megapixels – I never print anything bigger than what my current Rebel allows. It’s not for the latest-thing factor – I’ve passed up lots of other Canon cameras: Rebel XT (350D), 20D, 30D, 5D (haha).. Simply put, the original digital Rebel is slow. It takes almost 2 seconds for the camera to be ready to shoot after you flip the power switch or wake it up from its sleep. This has only been a problem a few times, since I learned to keep tapping a button to keep it awake and ready, but it could be the difference between getting a shot and missing a shot. Also, the image buffer is pretty small. This means that after taking 3 or 4 shots, the camera has to wait before taking the next shot, so that the first shot can be written to the card. The XTi’s startup time of 0.2 seconds and buffer that allows 27 consecutive JPEG shots or 10 consecutive RAW shots is enough for me to upgrade. I’ve been fine with what my drebel has given me, and I haven’t missed that many shots because of the startup time or the buffer, but I’ve gotten good use out of the drebel, and the bang-to-buck ratio of an upgrade is higher than ever.