Canon EOS 350D

...been relatively happy with my Canon A300 camera (putting up with a few minor annoyances) as it produced great pictures for what I need. I take pictures just for personal use. My brother however recently bought this, the Canon EOS 350D and after seeing the exceptional results I couldn't help but have a play round with it (all in the name of research!)

HANDLING
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙
...this and it's predecessor the Canon Eos 300D. It now feels more robust, slightly lighter and more compact. Infact one of the first things I noticed about this camera was how small it was. It is bigger than your regular digital camera but for these kind of proffesional ones it's small enough for even me with my tiny hands to operate easily. The rubber grip is harder and the mode dial is metal. All in all this feels like a well built camera.
... more

I had been relatively happy with my Canon A300 camera (putting up with a few minor annoyances) as it produced great pictures for what I need. I take pictures just for personal use. My brother however recently bought this, the Canon EOS 350D and after seeing the exceptional results I couldn't help but have a play round with it (all in the name of research!)

HANDLING
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

Picking the camera up for the first time, it's easy to feel the difference between this and it's predecessor the Canon Eos 300D. It now feels more robust, slightly lighter and more compact. Infact one of the first things I noticed about this camera was how small it was. It is bigger than your regular digital camera but for these kind of proffesional ones it's small enough for even me with my tiny hands to operate easily. The rubber grip is harder and the mode dial is metal. All in all this feels like a well built camera.

LOOKS
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

This looks like a proffessional camera but is still compact and small enough to be easy for anyone to handle. This isn't one you can fit in your handbag on a night out but isn't something that you need big man hands to operate! However if you do have huge hands then the compact size of this camera could be a downside for you.

It's mainly black with a few bits of grey, silver and white on it. The flash pops up at the top and it has a big lens on the front (think paparazzi style!)

There is a mode dial, which is also the on/off switch located on the top of the camera which is easy to operate with even the smallest of thumbs. While your thumb can rest here or around the back of the camera your index finger can sit comfortably on the shutter release button so you're prepared to take your picture. Just behind this is your selection dial which is used for things like operating the menu. Your auto focus is just around the back, at the top right hand corner and is very easy to operate with your thumb.

There is a screen on the back which is roughly (according to my ruler!) 4cm by 2.5 cm. These measurements are just a guide and are not definately accurate. This makes the screen just a bit bigger than the screen on the A300 despite the fact the camera is on the whole a lot bigger. It is a decent size though and is probably about average for all digital cameras. The LCD screen is quite good quality but can be difficult to see in bright sunlight.

Above this is a smaller screen that tells you details of what settings you have on and how much battery life you have left etc. There is also a button for a backlight for this bit so you can always read this bit should you want to.

There is also a set of keys set out in a circle, quite similar to the ones on the A300, these can be used for navigating the menus or for quick access to certain modes. These keys are fully custumisable.

One dissapointing aspect is the view finder is tiny and there is no ISO (equivalent of film speed) information displayed there. However it is bareable. Unlike most digital cameras you do have to use the viewfinder, you can't use the LCD screen to view what you are taking a picture of. This is probably as the camera is a bit more proffessional and it does greatly improve battery life but the option would be nice.

RANGE OF FEATURES
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

Canon have managed to improve many of the features on this camera. This camera packs so many features it's hard to give them all the mention they deserve but I'll try to give a breif overview - they are all brilliant..

It has the usual Canon shooting modes these include standard which are: portrait, landscape, macro, sports and night, which are all fairly self explaintory and also the creative zones which I will try my best to explain!

Programme AE
◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘

This is automatic exposure, which exposes the picture so that the colours look as you see them in real life. This is much better than on my A300 which over exposes (making the picture far to light and bright) the minute you get a millimeter to close to your subject!

Tv
◘◘◘◘

This is shutter priority mode, it allows you to select a faster or slower shutter speed depending on the type of shot you want. The faster the shutter speed the quicker the photo will be taken therefore a moving subject shot with a slow shutter speed would appear blurred, however the same moving subject shot with a fast shutter speed would appear to be frozen in time. Examples of fast moving subjects taken at slow shutter speeds are the pictures of the motorway and stream attatched to this review (taken by my brother).

Av
◘◘◘◘

This is apeture priority mode which allows you to select the apature size. This is the size of the hole that lets light onto the CMOS (the part that captures the image). The size of the apature directly relates to how much of the foreground and background remain in focus.

A-DEP
◘◘◘◘◘◘◘◘

This is automatic depth of field. It will automatically adjust apature and shutter speed to make sure nearest and furthest points in the picture remain in focus. There is a depth of field preview button near the lens this wil provide a preview of the depth of field (range of focus).

M
◘◘◘◘

This is full manual control. This is for independent control of the features Tv and Av. For example if you adjust the Tv (shutter priority) it will automatically adjust the Av (apature size) so you don't over or under expose. Manual is useful if you want to deliberately over or under expose for a particular effect.

All these are aswell as many customisable settings plus loads loads more features such as the way the camera removes the mirror inside it 2 seconds before the picture is taken to help eliminate camera shake for long exposures.

SPEED
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

One thing that sets this apart from other cameras is how fast it is! If you've read my A300 review you'll know that the worst thing I found with it was the delay between pressing the button, it focusing and it actually taking a picture. When you are wanting to take pictures of baby's smiles you need the camera to take the picture now, not in a few seconds when that smile is gone! That isn't a problem here this camera is fast, very fast. When the camera is off you can press the on button and the button to take the picture at the same time (this is easy to do with the camera being so compact) it will only take 0.2 seconds to take your picture! 0.2 seconds from the camera being off to you having taken the picture you want is unbelievably quick. It's less than a second, what more can you want? It couldn't be faster! It has super fast continuous shooting speeds, with upto 3 frames per second and upto a 14 frame burst. This is particularly useful if you don't want to miss that special moment or for photographing wildlife.

FOCUS
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

It has a 7 point TTL Autofocus which is basically when you look through the veiw finder it has 7 little boxes with a dot in the middle. The dot where the red light is flashing is where the camera will focus, you can change this to any one of the seven boxes. It basically gives you more options of where you can focus in the picture. It might sound confusing, but once you actually have the camera in your hands it all becomes apparent.

It also has 3 autofocus modes which are very fast and accurate and so produce great effects for those who aren't so confident using manual focus which this camera also has. The modes of autofocus cover every eventuality, for example, one mode is particularly good for sports as it will keep autofocusing even though your subjects will be moving. No blurs here! Whether you're a proffessional or a complete novice it would be hard to go wrong with this in your hands.

PICTURE QUALITY
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

For those of you who don't know (and don't worry neither did I until recently!) the CMOS Sensor is the part of the camera which replaces the film in your olden day cameras! It's the bit that captures the image and can make all the difference in the quality of picture you get.

This camera boasts an all new CMOS sensor delivering a huge 8.0 megapixels, this really is huge and would produce amazing quality pictures. My A300 is 3.2 megapixels and until now I was amazed at how great the pictures from that camera turned out. The images here would be a good match to those produced by the 20D (which is the camera in this range that is supposed to be better than this one). It produces vibrant punchy pictures that contain so much detail and accuracy that it would be hard to not be pleased with the results. When looking at your pictures on your computer if you zoom in enough you can see the lines of blood in your eyes and the pores on your skin - that is detail for you!

If the CMOS sensor is the part of the camera that captures the image then it goes hand in hand with Canon's DIGIC II proccessing (taken from Canon's Pro Series DSLR's) which converts the capture into digital information. This gives noise (grain etc) free images from ISO 100, 200 and 400, and very low noise upto ISO 1600. ISO is the equivalent of film speed on your olden days cameras!

It saves pictures in two different file formats, JPEG (which you may be familiar with, most pictures on your computer will be JPEGS) and RAW (which is the digital equivalent of a film negative). The JPEG output is comparable to the RAW output, offering dual format shooting of RAW and Large JPG.

There's almost no discernible noise for long exposures, however Canon have included a noise reduction mode,although neither me nor my brother have had the need to use it yet.

MEMORY
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

This takes type one and type two CF cards which are easily available although this was not supplied with the card which is slightly dissapointing considering how much you are spending on the camera, although they probably presume if you are into photography you will already have a CF card of some description and Jessops actually through my brother in one for free when he asked. You can get CF cards up to around 2GB which would store over 500 amazing quality pictures in large JPEG format, although it would store a considerably reduced amount in the RAW format. You can pick up a CF card of this size for £145 which is a lot of money but at the other end of the scale you can pick up 256MB ones for under £20 so there's something to suit everyones needs (and pockets!) here.

What's great about using these CF cards is although your picture will be of proffessional quality you can get them devolped for exactly the same price as your regular digital camera pictures like from your A300. It would cost about 10p a print to get developed if you're having 50 or more pictures developed (this offer is always on in Boots).

BATTERY
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

The battery life is exceptional, it does at least 150 shots before it needs recharging so you are unlikely to have it run out on you at that crucial moment! It's also smaller, lighter and lasts longer than the 300D. I prefer cameras that run off a battery like this as my A300 runs off AA batteries which run out really quickly and can cost a small fortune (as well as run out at in opertune times!). Should your battery run out it should charge up in roughly 2-3 hours.

LENS
◙◙◙◙◙◙

This camera is compatible with all Canon EF lenses made to date, including the new EF-S range.

SOFTWARE
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

The sofware supplied is now the same as that previously only offered with Canon's Pro Series DSLR's.

The pictures are fast to transfer to the computer (although this may also great depend on your computer) and the camera comes supplied with a lead to connect to your computer so that you can view the pictures you've taken easily (although they may take up a bit of disk space!).

There is also software that comes with that allows you to control your camera from your computer!

DURABILITY
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

So far we've had no problems with this. It has been used out in rain and various temperatures and coped with it fine. We haven't dropped it and risking that was going too far in the name of research so I can't really comment on that although like I say it does look robust.

INSTRUCTION MANUAL
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

This is set out clearly and is very easy to use and understand. It give guidance for how to take pictures but if you want to get the most out of the camera you would be better off purchasing a seperate book to tell you how to create different effects etc. It is more than satifsfactory for an instruction manual though.

VERDICT
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

I am no camera expert, although my brother did do a fair bit of research before splashing out money on a camera and from what I know I believe this to be the best Digital SLR in it's price range. It offers image quality comparable to those produced by cameras around £1000 - £1100. The image quality, build quality and features you get for your money are exceptional value for money.

Whether you're a budding photographer, or a camera novice you will be able to take amazing pictures with this. If you don't feel comfortable with all the features it is easy to use just turning it on and taking the picture like any other camera, it has a mode where you just aim and shoot and this will still give you a brilliant quiality image. However, even if your technology shy, with practise you should be able to pick up how to use a lot of the features and produce some outstanding results.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

Ours was purchased from Jessops but you should be able to pick one of these up from any Camera specialist. For the main body of the camera it costs £650 and if you want a lens (and yes, you do want a lens!) you're looking at a total of £700 for the body and a 18-55mm lens. Obviously this isn't small change but when you think that it compares in picture quality with those at over £1000 this might be the camera to splash out on.

READ/RATES/COMMENTS APPRECIATED!
◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

I have tried my very best to include everything I can think of, including both all the technical details you may want to know if you are looking into purchasing this camera, to explaining what these things are in 'real' terms for those who don't understand the technicalities!

I hope I've covered everything here and if I haven't or you can think of anyways I can improve the review please let me know and I'll update! 

...less