Tuesday, March 31, 2009


Canon EOS 500D (Digital Rebel T1i / Kiss X3 Digital) Preview
March 2009, Richard Butler and Lars Rehm


Preview based on a pre-production Canon EOS 500D

Just 14 months after the launch of the EOS Rebel XSi (450D), Canon has unveiled its successor, the Rebel T1i (500D). It's the fifth generation of Rebel and enters the market at a difficult time - in the midst of a global economic downturn and against the fiercest competition we've ever seen in the entry-level DSLR sector. So what has Canon done to make this latest model in the longest-established family in the sector live up to the edgy and exciting image implied by its US naming?

The 500D/T1i doesn't quite have to be the everyman camera that its predecessors were. The introduction of the Rebel XS (1000D) in June 2008 means the T1i no longer has to appeal to everybody who doesn't want to stretch to buying into the 50D class. As a result, the 450D was able to bulk up its feature set to include a selection of features that price-conscious shoppers don't necessarily realize they want, such as a larger viewfinder and spot metering. The result was probably the most complete Rebel we'd seen.

There's a full explanation of the differences between the 500D/T1i and it predecessor on the coming pages but, in general terms, it's a gentle re-working of the 450D. So you get the 15MP sensor much like the one that appears in the 50D, helping this to become the first entry-level DSLR to feature video (and 1080p HD video at that). You also get the lovely 920,000 dot VGA monitor that has been slowly working its way down most manufacturer's DSLR line-ups. There are a handful of other specification tweaks that come from the use of the latest Digic 4 processor but essentially this is most of a 50D stuffed into the familiar 450D body.

And, if the loss of the letter 'X' from the US name seems a bit disconcerting, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that the Japanese market will still know it by the odd-to-European-ears 'Kiss X3 Digital.' For simplicity's sake, we'll refer to the 500D/T1i/Kiss X3 by the name 500D throughout the rest of the preview.

A brief history; Canon entry level digital SLR series

* The Canon EOS 1000D represents a sub-class of the Rebel series and hence should be considered a parallel series

Foreword / notes

If you're new to digital photography you may wish to read some of our Digital Photography Glossary before diving into this article (it may help you understand some of the terms used).

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Dpreview use calibrated monitors at the PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally also A, B and C.http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canoneos500d/

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