Buying a Rebel

[Norfindel]

Hello,

In the next few weeks i plan to buy a digital rebel, and i want to know what things to check to ensure the camera is ok, and don't get any suprises later. Could you give me any advice? Thank you.

[meeksdigital]

will you be buying the new rebel 350/XT or the older 6.3 megapixel digital rebel?

[Norfindel]

The 300D, the "old" one.

Oh, just to give more data: i'm new to digital photography, but not to SLRs.

[meeksdigital]

can i ask why you are getting the older rebel? you can get the new 8 megapixel rebel for like 200 bucks more now. its well worth it.

[Michael Fanelli]

Hello,

In the next few weeks i plan to buy a digital rebel, and i want to know what things to check to ensure the camera is ok, and don't get any suprises later. Could you give me any advice? Thank you.

There are those people who spend their time doing all sorts of "tests" looking for problems. My suggestion is to just take lots of photos. If you don't see a problem, it doesn't exist!

[Stephen Lutz]

I have the (original) 300D digital Rebel, and it was surprise free. It did exactly what I expected it to, with its specs. No image problems, no real operational problems at all. Frankly, with the 350D on the market, the 300 is a "crippled" design. There is no flash exposure compensation on the 300D, for example. Read the www.dpreview.com review for a fuller explanation of the differences.

I tricked my 300D out with the hacked software, and I suggest the same to you if you stick with a 300D. More info on the hack can be found here:

http://www.bahneman.com/liem/photos/...el-tricks.html

All in all, the 300D is a pleasant camera to own and operate and I am in no hurry to replace it. I'm sure I will, at some point, but there is no burning need to, IMO.

[Janie]

I love my rebel - I have not had any problems with it other than user error! lol Just remember to always check your white balance, but that is with most SLRs anyway.

Stephen - tell me more about this trickery! I want to trick out my camera! What sort of things did you do to make it even better?

[meeksdigital]

i had the rebel for about a year before i got sick of it. its a decent camera, but there are quite a few problems with it. exposure varies in burst mode, there is no flash exposure compensation, and the white balance sucks. theres no reason to get a camera that you HAVE to hack the firmware on to make it a camera worth keeping. I have a 20D now, and i am very very pleased with it. im sure the rebel XT will be a huge improvement over the original rebel.

[Stephen Lutz]

I love my rebel - I have not had any problems with it other than user error! lol Just remember to always check your white balance, but that is with most SLRs anyway.

Stephen - tell me more about this trickery! I want to trick out my camera! What sort of things did you do to make it even better?

Basically, the software hack enables some software features that were purposely left disabled by Canon. The 10D and 300D share a common software platform, so Canon "turned off" some software features. The ones I use most on my 300D are Flash Exposure Compensation and ISO 3200.

Here's the link to the download site.


http://satinfo.*********/en/index.html

[Norfindel]

Thank you for the replies, specially the software hack. It's good to know it's there if i need it.

I currently are using a zenith 35mm slr, and don't do that much photography to really need the 350d features. Besides of that, here the local currency is about 3 x u$s dollar, and the 200 increment really makes the price go high. But i think the 300d will really satisfy my needs, and want to move to digital, avoiding the "point and shoot" cameras, i would really hate not being able to tell the camera how i want the picture taken.

[meeksdigital]

fair enough. enjoy