Canon EOS 300D / Digital Rebel / Kiss Digital Review: Digital Photography Review

Compared to... D-SLR's

Studio scene comparison

This is our standard studio scene comparison shot taken from exactly the same tripod position within minutes of each other. Lighting: 2 x 800W studio lights with dichroic daylight filters bounced off a white ceiling reflector. Crops magnified 200%.

Canon EOS 300D vs. Canon EOS 10D

To produce a closer comparison we created a custom image parameter set on the EOS 10D of (Contrast +1, Sharpness +2, Saturation +1). This new parameter set use on the EOS 10D is approximately equivalent to the EOS 300D's "Parameter 1".

Camera settings

Canon EOS 300D: Canon EF 50 mm F1.4, Aperture Priority, ISO 100, JPEG Large/Fine,
Auto WB, Default Parameter 1 (Contrast +1, Sharpness +1, Saturation +1)
Canon EOS 10D: Canon EF 50 mm F1.4, Aperture Priority, ISO 100, JPEG Large/Fine,
Auto WB, Parameter Set 1 (Contrast +1, Sharpness +2, Saturation +1)

Canon EOS 300D	Canon EOS 10D
ISO 100, 1 sec, F10	ISO 100, 1 sec, F10

2,577 KB JPEG (3072 x 2048)	2,250 KB JPEG (3072 x 2048)

Spot the difference. Yes, it's almost impossible, the only noticeable difference is that the EOS 10D made a better job of automatic white balance. Apart from that color response, tonal response, resolution and sharpness are identical. This is hardly surprising as the EOS 300D uses the same sensor and image processing algorithms (or at least very very similar). Colors are good and about as true to the original scene as my eye can tell, resolution is very good as is sharpness and of course because these were taken at ISO 100 they have that trademark Canon CMOS 'silky smooth' noise free look.

It is worth noting however that the EOS 300D image does appear to have more noticeable 'strange dots' than the EOS 10D image, these are a side effect we have only ever seen in images taken by Canon D-SLR's with Canon's CMOS sensor.