500D arrived, first impressions and pics ;-)

Lupti

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Today I got my EOS 500D. Yesterday I sold my old 20D.

500D was around 790 € with kit lens. I already have a 18-55mm IS, but the body only wasn´t available and costs only 20 € less.

First impressions:

The LCD - wow! Amazing, really. It´s so beautifully sharp and bright, my 30D display really stinks compared to it. Manual focussing is no problem with this display.

The body - although it isn´t a x0D camera, it feels solid and good. There are enough buttons for good control.

Liveview - really useful. AF is pretty slow, however it´s very accurate.

Movie mode - yes, one reason I bought it because it has a movie mode. The quality is superb and smashes most camcorders. Sound is only Mono but also very good.

Manual focussing is no problem, AF is too slow and screwdriver lenses make too much noise.

Movie quality is much better as this one from the Nikon D90. The 500D don´t has the wobbling issue and I don´t noticed the rolling shutter issue, too.

So, let´s come to the stills ;-) . Files are really big. RAW is around 20-27MB each one, even the JPEGs can be around 9MB big. Funny the JPEGs are bigger than the RAWs of my old trusty 30D.

RAW processing with DPP is fine, however even the JPEGs out of the camera look fine. The combination of HTP and ALO gives me good images I don´t need to PP because they are bright enough and I don´t need to recover highlights.(HT works only between ISO200-3200)

Metering is a bit too enthusiastic, I think -0,3 or -0,7 would be good to avoid overexposured images.

ISO12800 is a nice option for very bad light conditions. IQ is ok with a little bit NR. I don´t think that anyone is going to print big prints from ISO12800 shots, however ISO12800 still looks better than a lot of compact cameras at base ISO, really.

I will test around these days with this new camera, I think I have to buy some new memory cards because I only have some old SD cards and my only class 6 SDHC card has only 4GB. This camera eats up disk space very fast.

Some samples with 17-40mm L(all JPEGs from camera, only resized, first one a bit cropped):









--
You made a picture...fine!
 
Today I got my EOS 500D. Yesterday I sold my old 20D.
500D was around 790 € with kit lens. I already have a 18-55mm IS, but
the body only wasn´t available and costs only 20 € less.

First impressions:

The LCD - wow! Amazing, really. It´s so beautifully sharp and bright,
my 30D display really stinks compared to it. Manual focussing is no
problem with this display.

The body - although it isn´t a x0D camera, it feels solid and good.
There are enough buttons for good control.

Liveview - really useful. AF is pretty slow, however it´s very accurate.

Movie mode - yes, one reason I bought it because it has a movie mode.
The quality is superb and smashes most camcorders. Sound is only Mono
but also very good.
Manual focussing is no problem, AF is too slow and screwdriver lenses
make too much noise.
Movie quality is much better as this one from the Nikon D90. The 500D
don´t has the wobbling issue and I don´t noticed the rolling shutter
issue, too.

So, let´s come to the stills ;-) . Files are really big. RAW is
around 20-27MB each one, even the JPEGs can be around 9MB big. Funny
the JPEGs are bigger than the RAWs of my old trusty 30D.
RAW processing with DPP is fine, however even the JPEGs out of the
camera look fine. The combination of HTP and ALO gives me good images
I don´t need to PP because they are bright enough and I don´t need to
recover highlights.(HT works only between ISO200-3200)
Metering is a bit too enthusiastic, I think -0,3 or -0,7 would be
good to avoid overexposured images.
ISO12800 is a nice option for very bad light conditions. IQ is ok
with a little bit NR. I don´t think that anyone is going to print big
prints from ISO12800 shots, however ISO12800 still looks better than
a lot of compact cameras at base ISO, really.

I will test around these days with this new camera, I think I have to
buy some new memory cards because I only have some old SD cards and
my only class 6 SDHC card has only 4GB. This camera eats up disk
space very fast.

Some samples with 17-40mm L(all JPEGs from camera, only resized,
first one a bit cropped):









--
You made a picture...fine!
Thanks for your impressions and some photos. What ISO was the cat shot at?
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_degilio/

Tim.
Canon A560
Canon G10 with 4GB Class 6 SDHC Memory Card
Canon SD870IS with 1 GB Sandisk and 2GB Kingston Memory Card
Sony H-50 with 1GB, 2GB, & 4GB Mark ll Memory Cards and Info-Lithium Battery
 
Congrats, Lupti!
Thanks for sharing!
--
Yogi

See my 'Profile' for my current equipment.
 
It was at ISO12800 with standard NR.

--
You made a picture...fine!
 
Thanks - I had luck, the kit costs now 862 € at Amazon, I saved 72 € ;-) ...

--
You made a picture...fine!
 
Very impressed at the 12800 - just the thought of that ISO is ridiculous and my
personal expectation would be pure mush for an image.

The photo is not spectacularly sharp, no... and I would never have expected one

shot at 12800 to be sharp, but the fact that it is most definitely useable with a
little noise reduction at that insane ISO is astounding.

Thanks for posting it!
 
Wow the cat pic is good at high iso and I like the little bird in the shot, a bit like the cats dream.

Glad I ordered a 500d with all the things you say about it (I've never even held a xxxd model before but I thought this one was a good point to enter this range).

Quite unusual that it doesn't seem to be getting a trashing. A good sign indeed.

Still planning to keep my old 20d though, well at least until the 80d or whatever.

Looking forward to perhaps a new fuji exr superzoom camera or LX4/G11 maybe also.

Can't wait until my 500d arrives as I've got some good lenses to try and I will hopefully experience a big quality jump from the 20d.

Thanks to Canon for great dSLR
 
Well, it was shot at F5, the 17-40mm L is better on smaller apertures. ISO12800 is always a compromise, however I was also surprised that the results were pretty good at these extreme settings.

--
You made a picture...fine!
 
Wow the cat pic is good at high iso and I like the little bird in the
shot, a bit like the cats dream.
Well, I didn´t noticed the bird, however this is funny indeed ;-) .
Glad I ordered a 500d with all the things you say about it (I've
never even held a xxxd model before but I thought this one was a good
point to enter this range).

Quite unusual that it doesn't seem to be getting a trashing. A good
sign indeed.
Yes, I think you will be happy with the 500D. I was never a friend of the Rebel line, 400D was too small for me, viewfinder to dark. 450D was ok, however the LCD resolution isn´t so good.

500D changed things, for me it´s a jack of all trades, takes good stills and movies.
Still planning to keep my old 20d though, well at least until the 80d
or whatever.

Looking forward to perhaps a new fuji exr superzoom camera or LX4/G11
maybe also.

Can't wait until my 500d arrives as I've got some good lenses to try
and I will hopefully experience a big quality jump from the 20d.

Thanks to Canon for great dSLR
I think you should keep your 20D as an backup body is always good.

I have an 30D and had the 20D, and the 500D replaced the 20D and my sucky little camcorder with it´s tiny 1/6" sensor.

500D is good as a camcorder, I prefer to have wideangle, good control over DOF and optical image stabilization instead of having a 30-40x zoom with a shaky long end. Can´t remember that I really needed 1400mm for videos, and at this focal lenght every breath causes a shake that looks like an earthquake on the videos.

--
You made a picture...fine!
 

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