euchreman
New member
On paper, this is the camera that I had been waiting for to get me to make the leap to DSLR photography after years of point-and-shoot photography (though many of the Canon P&S cameras that I've owned offered much of the same shutter/aperture controls that you get in DSLRs). I loved the 10-megapixel resolution and the anti-dust features. But like many people, I experienced sharpness and exposure issues, so I traded up to the 30D.
Problems:
When you pay $1500 for the Digital Rebel XTi and EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens, you expect to get good looking sharp images! But sadly, my shots were not even as sharp as my wimpy Canon SD300 point-and-shoot. It was just noticeably blurry. I tried it all all focal lengths, with and without a tripod, different lenses, still no difference. I eventually traded in the camera body for a new one. This time, I no longer had a sharpness problem, but I then started experiencing very inconsistent underexposure issues in Evaluative Metering mode when shooting JPEGs (sometimes needing 1/3 stop, sometimes needing +2/3 stop, sometimes it was perfect as is). I traded in the body once again and still got significant underexposure issues. Finally, I just gave up and took advantage of the $200 rebates to get a 30D, which exposes perfectly.
Phil Askey reported 3-5% underexposure, which I think most people would agree is not a big deal and hardly worth mentioning. Others (e.g. the-digital-picture.com) report a consistent 1/3 stop underexposure, and other users have reported anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 underexposure. This seems unacceptable to me. Just because it can be corrected using Exposure Compensation or post-processing doesn't mean that it shouldn't work. I have heard that this camera underexposes by design, and then I'm guessing that body-to-body variations lead to the different opinions. A lot of people seem very happy with the camera, so it's obviously not a widespread problem. But there seem to be enough occurrences of the exposure issue to indicate that it's not a total fluke. If you're lucky enough to get a good copy, this is a great camera. I did not get good copies after multiple tries.
Problems:
When you pay $1500 for the Digital Rebel XTi and EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens, you expect to get good looking sharp images! But sadly, my shots were not even as sharp as my wimpy Canon SD300 point-and-shoot. It was just noticeably blurry. I tried it all all focal lengths, with and without a tripod, different lenses, still no difference. I eventually traded in the camera body for a new one. This time, I no longer had a sharpness problem, but I then started experiencing very inconsistent underexposure issues in Evaluative Metering mode when shooting JPEGs (sometimes needing 1/3 stop, sometimes needing +2/3 stop, sometimes it was perfect as is). I traded in the body once again and still got significant underexposure issues. Finally, I just gave up and took advantage of the $200 rebates to get a 30D, which exposes perfectly.
Phil Askey reported 3-5% underexposure, which I think most people would agree is not a big deal and hardly worth mentioning. Others (e.g. the-digital-picture.com) report a consistent 1/3 stop underexposure, and other users have reported anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3 underexposure. This seems unacceptable to me. Just because it can be corrected using Exposure Compensation or post-processing doesn't mean that it shouldn't work. I have heard that this camera underexposes by design, and then I'm guessing that body-to-body variations lead to the different opinions. A lot of people seem very happy with the camera, so it's obviously not a widespread problem. But there seem to be enough occurrences of the exposure issue to indicate that it's not a total fluke. If you're lucky enough to get a good copy, this is a great camera. I did not get good copies after multiple tries.