[Kombisaurus]

Today I walked into a local camera store armed with my old Olympus C750UZ camera and a spare CF card.
I asked the salesman if I could use my CF card in a Canon 350D and take some test shots with it to take away and compare to the same shots taken with my C750, to which he agreed.

The point of this exercise was not to see if the 350D was better than the C750 (I would've been shocked if it wasn't), but to give me a "proper" feel for the camera by actually taking photos with it instead of simply holding a camera with no battery in it (previous salespeople haven't allowed me to switch it on) and to be able to compare the images with a known benchmark - my trusty old Olympus C750 that I've been using for a couple of years and know inside-out.

I've read all the 350D reviews, I know the specs inside out, I've used a 300D and knew the 350D would be similar, I've held a model with no battery in it, but I still needed to actually *use* the camera to settle the indicision inside of me.

So I took some very ordinary photos from inside the camera shop. The lighting was terrible; quite dark inside with a big window and loads of light outside - but in some ways that was good as it would highlight some of the problems with both cameras. I was there to find potential problems, not take pretty photos.
I'll briefly go through my impressions of the camera:

1) As soon as i picked it up, I thought "wow, this just feels right." The size and weight is perfect for me. It is about the same size as my old EOS 300 film SLR from memory, and a little bit heavier but not much. I remember the first time I picked up a 300D and I thought it felt too big and too light for its size. The 350D feels much better for me, but I know this is a very subjective thing.

2) The plastic finish feels fine. I was using a silver one (and apparently the black versions have a slightly different finish), but it didn't feel cheap and nasty at all. I had just put down my all-metal C750 to pick up this camera, and if anything the 350D felt more secure and nicer in my hands (mainly because the shape fitted my hands better than the lunchbox-shaped Olympus I guess, but the material did not detract at all).

3) Control placement is good, but not perfect for me. The control wheel is a little too far from the shutter button, and the two thumb buttons aren't ideally placed for me... but they aren't bad and won't take long to become second-nature. The four-way directional buttons on the back could stick out a bit more and maybe be moved a bit to make using them while your eye is against the viewfinder a bit easier, but I still found it quite usable.

4) The viewfinder is fine for me. Apparently it is smaller than the 300D, and seems to be one of the biggest gripes with this camera. But it seemed big enough (though certainly not large) and bright enough. Certainly after just looking through the EVF on the C750 it is chalk and cheese and I won't even dignify the C750 EVF by comparing to a DSLR viewfinder.

5) Autofocus is quick and quiet, and all camera operations are sharp, precise and seemed to be just as fast as a film SLR. There's no point comparing the C750 to the 350D here, as it is like comparing a pedal-car to an F1 race car. Needless to say I was left staring at my C750 with a sad expression and slowly shaking my head. Poor old thing.

6) Shutter sound was a nice little thunk that reminded me of my EOS 300 film SLR. Discrete but decisive. I don't see this as a big deal unless the shutter sounds like a squarking parrot or train or gunshot or something rediculous... but it doesn't.. it sounds like a camera should sound. Not silent, but not noisy either.

7) Shutter-lag, write times and general speed and responsiveness were all pants-wettingly good compared to my C750. This thing is fast. The only time it kept me waiting was when I was reviewing my images and I pressed a few buttons lots of times in succession. It "buffered" the keystrokes and seemed to lock up for about 4 seconds while it was trying to catch up with the button-presses (I was flicking through photos). I didn't like this; If I press the "next" button 5 times quickly, it should know I want to skip 5 photos and shouldn't have to show every photo in between.

8) Menus looked easy to understand and easy to navigate. The LCD screen is nice and bright and sharp, and having the monochrome LCD screen on the back instead of the top seems sensible to me.
The choice of grey text on black for menu items in the main LCD screen has been criticized for being difficult to see in bright light, and I could believe this. Indoors it was fine, but I could imagine it might be a problem on a bright day outside.

And finally... the images!

Well, I really only had a chance to do two proper comparisons. The first was with both cameras on "full auto" and taking approximately the same scene. The second was with both cameras on "Aperture Priority" and set to 100 ISO. Note that I made a slight error in this test and accidently set the aperture to f/5.0 for the C750 and f/5.6 for the 350D, but they are close enough not to make much difference.

Below is a small 100% crop from the "Auto" comparison. The image on the left is from the C750, the one on the right from the 350D.



At first glance, the C750 seems to hold up really quite well against the 350D. It isn't disgraced, and performed better than I was expecting, and in fact the C750 image seems a bit sharper than the 350D image. But... There is less noise in the 350D image, the colours are a bit more saturated, the shadows not quite so dim, and the brick wall outside the window not so blown-out (ie it makes better use of its dynamic range).
But upon closer inspection, it can be seen that the C750 uses an in-camera unsharp mask or equivalent to sharpen its images (even though I have sharpness set at 0), the C750 image has purple finging (although the 350D seems to have some red fringing)... But the Exif data really highlights the most important difference as far as I'm concerned.
The 350D image was ISO 400, f/6.3 and 1/125sec shutter.
The C750 image was ISO 50, f/3.5 and 1/60sec shutter.
That's right folks, the C750 cranked its ISO down THREE stops to get a comparable image in terms of noise-levels, and even then it still wasn't as good as the 350D at a relatively noisy setting of 400. In fact, I'd guess the difference would be closer to four stops as I've seen 800 ISO images from a 350D that have barely more noise than the 400 ISO image. I take the vast majority of photos on my C750 at ISO 50. I can now take those same photos at ISO 800 and get four extra stops of light to play with and still get comparable noise levels! indoor shots, wildlife and sports photography are going to be so much easier with this camera.
Having said that, It also shows the Olympus Auto mode is actually pretty good at getting the best result it can from the camera.

So.. what do these same photos look like when both cameras are forced to ISO 100?
I'm glad you asked....



C750 Image on the left is ISO 100, f/5, 1/60sec shutter speed. 350D Image on the right is ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/30sec shutter speed. Both are 100% crops from a much larger image.

hmmm... Apart from the auto mode on the Olympus deciding it didn't need as much light as the 350D (remember these are crops of a much bigger image, and the camera exposed for the whole image not just what is visible here), this starts to make the differences more obvious.
Noise has disappeared almost completely from the 350D image, but clearly increased on the C750. The saturation in the shadows also seems worse in this shot, but that may simply be because the shot is less exposed than the 350D shot.
But... again the C750 image does seem sharper than the 350D. Although I suspect this difference is mainly due to software sharpening in the Olympus, I do think the EF-S 18-55 kit lens with the 350D is a litle soft. These images could be sharper with a better lens IMHO.

Conclusions?

Well... No real surprises, but after all the hype about the low-noise of Canon sensors I was hoping for even less noise than these results show. But I guess that was a bit of wishful thinking. Anything at ISO 100 is drop-dead gorgeous. The step-up from my C750 is clear and I know I won't be disappointed.
The EF-S 18-55 lens seems to be a bit softer than I was expecting as I had heard reasonably good things about it (not that I think it is bad), and there seemed to be a bit of CA in high contrast areas.... but considering the cost of the kit lens, you can't expect the world of it. There's a chance that the softness in the 2nd 350D image is caused by some camera-shake, as the shutter speed was 1/30 sec. But I doubt this would have affected the 1st 350D image which used 1/125sec, yet both images appear soft.
If this lens in an indication of the kind of quality I could expect from, say the 75-300 IS USM, then I'm glad I cancelled that lens and ordered the 70-200 L f/4 USM instead. The sharpness of the kit lens was acceptable, but I want really sharp. I can certainly see myself falling in love with the 70-200 f/4 L lens if it is as good as some of the sample shots seem to show it to be. I can also see myself replacing the kit lens sometime in the future.
I was quite satisfied with the feel, surface, size and weight of the camera. I see no reason why I would choose something like a D20 over the 350D because of its physical attributes (possibly for other reasons though). In fact the size and shape fitted my hands really nicely.
I LOVED the speed and operation. This alone is a good reason to dump my Oly in favour of a DSLR.
Oh.. and 8 megapixels in the 350D is always a better thing than the 4mp in the Olympus, especially when they are such lovely pixels! Granted that I don't often print larger than 8x10", but I do tend to rely on cropping in photoshop to compose my images, so the extra pixels will be a real bonus there.

Note: I took those photos so that at 100% crop the elements in the image would be roughly the same size. Because the C750 is a 4mp camera and the 350D is an 8mp camera, this meant that looking at the whole image from the 350D reveals a wider angle. Coincidently, this relationship almost exactly matched the minimum focal length of both lenses - 28mm (equiv) for the 350D and 38mm (equiv) for the C750.

Below are scaled down versions of the whole images used in the second example above to give you an idea how much "extra" you get around the edges of the image by reducing that extra 10mm of focal length.

From the C750:


From the 350D:

[slejhamer]

Nice post!

The dynamic range of the 350D is remarkable by comparison.

A little more USM on your 350D images and I think you'll be happy. Canon reportedly uses a fairly strong anti-aliasing filter and some hold the opinion that their out-of-camera images are a little softer than what you might get with other brand DSLRs, and certainly compared to a P&S that does aggressive in-camera sharpening. Your Oly images look like they were taken with a digital camera ...

The lens is also a factor here - I think you'd find it reasonably sharp at f/8 or smaller, but I'm not at all surprised to see it soft at f/5.6. If your experience with the 70-200 f/4L is anything like mine, it will be "eye opening."

[shuttertalk]

Great stuff, Kombi, our investigative reporter on the street.

Thanks for the info.. .the 350D is looking more attractive by the minute. Too bad you couldn't go outside to take some normal shots.

Looks like a touch of CA in the 2nd 350D shot, but not much.

[Kombisaurus]

Slej,

I had heard that Canon tend to be a bit agressive with the software AA filters, but forgot about this. Printed out at 8x10 I'm sure it wouldn't be noticable, but I use a number of my images for on-screen display. I wouldn't be satisfied using these images on-screen at 100% crops as they are, as they are not sharp enough.
But as you say, a touch of USM will do them wonders.
This sample image from Canon uses the kit lens (http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/eosdigital2/...le_2e.html), and I have no problems with the sharpness of it. I'd assume that it had been taken as a RAW image and optimised, but I doubt it would have been "photoshopped" any more than using standard RAW controls.

I couldn't really go for a tighter aperture than f/5.6, as even that was 1/30th second (all shots were hand-held). I was also deliberately trying to find faults in the images, not portray them in their best light (as the sample photos on the canon website do).

And ST, I was a bit suprised to find noticable CA in the 350D shots. In a number of high-contrast areas where a dark silhoette was in front of the bright window, there was cyan fringing on the left and red fringing on the right. Not as bad as the major purple fringing the C750 gives me, but there all the same. Thankfully this is a function of the lens, not the camera.. so while I'm stuck with it on the P/S C750, it can be fixed on a DSLR with a simple application of $$$ for a new lens

I found out yesterday that the place I ordered my camera from might have a problem getting its supply. They told me 2 weeks ago that they'd have them in in 2 weeks (ie now), but now they say the silver ones are another 10 days away, but the black ones are 3-4 months away!!! I reminded the guy that it was the black US version they were selling, not the Aussie version (as Canon Australia aren't selling black ones until May/June), and he got confused and said he'd check it out with his American colleage. hmmm.
If this is the case, then I might just turn around and buy a silver one locally. Its more expensive (AU$1689 instead of $1469), but it comes with a genuine Canon warranty instead of one of those purchased 3rd-party warranties, and there is still something to be said for a shop you can walk into and talk to someone face to face, especially when it comes to after-sales service. If there was ever a warranty issue, I'd rather just walk back into the shop and plonk it on the counter and say "fix it or replace it" than have to send things back and forth from Perth to Melbourne. Plus the local one is badged a "350D" wheras the US version will be badged a "Rebel XT", which might make it harder to sell 2nd hand.. And this "it will arrive in 2 weeks" thing might go on for ages. Shame its silver though.. yuk.. We'll see...

[slejhamer]

Bad news on your delay. Unless you can get a definitive delivery date, I'd say pull the plug.

[Kombisaurus]

Good advice Slej. In fact....

I rang the place (www.centre.net.au) on friday. The guy seemed reasonable and it sounded like they genuinely got misled by their supplier. They ordered 200 cameras, only 30 are being delivered, and even then the first shipment is only the silver ones. He offered to bump me up the queue to definately get a silver one (which should arrive next week), or else said the 2nd shipment will be all black ones and should arrive in three weeks, but he doesn't know how many are being sent so can't guarantee that I'd even get one of those.

So I bit the bullet and bought one locally on Friday. After a bit of haggling, discounting accessories and taking into account I no longer had to pay shipping on the other camera, it cost me about AU$120 more than if I'd have bought it from the original place, but still AU$170 LESS than RRP (and that's *including* a couple of filters, couple of step-up/down rings, and a lenspen). It meant I couldn't get the black one I wanted, but I was happy about everything else. And already I don't notice what colour it is anymore, I just pick it up and use it.

I kept my order for the 70-200 f/4 L USM lens with centre.net.au because they had that in stock (and it was like AU$450 under RRP), and they got that dispatched on Friday and it should arrive here in Perth on Monday or Tuesday! woohoo!

I think next time I'm going to spend a this kind of money on camera gear (this is costing just under AU$3k), it might be worth considering going to Singapore to buy it. I think 5 or 7-day package deals seem to cost around AU$600 from Perth, and I reckon the savings from buying there would cover the cost of the flight and accomodation, giving you a "free" holiday and great opportunity to try out the new camera gear!

So anyway... I picked up the camera on Friday afternoon, and have been too busy playing with it (and doing some other stuff) to post anything here.

If you want to see some of the pics it takes, take a look at the "photo showcase" section where I'll be posting some pics. I've been very busy since Friday!

Cheers
Adrian

[adam]

Yes! I also go to Singapore to get my camera gear.
I rather not trouble others with getting things for me, but my aunty is bringing my tripod next week and it's a lot lot cheaper than here.
Seeing the cheap flights in the newspaper is very tempting, that I could fly there for the weekend (since I only have one class on Friday and no classes on Monday, leaving on a Thursday night and coming back on a Tuesday morning also sounds feasible and saves me a lot of money!) but at the moment, all these mid semester exams coming up and many assignments to complete, so I'll be unable to do that for now; I'll probably go in the Mid Year break, and if not then, I'm definitely going at the end of the year.

With the exchange rate and lower prices in Singapore, a 70-200 f/2.8L IS is almost $1000 cheaper!

[Kombisaurus]

Cool. If you have family there then I expect you go fairly often.
All my family lives in Tasmania, which although a beautiful place, is more expensive to get to and you can't get cheap electronics or even duty free!

What kind of tripod are you getting? My current one doesn't seem the best when I take long exposures (and it is a cheap-n-nasty one), so I'll be shopping for a new one fairly soon. I'd be keen to hear opinions and experiences from other people.
Will it arrive by next Friday so you'll be able to play with it at Kings Park?

70-200 f/2.8L IS... yum <drool>. Yikes, I just saw Canon's RRP on that lens is $4k! Unfortunately even with $1k off, its still damn expensive. The place I'm getting my 70-200 f/4L from has the f/2.8L IS for AU$2910 ($1089 below RRP), but it doesn't include a trip to singapore
http://www.centre.net.au/Canon_0007T3.html

No doubt that's where those lenses are probably coming from. I don't think its just a coincidence that centre.net.au are located in Tullermarine in Melbourne

[adam]

My aunty comes back on Monday next week!! So it won't be in time.

I asked her to bring me back a manfrotto 055 pro B (also known as 3021).
Long (Lak) has one, and it's very nice to use, though maybe a bit heavy for carrying far far away by hand for long times.
And a 322 grip action ball head.

The quotation I got from Singapore for the 70-200 IS is a little bit less than from centre, but it's cash price, not including GST and Singapore currency, so the main difference in price would be due to the exchange rate.

The Canon RRP on the websites here seem to be very high. All local shops I ask for prices give me much better prices than the RRP, except for Camera Solutions (which I avoid).

I don't get the coincidence that they are located in Tullermarine, is there some easy-access-to-asia from there?