Min DOF Photography

I got it today, along with the new 18-55 IS lens (kit). I haven’t done any testing yet since it’s cloudy and windy outside and it could start raining any minute as well. The first things that I noticed were the larger display, slightly bigger grip (it does feel a bit better in your hand) and a bit larger viewfinder. But basically it still looks like 400D. Most of the improvements are however beyond what your eyes can see. The new 12.2 Mpix sensor, DIGIC III with 14 bit processing, highlight priority, higher capacity battery and you can now continuously shoot at 3.5 fps. There’s also live view and it takes SD memory cards. I’m not sure about the latter, it sure is fine for those who are swapping their compact cameras for 450D, because they most likely already have SD memory cards. And SD cards can also be used for other purposes, as a storage device in MP3 players etc. On the other hand it’s yet another expense for those who have used CF based cameras. I have to test it with a 256 MB SD card . I have to get me a larger capacity memory card. If someone can spare one for a week, it would be great . Menu system has been redesigned as well and it enables features such as direct control of Speedlite flash units from the camera LCD.

The things that I can see as a con are; buffer that can store only 6 RAW images and the reduced number of buttons on the camera. Canon could have also incorporated sRAW. After all, 3 mpix would be more than enough for web publishing and 13×18 cm prints. That would be enough for media coverages and it would save users a lot of space on their memory cards and hard drives. While the user would still enjoy all the benefits that RAW can offer: better DR, more postprocessing options etc.

Here are a couple of Canon press release photos:

I’ll write a review on slo-foto.net and probably post some samples on this blog as well (surely if I’ll get a nicer lens to use along with 450D). Stay tuned .