Mike From Mesa
I had been planning to upgrade my Olympus SP-510 to a newer point-and-shoot, but when prodded by my wife to get a "really good" camera I upgraded to the T1i instead. It was, of course, a considerable increase in price ($350 to $700, body only), but seems well worth the cost. Along with the camera I also bought the Canon 18-200mm lens because I did not want to be constantly changing lenses. My overall impression in the last 6 weeks has been very positive. The photos are full of deep, rich colors, the images are clear and do not seem to have much distortion. I find I can take pictures at ISO 800 without any really noticeable noise and, when needed, even at 1600. The camera has a rich feature set and, in general, I have not been disappointed by much. On the positive side I found the following: 1) The camera fits in my hands well and the buttons are all easy to reach and use when taking pictures, 2) The auto-focus using the viewfinder works well (OK, this is a function of the lens, not the camera, but when taking pictures I tend to group both together), 3) As I stated above I find the pictures up through ISO 800 to be clear and 1600 more than just usable, 4) There seems to be much less shutter lag with this camera compared to my previous point-and-shoot, 5) Write time to the memory is much shorter than with my Olympus, 6) I love the ability to bracket my exposures so I can be reasonably sure I will actually get a decent picture, 7) I have had a chance to use the continuous picture setting and it works very well, 8) The HD movie mode (1280 x 720) takes excellent movies. This was important to me and was the reason I bought the T1i instead of the Olympus E-620, 9) I like the ability to create and use my own set of menu items for most of the functionality I usually need, 10) The battery life for the included battery is very good. I can usually take 600+ pictures without having to change the battery. There are, however, some things about this camera that I find disappointing: 1) When taking panoramas using the optical viewfinder Canon provides a way to lock the exposure setting so subsequent pictures will be taken using the same setting. The manual tells you to push the * button and use it for subsequent pictures. This works well, but since the * button is co-opted as auto-focus when using Live View, there does not seem to be any way to lock the exposure when using Live View. Canons suggestion is to use the fully manual mode and set the shutter speed and exposure that way. However since there is a way to lock the exposure when using the viewfinder it seems reasonable to expect there to be a way to do the same when using Live View. And there is not, 2) The camera seems small to host the 18-200mm lens. The lens is so heavy that the camera ends up facing toward the ground all of the time when carrying it around. The lens has a lock on it to prevent it from "creeping" out to its full length and I use that all the time, but the weight of the lens for the camera seems high. Again, I know this is a lens issue, but it seems hard to separate from the camera, 3) Auto-focus seems to not work as well when using Live View as when using the optical viewfinder. In low light situations when I have no trouble getting a focus lock with the optical viewfinder I often cannot get a lock when using Live View, 4) As much as I like the videos that this camera produces, it uses the LCD screen when taking videos and I often find that the LCD to be almost useless in daylight because the LCD is so washed out by sunlight. Thus unless I am in some shade I cannot see the scene I am supposed to be taking making a movie of. And I have to trust that it will come out OK, 5) The 15 MP picture size on disk is typically greater than 5 MB by default. This seemed a little large and I wanted to set the size slightly smaller. However the next smaller picture size is 8 MP. 8 MP seems small and 15 MP seemed large. I was hoping for something in between (perhaps 10 or 12 MP), but there is no intermediate size. I currently have the picture size set for 8 MP but I would like something a little larger than half the full size. While these items are somewhat of a disappointment for me I have to say that overall this is a great camera. It takes great pictures that are sharp and full of color, it handles well, focuses quickly and takes and writes pictures very quickly. I am glad to have bought it and recommend it to anyone who, like me, is moving up to their first DSLR. And, as large and heavy as it is, I also recommend the 18-200mm lens. Its size is more than made up for by the convenience of not having to change lenses all the time. I would have liked to give this camera about 4 1/2 stars, but since I cannot give partial stars I am giving it 4 stars because of the items I listed above. But I find I really like this camera and think others like me would also.
