Canon EOS Rebel T4i DSLR (Body Only) (OLD MODEL)

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I had this long awesome review and Amazon lost it of course. So here goes a second try. This is my second Canon camera. Previously I have owned Olympus and Minolta cameras. I owned a t2i before this and used a t3i for weeks for testing purposes. I will try to cover most aspects of the new features and image quality. For testing purposes I used a Canon 17-40L lens. Look and Feel: Not much to say here for the look of the camera. Looks almost the exact same as the t2i, t3i. The battery grip and accessories all fit the same. One thing that is different from the t2i is the proximity sensor. On the t2i it was below the optical viewfinder and above the screen. On the t4i it is above the optical viewfinder. I use an eyecup(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Y06336)and it used to make the screen shut off on its own regularly on the t2i. This is a non issue for the t4i. There is also an added dedicated movie button in the power switch now. Feel is a little different. The t4i feels more sturdy than the previous two rebels. The buttons are more solid and the selector wheels are improved. The adjustment wheel has better clicks and dont feel like you could easily flick it and change a setting by accident. The mode selector wheel is sturdier as well. I notice this because my t2i used to regularly switch to A-DEP mode when I would pull the camera out of my bag and I would get upset if I missed a quick shot because of it. I feel this will be a non issue with the new model. One issue I have is using my eyecup mentioned previously. The flippy screen catches on this and is just a slight annoyance but not a huge deal in the grand scheme. The rebel series always felt a bit small in the hand for me so I now use a battery grip which adds weight and substance to the camera. Touchscreen: When I saw rumors that the t4i would have a touchscreen I first said I wouldnt buy it. I figured this would be a gimmick and offer limited functionality. Then when i saw the press release and videos from Canon I changed my mind. I was sceptic of a couple things I will address here. I will start with the touch to adjust. Right now I feel kind of wonky using the touchscreen to make most adjustments to shooting in manual mode which is all i shoot in. But I consider this like moving from a blackberry to an iPhone. You are used to using buttons and the keyboard for so long you are lost on the touchscreen at first, but with time it ends up faster and easier. So in time it will end up faster for me to adjust by touch I am sure. It is in two spots already. ISO adjusting always seemed kind of odd to me on the rebel. The ISO button was placed so you had to kind of search for it and then do a three button combo to set it. On the touchscreen I find this easier. A couple taps and its done. The other major place its easier for me is AEB. Bracketing on Canon is typically a pain. Hit menu, find the exposure selector, hit OK. Slide the wheel, hit OK again then press menu. On touchscreen you just press the exposure and tap a couple times to set the bracket. Touch to focus was something that I didnt see coming from Canon. When they announced it my thought was it would be OK but nothing great. I figured it would be where you would touch on one of the 9 AF points you would like the camera to use. But thanks to the hybrid CMOS on the camera, it is truly a touch to focus. No matter where in the frame you press the camera will seek out and quickly focus on that area. This function works much better than I anticipated and I may use it in the future. At first I figured this would be a selling point for soccer moms but I was incorrect. I have not used the face detection follow focus to comment on it yet. Image Quality: This is the most important thing in the end when you buy any camera. How will my images look? The t4i does not disappoint. Thanks to improvements in the processor, focus, sensor and noise reduction software the t4i simply crushes the previous rebel cameras. We can start with the White balance. On the previous rebels and even the 60d, white balance was not so great. A yellow or tan-ish hue was almost always present and reds were soft. Canon has addressed this issue and images are clear and cary a nice contrast throughout the image. Auto focus I have touched on. Moving from 1 to 9 cross type AF points and a new added contrast detection sensor for AF makes a world of difference. Focus is fast and true and doesnt waste time seeking as much as before. In live view mode in low light, the digic4 and old sensors were pretty bad. A lot of seeking and misplaced focal areas. This is greatly improved with this model. Because of these reasons if you shoot in auto focus or any auto mode on the camera your images will turn out better. Low Light/High ISO: When the digic 5 was announced Canon touted this as being able to provide up to 75% better image quality over the digic 4. Of course I didnt buy into this because its Canon and they were there to sell you. With the t4i Canon added the digic 5 as well as some new noise reduction software to boot. How did it make out? I tested these things against a Canon 60D. Same lens, same settings. In RAW at ISO 6400 the image quality looked at least twice as good over the 60D in terms of noise. At 12800 its laughable. That being said, on my t2i I would not use an image over ISO 1600 to print or display or sell. On the t4i I would gladly use ISO 3200 and at times 6400. Auto focus is so much improved at high ISO and low light that its one of the first things you notice when comparing the camera to the 60D. Battery life: Have not used it a full day to test yet. I imagine if you use full time AF it will go down slightly from the previous models. Other Additions: Scene Intelligent Auto....Used for one shot. Seemed to be OK but I am a manual shooter. I am sure this would work well for most beginners. Handheld Night Scene....This takes 4 quick shots in a row and then in the camera combines them to reduce shake and noise. At 6400 ISO the image did result in less noise over standard shooting in RAW. This mode can only be done in JPG. I can see it being very good indoors at functions or for quick night shots outside. HDR Backlight Control....This will do in camera HDR. It takes three shots of various exposure and combines them to improve highlight and shadow detail.This worked well and didnt produce too much noise in low light. It does not produce an image that people now days think of in HDR with blown out tones and surreal feeling to it. It is more traditional in where it just makes shadows appear less and corrects some blowing out by brighter lights in a frame. Works well for what its supposed to be. Also only available in JPG Autofocus during video...Worked well and somewhat fast with my 17-40. Still allowed some noise from the lens searching for focus, but I wasnt using one of the STM lenses designed for this function. EDIT: Since my initial review I have had a chance to test video with an STM lens and try out the face follow focus. The STM lens does improve focus speed quite a bit in video and is much quieter. There is still a little noise but may be something you dont notice depending on the scene you are shooting. Face follow focus works better than I thought it would. It can actually focus on an object as well as just faces. It follows through the frame very well and precise even in low light. Its nto super fast to focus but still works well. PROS: Outstanding Image Quality. Even at higher ISO Touchscreen Ease Of Use 5 Frames Per Second Shooting Auto Focus CONS: Built in stereo mic is kind of pointless unless you use an STM lens. Maybe even then. The bezel around the touchscreen is uneven, but that has nothing to do with function. Its just poor design. Learning curve on the touchscreen Feature guide...It makes touchscreen control unbearable. Just disable it as soon as you turn the camera on and save yourself the frustration of being told why you need to change ISO every time you touch the button for it. FINAL WORD: If you were holding back or looking for a reason to upgrade your digic 4 based camera this is the one you are looking for. Compared to the t2i/t3i/60D this camera will offer you better image quality, focus, low light performance and ease of use. Yes the 60D is an "upgrade" over the rebel line but as of now, youd only gain size, weight and one stop of shutter speed over the t4i with the 60D. With the t4i youd gain better images, video, high ISO performance, touchscreen, shutter lag and a few other things. This camera offers many new technologies and additions from Canon that arent seen on any other camera in their line up. If you are a beginner or someone with a previous rebel looking for a nice camera you will find this camera to offer many things that you will enjoy in a first camera or an upgrade. This camera can make your photos better by taking the same photos as you would have with the previous models just with the improvements and that is what you should look for. The t3i was a small upgrade form the t2i and Canon has made up for it with this rebel. If you do own or buy this camera join the flickr group we have made. It can be found at Flickr /groups/canont4i/

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WOW! I upgraded from a Canon 40D and I expected to like the newer functions and being able to shoot video. I did not expect to be blown away, just glad to have some new features. Within about a minute of turning the camera and playing around with it I was actually blown away by the ease of shooting and the clarity of the handheld shots in low lighting. With the 18-135 STM lens, I didnt expect great low light ability because it isnt a fast 2.8 lens. To test it I took some photos of fish in my aquarium with the tank lights off and only one light on the other side of the room. I couldnt believe how well they turned out. The image stabilization worked very well and the image was sharp for a handheld shot as I expected. What really got me was the color it captured. It was catching the colors I feel like I see in the full light. I couldnt even see the color very well at all with my eyes, but the camera was working its magic and pulling them out - faithful to the actual color of the fish and corals. I didnt expect that at all. I actually said "WOW!" when I saw the first image. I took multiple shots zoomed in and they all looked great. I tried out the flash and think there is a little more height of this pop up flash compared to the one on the 40D. I was taking pictures of the fish behind the glass of the aquarium and I was getting great lighting without a big bright flash showing up in the picture. Whatever the combination of zoom, flash height, flash coverage, whatever, it really gave me great results. I didnt expect to be able to have a shallow depth of field with this lens, but I could zoom in and focus on the keys on my keyboard and have items 4 inches behind it blurry with a booka like effect. The focus was very defined where I wanted it. The touch screen works beautifully for me. I really like the ability to have the live view mode up when shooting, have the angle I want to shoot at without having to crank my neck around to see in the viewfinder, view playback on it and pinch to zoom just like on an iPhone, and touch the area I want the camera to focus on. The picture is so much clearer on this display than it was on the screen of the 40D. Ive only spent about 30 minutes with this camera and lens combo and I know I will love it. I actually decided to quit playing around with it and write this review because I was so happy with it and wanted to recommend it to others. If you are thinking about getting the body only, I highly recommend getting the 18-135 STM lens. The lens is over $500 by itself. Bundled with the body, it is a great deal for about a hundred bucks more than the body alone.

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I upgraded to the T4i from my 2007 xTi because I wanted to take advantage of the "newest" Rebel sensor and ability to shoot ISO 800 and 1600 with minimal noise (I was capped to ISO 400 on the xTi). Ive used the entry level Sonys and Nikons and feel that although they may get better reviews than the Canons on certain Websites, I have Canon lenses and flashes and the Canon Rebels offer a perfect balance of ergonomics, control and image quality. Canon is a lot like GE - they may not be best in class in everything but youre going to be hard pressed to find a market that GE is outside the top 3. Canon does everything on their cameras very good to excellent (e.g. build, reliability, features, image quality, etc.) - when you do that across the board, you get an outstanding product. One thing I love about the T4i (and previous Rebels) is that you get direct button access to the most common settings (e.g. ISO, white balance, focus area). I cant believe how many cameras (even the more advanced Canon 60D) bury some of these settings in the menus. Additionally, the new T4i touch screen is cool and well implemented (although totally unnecessary). One other cool new feature is the T4i recognizes the lens you are using and corrects two lens aberrations automatically (peripheral and chromatic). I know you can do that yourself in post-production and Im not even sure how effective it is but I assume its doing some good! The T4i does everything extremely well except for the following: Live view (i.e. using the viewfinder to shoot) - this is terrible - it takes forever to focus, especially indoors. However, I rarely ever use live view - the only time I would ever use live view instead of the viewfinder is when I want a creative angle (e.g. holding the camera above my head or putting it on the ground). This represents about 1 of every 500 photos I take. Similarly, as others mentioned, the focusing during video is loud. You can "fix" this by buying a lens tailored toward video or by focusing on something before starting your video and then deactivating the servo autofocus. Of course you will only focus on what you originally focused on before recording the video. Obviously this only works if you film something that remains in one focus plane. And you remove the much heralded option of focusing on one thing and then switching focus to another thing mid-video. The new handheld night scene and HDR backlight scenes are awesome, but when you move to those modes on the dial you are forced to shoot in green box (i.e. automatic) mode. For those shooters experienced enough to recognize when they need to activate those two new modes it is disappointing to be forced into automatic mode - auto ISO, auto focusing point, auto WB. Additionally, Canon put these two new modes on the opposite side of the dial as the M and AV modes. I shoot in M and AV virtually 100% of the time - the exception is when I want to shoot the new HDR or handheld night modes. Those two new modes are about 12 clicks away from M and AV on the dial - not only is it annoying and time consuming to move the 12 clicks to the new modes, but Im sure Im putting wear and tear on the dial. Either Canon didnt expect people to use these modes as often as others (e.g. macro, sports, landscape) or the Rebel user base primarily shoots in the pre-set modes, making the M and AV shooters like me the minority. Lastly, I think I read that when you shoot Auto ISO (something I dont do) and use flash, the ISO wont drop below 400. For those who know a little about photography, this means it will be very hard for use to use fill-flash outdoors - if youre outside shooting ISO 400, most of the time you will be above 1/250. As you can see, my criticisms of the camera (mentioned above) are for very minor items. I love everything about the camera other than the nitpicks cited above - thus the 5 star rating! Buy with confidence.

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I love my Canon cameras, and have loved them since my first Rebel in 35mm film ages and ages ago. I currently have a T2i and a T3i, and decided it was time to upgrade since I had a young friend who was taking her first digital photography class and needed a camera for it. I sold her my T2i, which of course gave me an excellent excuse to get a new one! After reading tons and tons of reviews I opted for the T4i over the T5i since other than some video improvements, they are pretty much the same. I dont use the video, only stills, so that didnt matter to me at all. Once again, I was really happy with the camera out of the box! The improvements over the T3i were pretty evident, especially the faster fps speed. I was all set to HATE the touch screen, I pretty much only use the viewfinder and just preview with the LCD, but was shooting the moon the other night and discovered that touch screen is PERFECT when its dark and you cant see the buttons and dials!!! Good improvement, I must admit! My main complaint with my Canons is that the colors seem off to me, I pretty much always have to fix them in processing. But, there IS some improvement in this model and I didnt have to fix as many of the photos. The speed is amazing... I am mostly shooting running dogs and/or moving wildlife so I use the sport setting and keep my finger on the shutter and nothing beats these Canon cameras! This model actually surprised me... it is sooo fast I had double shots of the dogs while they were still in the air when jumping! While working up the photos on the computer I was happy to find that I could tell the ones from the T4i because they overall, were MUCH crisper and brighter. When I moved up to the T3i from the T2i, there was no difference in the actual photos from either camera. Buy this camera, you will LOVE it, especially if you put a nice Canon L lens on it!!!

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My fiance and I bought this camera, one for each of us, for our trip to Italy later this year. And since we got them, weve been doing lots of practicing, especially me with almost daily shoots. The cameras and the Sigma 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM lenses we got with them are so versatile and easy to use for the novice and the pro-sumer alike. Im having a great time working the in Creative Zone (where you control the exposure and lighting settings), while my fiance is learning to use the Basic Zone (where the settings are chosen by scene and largely automatic). Im hoping shell venture into the Creative Zone soon. I do recommend that you work with RAW images. The Digital Photo Professional software that comes with the camera is very powerful for post-processing RAW images. I find that, shooting with post-processing in mind, I focus on proper exposure and composition, framing, and focus, depth of field, etc. In post-processing with DPP, I can adjust minor lighting issues, high ISO noise (if I actually take a high-ISO picture), sharpening, white balance, cropping (because sometimes you just cant frame the picture perfectly when you take it). Another reason for working in the Creative Zone is that this camera, like all other digital cameras Ive used, tends to over-expose the photographs. In the Creative Zone I have the exposure compensation set to -2/3. It is much easier to lighten a dark picture than to darken an overexposed picture. In the Basic Zone, you have very little control over this setting -- although some of the scene settings, like Landscape, allow you to select "darker" or "lighter" settings. But still, the Basic Zone is a great starting point when youre just getting to know the camera. One complaint I would make, though, about the Basic Zone is that if you do make some of the allowed adjustments to a scene setting, those changes do not hold when you turn off the camera or select another scene setting. In the Creative Zone, the settings you chose last time are still there when you turn the camera back on for your next shoot.

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Canon refurbished products are wonderful because they arrive just like a new camera and they now give you a full 1 year warranty! I would buy these products in a heartbeat any time. This is an amazing camera - I sold my Canon XSi and got this body - a major step up for an entry-level camera. The touchscreen is a must have, the ability to shoot HD video is great, and the articulating monitor screen is fantastic. One downside for shooting video is Canons older lenses make a lot of focusing noise when you continuosly autofocus, so the new Canon STM lenses are a must for video. The T4i is almost identical to the newer model, the T5i, so I do not see myself stepping up to this camera; however I may step up to the new Canon EOS 70D in the future as it is another step up from the T4i. If you are a beginner to DSLRs, I highly recommend this camera over the T5i or any of Canons earlier models. Buy it refurbished from Canon and save major bucks. You wont be sorry

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A very nice camera. It takes great pictures. I bought it when it was on sale for Christmas 2012. The biggest difference between this and the T3i is the touchscreen. I wasnt going to pay extra for what I viewed as a gimmick, but due the sale the T4i and T3i were the same price, so I got the newer model. I must say, I use the touchscreen extensively and find it more intuitive and faster than the standard buttons for changing advanced settings. It also makes checking shots faster and easier with pinch to zoom and drag to pan. I can verify good lighting, sharp focus, proper depth of field, and check for blinks and smiles very quickly. Most of the buttons are in the same location as earlier Canon digital rebels. The mode knob works mostly the same way I remember, dating back to even film cameras (Although, I rarely use anything over than Aperture (Av) and Manual (M)). The power switch is crisp and easy switch on an off without looking. The power switch also has a video setting which implies that you can use the any of the modes with video shooting. Although this is technically true, it doesnt work like you would expect: Manual works fine, but shooting video in Av mode, does not let you set a fixed aperture and then auto-meter the shutter speed. Video Av mode works more or less like video (P) mode. It is good in low light; much better than my previous DSLR: the Rebel XT, which only goes up to ISO1600 (the T4i goes up to ISO 12800, and technically has a 25600, but that is very grainy). The T4i can deliver similar picture quality to my XT in 8x lower light. However, even with an 8x improvement it does still have trouble in doors without a flash, especially in a dimly light room. I normally use an external flash bounced off the ceiling when shooting indoors. The picture quality of still photos and video are both great. This camera has a good high quality APS-C sensor. It doesnt take as good of pictures of a professional grade full frame camera, but it does take really good pictures, especially in good light. The biggest draw back to this camera is the horrible sensor based (contrast detection) autofocus in live view and video modes. It literally takes 5 seconds to focus on something, even when the focus is close to start with. In the video mode, you can be shooting from a tripod on a fixed object and the autofocus will randomly decide that the sharp focus it has isnt good enough and start hunting. It will hunt until the object is a complete blur and then return back to where it started. The autofocus is unusable for videos. I shoot all my videos in manual focus. I sometimes have to throw shots out because I screwed but the manual focus, but that is better than throwing out all shots because the autofocus decides to hunt. The manual focus also solves the problem of the microphone picking up the sound of the focus motor: manual focus is always quiet. Note that the same lenses that have horrible performance with live view and video focusing work amazingly well with the phase detection autofocus build into the view finder. The phase detection in the view finder always goes straight to ultra sharp focus in less than a second and stays there. Therefore, I always do my still shooting through the viewfinder whenever I can. Sometimes I hold the camera up and use live view to shoot a shot from above, in which case I just hold the shutter button down for 5 to 10 seconds until the live view finally focuses and takes the picture. If I take a second picture, the live view autofocus takes another 5 to 10 seconds EVEN THOUGH IT STARTED IN FOCUS. And again, I always use manual focus for video. I have never tried an STM lens, maybe they are better, but I am not going buy a whole new set of lenses simply because Canon botched the live view autofocus. I havent spent much time with the T5i, but as far I can tell, the biggest upgrade was changing the 4 to a 5. I am very happy that I bought this camera and since I dont shot a ton of video and normally use the viewfinder, I can live with its quirks. I have logged many happy hours of shooting, and plan on many more. If it was somehow damaged, I would buy another to replace it. Otherwise, I will probably not upgrade until Canon fixes the liveview/video autofocus in a Rebel. I am hoping the dual pixel autofocus in the 70D turns out to fix this issue and comes out in a rebel in 2-3 years. Fingers crossed.

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Newbie photographer my beginning camera was the eos rebel xti and the t4i murders it. Its such a great camera!!! The articulating lcd is so convenient for shooting video and the difference in the video frombpoint and shoot 780p to this dslr 1080p is just night and day. The iso range helps so much as well especially in dimly lit venues. Great camera that actually beats its predecessors (t5/t5i and t6) in various ways.

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I find this camera easy to use, easy to hold, lightweight to pack around, and it takes great photos. Not a full sensor camera, but enough data in the raw photos to get very nice enlargements. The options for still photography are good. There are enough choices for customizing and for letting the camera make the exposure for the camera operator. The swing-out, and rotatable screen is really wonderful. Being able to use the live view on the screen, while holding the camera where my eye has trouble getting (like very high, or very low) is wonderful. The magnification on the live view for focusing on exactly what I want, has also been very useful and even fun. Shooting from the screen, can be useful with mostly still objects, but doesnt work fast enough for tracking children, for example. Overall the screens extra functionality and versatility really tops off the quality of the CMOS sensor with 18MP recording. The video, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The visual quality is ok, but the camera picks up the sound of the very slow focusing mechanism in the lens and makes nature filming pointless. I feel like I still need to get a video camera to carry along side of this still camera and am disappointed that Cannon used up space and weight for that function if they didnt intend for it to be as useful as the still photography aspect.

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I have 2 SLRs (Canon rebel - the first one, 8 megapixel sensor, and 50D). Bought this one for my daughter, who wanted small SLR, but something more advanced than my rebel. She really loves this one, and I like it as well. I personally have big hands, and I prefer my 50D, which is better constructed, but T4i has its advantages - higher ISO, and movie taking, as well as the ability to use SD card. With video ability, you really need a lot of memory, and large capacity SD cards are much cheaper than CF cards. It feels solid (maybe not as solid as 50D, but much lighter), and photos seemed to be pretty good (I didnt do any side to side comparisons, just eye test) as well. Canon 17-55 and sigma 24-70 lenses seemed to be large and disproportionate, but sigma 18-250 seemed pretty good on it. Now I am actually considering very seriously to buy one for myself - relatively small size and video ability makes it great during travel (even small size difference matters, after 2 weeks of dragging my 50d - the great camera, I love it! - in Europe).

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