2023 Weekly Challenge Week 19: Canon Powershot A410

 The Canon Powershot A410 was released as a beginner/entry level/budget Powershot series of cameras from the Early/Mid 2000s. They had a very unique shape and no frills- no Av/Tv/M modes like the other Powershots of the time (which would become common place in the Canon Powershot ELPH series). 

Before I get into the review itself this camera has a story behind how I acquired it, and it belongs to my SO. Back in early 2019 when the Nintendo Switch was still quite the rage and really hard to come by, my SO decided to go for a fairly reasonable offer (but not in the realm of suspicious on the asking price alone) Switch from a seller on Letgo, an app that's like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace.  

The seller had arranged to meet us in the parking lot of a grocery store and at last minute changed it to a private residence.  That's where we should have stopped and just drove away but we didn't.  It was also after dark which was another red flag and mistake but my partner had her heart set on this Switch and it was her money so we agreed to the new meeting spot.

The "Seller's Boyfriend" then showed up, which is another red flag that we should have driven away but by the time we got this far it may have been too late. They handed us a switch box then took the cash.  Before we could open the box they bolted into the yard and were gone into the darkness.

Inside the box was not a Nintendo Switch but a Gameboy Advance with a broken screen, some rolled up newspaper and this camera. We filed a Police report and reported the seller but nothing ever came of it, so we learned a valuable lesson about Scams that day but hey the camera worked atleast so we got something for the money (even if it retailed for $150 brand new and is only worth around $20-30 today).

Behold the Digicam on loan from my GF that she wound up getting from a "blind box" for $250:

The Canon A4XX series of cameras were one of the first consumer digital cameras sold for under $200 along with the Olympus Camedia D series of cameras. When you compare this with a Camedia D the Canon does have more features at that price point like a slow but working optical zoom and taking a more standard form of memory (SD).

The A410 was released in 2005 and has a 1/3.2" 3.2 MP CCD sensor.  Like the Olympus Camedia D cameras this sensor size was smaller then the more standard 1/2.3 / 1/2.5" class sensors for standard pocket cameras and significantly smaller then the 1/1.7" sensor used in premium point and shoot cameras.  Smaller sensors made these cameras cheaper to make and ironically enough had sensors very similar to the first generation of Smartphones.

Like a lot of digicams in the budget class from the 2000s this camera works off of AA batteries.  And the battery life wasn't the worst when compared to cameras like the Nikon L110 and GE camera.  I shot it all week on one set of rechargeable AAs never having gotten a low battery warning (though the clock battery was dead and it was really hard to find a replacement battery for it so I just dealt with being a Time Traveler and having all my photos be tagged that they were taken in 1980)

The fact that this is still a Canon CCD sensor meant that it still gets really rich colors and contrast which means that I'll have to yield that its not the worst camera in my collection.  Color rendition was spot on which other cheap cameras (such as the Fuji A345 I reviewed earlier and the GE Camera) really struggled with, so as porky as this thing was it's not the worst digicam in my collection.  

It doesn't have the sharpest lens and you defiantly get that softer more compressed look on its JPEGs but you have to look fairly close to notice it.  A print on a table from this camera is going to look just fine until you hold it up close.  There was some noticeable CA that was not easily correctable that you can see in the third shot.

That said it lacks a lot of things. The ability to do Manual modes/priority modes, and to change anything in P mode (such as the exposure comp) is a huge hassle because you need to access a quick menu to do it.  But this is standard in a lot of cameras of this class.

Menu response is laggy as well, about what you would expect from a 2005 Digicam. As well as a shutter lag too.  Startup and shutdown of the camera were surprisingly quick and responsive however.

With some patience a digicam enthusiast could still get some useable photos from this the Canon Powershot A410 (as I was able to do).  My expectation was set extremely low for this camera as I expected it to be one of the worst cameras in my collection; and while its not a camera I'd likely ever use as a daily carry, it does an ok job for what it is- a nearly 20 year old digicam with less then 6mp of resolution.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 18: Panasonic ZS50

Earlier in this year I reviewed the SX720 and SX280 two Canon Powershot cameras that fit into the "Superzoom" catagory (anything over a 20x zoom).  The SX280 is right on that edge at 20x zoom and the SX720 is one of the longest zooms you can get on a pocket camera at 42x optical zoom.  The Panasonic ZS50 sits right between the two of them at 30x optical zoom.

This was the immediate predecessor to my ZS100 for a pocket camera, replacing my SX280 in 2019.  When I acquired the ZS100 in early 2020 just prior to lockdown from a friend, I gave this camera to my mom as a gift.  I later got it back in trade for the SX720 as that camera is a better fit for her and this one is a better fit for me when I want to shoot this class of camera and I'll get to why in a bit.

 

The Panasonic ZS50 was released in 2015 and as mentioned before sports a 30x optical zoom behind a fairly standard 1/2.3" 12mp sensor.  However on "paper" this camera was a step backwards from the 18mp sensor used in the predacessor to this camera the ZS30.  So why was the ZS50 released with a lower resolution sensor?

In the early and mid 2010s some camera manufacturers realized that megapixels weren't everything espically on smaller sensors.  Less MP often meant for sharper images because the glass the pocket camera was shooting through could only render a certain resolution clearly anyway, and anything higher MP then what the lens could render would come out as "soft" when zoomed all the way in.  Additionally less MP dense sensors at the time got slightly less digital noise, meaning you could push a higher iso without looking grainy.  Olympus took this hit with the XZ 1 (which is an amazing camera) and Canon took a step "Backwards" in their lines as well going from 14 and 16mp in their small sensors back down to 12mp like the Canon Powershot S110.  

Indeed Megapixels aren't everything and in many cases photos from higher megapixel small sensors look WORSE then those taken on less pixel dense sensors.  10-12mp seemed to be a "sweet spot" for resolution on a less then 1 inch sensor so for a long time small sensor cameras hovered around this until Marketing of Smartphones made the last of the small sensor compact cameras (Like the Powershot ELPH 190 and Canon Powershot SX720) jump back up in resolution to try and compete.

If there is one unwritten law about Digital Photography its that Megapixels aren't everything and this could be the reason the Digicam trend is catching on, to take cameras like this that have a lot less "Megapixels" then a Smartphone; when realistically most smartphones still only output at around 12mp anyways or so because of "Pixel Binning" so this "Difference in Megapixels" between Phones and Pocket camera becomes a moot point at the end of the day anyway.  

So once you realize that numbers on Megapixels for smartphones are really stretching the truth of the sensor inside 12mp isn't that bad at all.

I didn't mean to take up so much of the review as a rant- and maybe that will be a separate post for another time; but the ZS50 is a fine little point and shoot everyday pocket camera.  Sure it's missing a few features that the ZS100 has along with a slower lens and not very good at high ISO but this camera has amazing Image Stablization even compared to the Canon Powershot SX720.  

I'm fairly certain that's why I tore apart the SX720 unfairly because I was comparing it to this camera; and every time I took a shot I found something I missed about the Panasonic ZS50 over the Powershot SX720 which is why I was happy to make the trade to get it back. I will be giving both a second review next year and I'll likely do them back to back.

Both the SX720 and ZS50 are quick to start up, take a shot, and store in the pocket.  The ZS50 does have a slight shutdown lag before you can turn it off again however it does this delay AFTER retracting the lens; a drawback that some pocket cameras such as the OG Sony RX100 (which won't be reviewed but is the reason I sold mine a mere 3 months after owning one) have.  You can still put the camera back in its pouch a moment after pressing the power-button and have it ready for the next shot.

So performance wise both are pretty comparable.  And when you get above 25x zoom the difference between magnification levels is not that much.  So there is quite a bit of difference between the SX280 and the ZS50 but a lot less noticeable difference between the ZS50 and SX720 in spite of the SX720 having 12x more zoom on paper.  In reality it feels like it has a 2x more bump instead.

Before going into the photos at the end of the review I will just do a list of features that the Panasonic ZS50 has that the Canon Powershot SX720 lacks, and that will suffice for a description of why I enjoy shooting it more.  It is a much more advanced camera then the SX720 and the extra function button and control ring made it harder for my mom to get good shots with it. She would wind up accidently changing settings by bumping those extra buttons and turning the lens control wheel which made this camera not the best for someone who wants something fully automated. Here is what the Panasonic ZS50 has the the Canon SX720 lacks:

• RAW Support
• Second Control Wheel (lens ring)
• Customizeable FN button (less options then the Panasonic ZS100 on what it could be set to)
• Much better Image Stabilzation
• EVF (altough tiny and hard to squint through its nice to have when shooting in very bright conditions)
• Saveable custom Modes- while I never really used this much- this feature is usually reserved for DSLRs and Mirrorless bodies so seeing two custom presets on a pocket camera is very cool.

 

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 17: Nikon D200

With both my mood and weather improving (if only slightly on both counts) I decided it was time to review another interchangeable lens camera. Instead of doing one of my newer ICL cameras (which I plan to save for weeks I'm doing an out of area weekend trip with) I decided to pull one of my Classics off the shelf, a full professional APS-C camera from 2005 the Nikon D200. 

If cameras could talk and tell stories of where they have been and what they have seen, the D200 would be the first camera I'd pull up a chair to sit and listen to.  These cameras were wildly used by professional photographers in the mid to late 00's from Portrait Studios to Wildlife Safaris around the world. 

Many photographers from National Geographic shot D200 cameras, so if you pick up a National Geographic Magazine from 2005-2007 and the photo was taken on a digital body there is a very good chance it was taken with a D200.

Both of the D200s I have owned have had issues, the one that I currently have replaced one that managed to have over 250,000 shutter actuations and was working albeit barely.  The grips and covers were peeling off, the shutter button was mushy and it was very picky on what memory cards it would read.  

The fact that my original D200 lasted so many shutter actuations and was still going when I replaced it was a true testament of how well it was built; during in an era where many other DSLRs would die before they hit 50,000 shutter clicks. The one I replaced it with and currently have has a lot less shutter actuations (around 23k) but the rear control dial is broke. Luckily the rear control dial on the grip works just fine, so the camera is useable if not a little awkward at times as I need both hands to change some settings such as ISO or exposure compensation.

The D200 is a Beast of a Camera and the epitome of not being discreet. You pull one of these out (especially with the battery grip as mine has) and everyone will know you are a photographer from a far. 

When the shutter button is pressed you can actually feel the vibrations from the mirror as it violently flips itself out of the way for the sturdy mechanical shutter which echoes a hearty ka-chank. It may not be as high pitched or loud as a Canon Rebel but it certainly announces itself in a non-subtile way that makes you know that you got the shot.

The D200 is from a line of long forgotten Unicorn DSLRs with APS-C CCD sensors. The APS-C sized CCD sensor would disappear from the market less then seven years later (with the Sony a290/a390 being the last CCD based DSLRs released by any camera mfg in 2010).  

It was released in 2005 and sported a 10 megapixel APS-C CCD sensor which was very high resolution at the time.  Even the full frame flagship D2X only had 2.4 MP more then the D200, leaving this camera as a solid contender back in the days where crop sensor bodies could be just as professional as Full Frame kits.

The button layout is a lot like my other full pro legacy camera (the Canon 1D Mark IIn) with a lack of the standard PASM dial, and relies on holding down one button and turning a control wheel for pretty much everything.

As one would expect from a camera like this it's ready to take a photo as soon as you are.  There is no startup or shutdown lag. It has a very impressive buffer which means you can fire consecutive shots, even in burst mode, for a good duration without needing to write to card. It gets 5fps burst which may be pretty slow and meh for 2023 but seventeen years ago anything above 3fps was almost unheard of.

There are defiantly times that this camera shows its age. While the buffer is large and can take a lot of shots before filling up, writing those to memory takes a much longer time.  Even with a higher speed CF card (that the D200 would support atleast) it took a solid 10-20 seconds before I could turn the camera off while it was writing the buffer to card while in RAW.  That said, I could still keep shooting which is something that differentiates a camera like this from an early Prosumer bridge camera such as the Sony f828. 

The metering is not the greatest either, so it is advantageous that I shot in RAW.  I had a lot of photos that turned up under or over exposed but a lot of it may just be fine tuning that I didn't have time to deep delve into during a single week.  This camera is very advanced, even today that it's really hard to get a full feel for and comfortable shooting with the time I had to shoot it.

The D200 has no live view or video mode which may be a dealbreaker for some, but I'm a photographer not a videographer, and as such all my reviews on this blog are going to be how well a camera takes photos.

While I didn't care that it couldn't take video not having the ability to do live view, even at a much less responsive rate like my D7200, did make it so there were certain shots I simply could not take without shooting entirely blind.

In the end, the D200 is a classic, a legend and a beast of a camera almost 20 years later. If you really want someone to appreciate digital photography without taking everything for granted with a smartphone or modern point and click digicam this would be a really good camera to hand to them. 

It's heavy and bulky but few cameras in my collection has near the personality the D200 has. Shooting it is like using the grandfather to my most loved camera of all time I've shot with the Nikon D7200, and that isn't a bad thing.

Get around its crankiness and this camera can do a fine job to this day, seventeen years later. That CCD sensor gives a solid look with amazing color rendition and requires very little editing in POST so long as you don't push the sensor past ISO 800.

If the Nikon D200 could talk, what stories could it tell?

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 16: Canon Powershot SX130

The week of this review was an absolute nightmare in my personal life, and thus I got a little behind in updating my Blog.  Basement flooding is NOT fun.  Luckily I do not store any photography equipment in my basement, so my camera collection was undamaged. On that note I highly advise against ever storing anything camera related in a basement; Fungus likes to grow inside camera lenses afterall.

I still managed to take something out during this week of hell during short breaks to destress. I went for something simple and easy to shoot, a Canon Powershot SX130. 

The SX series of Powershots are mid range Canon Point and Shoot cameras which add Manual controls (but no native RAW shooting) and a better optical zoom for the sacrifice of being physically larger then an ELPH or even S series Powershot. 

Previously I reviewed the Powershot SX280 and Powershot SX720 which were later generations of the same basic design.  The SX1XX series were where it all started, and originally they were powered by AA batteries instead of a rechargeable LI ION battery pack that are found in most point and shoot cameras past the mid 2000s.

The SX130 came out in 2010 and sported a fairly standard 1/2.3" 12mp sensor and a fairly good and solid 12x optical zoom. 

The important thing to note about this camera is it had a CCD sensor, where most other SX Powershots (Including the SX280 and SX720) had a CMOS sensor.  This made it have higher contrast and a slightly sharper image for a small sensor with the downside of being worse in Low Light conditions. 

Being that I only really shot this camera outdoors (minus a few test shots inside a grocery store) high ISO really didn't come into play that much. That said, I was really impressed at how well the camera handled up to ISO 800 which is a feat where many other small sensor compacts (especially CCDs) really struggle with.

The camera is very chonky and has a good amount of heft to it.  It's thicker then the newer Powershot SX series cameras too, in large part because of running off AA batteries.

So far I've reviewed a number of AA battery powered cameras and I've really dreaded shooting each and every one.  They're either slow to respond and laggy, feel really cheaply made, have extremely poor image quality (even for what would classify as a Digicam) are slow to extend the lens and focus or chew through batteries like a tiger in a meat locker or any combination of these traits (or all of the above).  But this camera was surprisingly none of these.

The the bar very isn't set very high for AA powered digicams but this camera not only clears it but exceeds it when compared to every other AA powered pocket cam in my collection I've reviewed so far. Even the Nikon L105 which was about the same era I did not enjoy the shooting experience with and that ran a sensor and Zoom range very similar to what is in this camera. 

The difference is the SX130 is a lot better built, has much better optics, and offers full manual and priority modes with a control wheel on the back (Yes!).  I took a set of partially drained rechargeable AAs and on one set of 70% charged NiMH AA batteries it lasted me the entire week showing no noticeable degradation of charge by the last shot.

By contrast the Nikon L105 drained one set of 4 AA batteries (Alkaline even!) in one day of shooting; whereas this camera shot an entire week on 2 AA batteries that weren't even fully charged, and I likely could have kept going another seven days of casual shooting easily without changing the batteries.

Needless to say, the Canon Powershot SX130 is by far the best AA powered pocket digicam in my collection.  Is it the best Digicam in my collection?  Of course not. But it is a reasonable middle ground camera on a field that is otherwise only occupied with cameras that have a proprietary battery pack (With the exception of the Fuji S2 Pro, but that is a special case and hardly pocketable and still requires a different proprietary battery to run alongside the AA). It could easily be a daily carry camera for me and I'd be happy with it.

The SX130 is fast and responsive with no noticeable shut down or start up lag.  The shutter lag is minimal as well; and while its not as responsive as say a DSLR or Mirrorless ICL camera I could easily shoot street photography all day with this camera and be happy with it.

A lot of my photos were taken in dreary overcast days with this camera and it performed surprisingly well with the image quality (as you will see below).  It is by far not the most vibrant of Canon CCDs (The S90 and ELPH 190 both having far more vibrant sensors) but it still has a slight punch that the SX280 with its CMOS sensor lacks.

I bought this camera originally as the "emergency backup" camera in case I forgot to charge batteries at home. This was prior to owning cameras with USB charging (Such as the Nikon Z50, Panasonic ZS50 and Panasonic ZS100). But given the situation I was out in the field, and could not charge my batteries at all but had access to a supplier of AA batteries the SX130 would be a solid digicam to have with.  

This camera will likely go on my list of cameras to take a second look at next year as I enjoyed shooting it and it deserves to be used more thoroughly on a week where my stress levels aren't through the roof.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 15: Sony a37 SLT

Back in the early 2010s Sony pioneered a different approach on interchangeable lens camera; the Single Lens Translucent or SLT cameras.  These cameras were a short-lived strange hybrid of a Mirrorless camera and DSLR. They combined a DSLR Phase Detect Auto Focus system and the capabilities of a Mirrorless body such as focus peaking, exposure preview and a EVF instead of the OVF found on DSLR cameras.

The camera has a semi-transparent mirror which acts as a prism and splits off a small amount of light to bounce to the PDAF sensor.  The rest goes through to the sensor.  The mirror never flips up and operates a lot like a drop-in filter; adding a layer of protection to the senor itself that mirrorless bodies lack.

It was a novel concept, and Sony built some really great cameras using this technology. I own two: the Sony a99 Full Frame (first version) which I will review in a later review and the Sony a37. 

The SLT lines were however prone to Hardware malfunctions, including the IBIS unit failing (as it has in my a99) and other issues like a lens communication issue that my a37 is starting to develop.  I used the camera for years before it developed this issue and it only started acting up when I brought it back out of storage for this week of shooting.

The biggest reason I picked up Sony A mount (which includes the one pre-SLT era DSLR I have the a290) was that I can run Minolta Film lenses natively with Autofocus. Minolta made some amazing lenses for their film system in the 80s and 90s- many of which are so well built that they are still producing great shots to this day. Taking a modern camera and using vintage lenses you picked up for a song is a lot of fun; especially when you don't need to run it through a mount adapter and sacrifice AF and aperture control on the camera.  

The Sony a37 sported a 16mp APS-C sized CMOS sensor; the same sensor that was used in many different Sony and Nikon cameras. It had an extended ISO range of 16000 but started to get fairly noisy after around ISO 1600 so I typically would keep my ISO below that when shooting it. Sony was a pioneer of In-Body stabilization so the a37 along with all Sony A mount bodies (DSLR and SLT alike have IBIS)

I picked this camera up in 2017 and it was one of my first ICL cameras on a new lens system "For Fun" that wasn't a part of my primary system. I was able get a good selection of lenses for it while not investing much money. 

This camera turned into one of my primary Street Photography cameras from 2018-2019 and it's one of the things the camera really excels at.  It's smaller and more discreet then a larger DSLR and the tilt screen on the back makes hip-shooting easy. It's also very easy to shoot. It has a very quick startup/ready from standby or turned off which is huge for street photography as well.

It's not a great camera for Wildlife or Action Photography as I found out during this review.  When I shot this camera back in 2017-2018 I was using this for Street Photography and anything that required a fast burst rate and response I was using my higher end equipment for.  The shutter on this camera is slow; and while it captures the moment as soon as you hit the shutter with no noticeable shooting lag but on the back swing of the shutter mechanism there is a bit of a delay while it resets so you can't fire quick shots in succession unless you are in continuous drive mode.

Continuous drive mode is rated at 5.5 FPS on paper. Which is respectable for an entry level camera.  However when I shot it in the field it felt a lot slower, no faster then a Canon Rebel at 3.5 FPS and the Rebels were better for Single Shot quickfire actuation which is what I typically do instead of locking it into Continuous drive. 

Control wise it handles a lot like a Canon Rebel; with a single control wheel operated with a button press for alternate function (such as setting shutter speed in manual or Exposure Comp in priority modes).  It gets a respectable battery life of around 500-600 shots "in the field" which is more then it is rated for and is respectable for essentially a mirrorless camera with some throwbacks to a DSLR.

Overall I ran into frustrations when shooting it, but one was from a lens communication issue this camera did not have before, and the slower response when I tried taking it out for Wildlife. That said, I still enjoy shooting it and might at some point replace it with a higher end APS C SLT like an a68 or a77 if I ever find one of those for cheap. So enjoy some of the shots I took when I revisited this camera during an unseasonably warm stretch of early Spring weather.

2023 Camera Challenge Week 14: Nikon Coolpix L105

 Last week I decided to treat myself and buy a thrift store camera. Since the Digicam craze hit the market prices at thrift stores has skyrocketed for the thrift stores that still carry and stock Digicams (Goodwill for example now will never stock digital cameras in their physical stores and just moves any digicams they get in to Online Auction- which is sad but I have got a few decent deals this way).  

Gone are the days of finding a $5 working digital camera at a Thrift Store.  Now we are talking $20-50 instead; which put into perspective is about the same price as a Video game so its not the end of the world if it becomes something I don't like shooting, but thrift stores are no longer the "cheap" place for Digicams they once were.

I did end up finding a thrift store that actually had quite a few digicams in the front case and after making the employee pull them all out I felt bad for not buying one and making him put everything back for nothing even if they were a little pricey. But I was also able to test this one in the store to verify it worked which was a plus. I paid $40 USD for it which was admittedly more then I likely should have paid for this fairly basic lackluster bridge camera.

The Nikon Coolpix L105 comes out of a trend of similarly designed compact superzoom bridge cameras from the early 2010s. They were designed to be comfortable to hold and very easy to use; providing a much more ergo friendly alternative to a point and shoot or early smartphone without the price and complexity of a DSLR. 

The Coolpix L105 was released in 2011 and sported a fairly average 12mp 1/2.3" CCD sensor and a 15X zoom. It ran on AA batteries which a lot of Digicam enthusiasts like instead of a dedicated rechargeable pack- but there is a downside to this which I will explain later. 

It has no PASM dial and rather the scene modes were accessed through the main menu, encouraging the user just to use Intelligent Auto and forget about it.  I shot mine in the standard P mode so I had the ability to adjust the exposure comp as it did have a hardware button for it.

As with other more "basic" budget bridge cameras it lacked the ability to shoot RAW or do full manual which is expected in most random thrift store digicams I find. It does have a 4 way control pad with the ok button in the middle which made it more appealing then some cameras I own as navigating menus and getting access to some of the core features like exposure comp and macro mode was easier.

Overall I enjoyed the output of the photos from this camera (which you will see later).  It had a nice sharpness to it with vibrant CCD colors that made me have to do little to no editing in Post on them (with one exception which I will mention later). The 15x zoom was a comfortable range for shooting a variety of subjects.

However, this camera had a lot of flaws and I feel I likely overpaid for it as given my frustrations when shooting it I may not ever shoot again (likely will be on the chopping block for re-sale or a digicam trade in the future).

First off and most notably the battery door latch was VERY poorly designed, and mine may have been slightly damaged.  When you put the AA batteries in the door has a lot of pressure on it, so much so that if it wasn't latched perfectly it would crack open just enough to lose contact with the batteries and shut down the camera. This was beyond frustrating as you had to open the door and close it before you could even retract the lens to fully shut the camera off when it happened.

Secondly was the battery life.  In general the battery life on AA battery operated cameras is worse then those with dedicated packs, that much was certain.  But even among other AA powered digicams this one stands out and not in a good way.  First off it takes 4 AA batteries, not two and it burns through a fresh set of alkaline batteries in about 120 shots.  Using high grade nicad rechargeables may extend your battery life a few extra shots but overall pretty lousy especially when considering it burns through 4 batteries each time.

The camera's LCD screen was Dim even with brightness adjusted which turned all the way up was nearly impossible to see on a bright day- this is a fairly common issue with digicams that lack a OVF or EVF however (more premium digicams like the Olympus XZ-1 have bright high contrast screens which can power through bright sunlight shooting.)

The Zoom was incredibly slow.  Worse then pretty much every other digicam I own even older ones.  Forget about using this camera for Wildlife photography (I tried) the bird will be long gone by the time the optical zoom extends to take the shot.

And lastly, the camera starts to fall apart at IS0 400 which is pretty a-typical for small sensor CCD digicams. However it uses very aggressive and primitive anti-noise algorithms so instead of getting somewhat organic CCD noise which can be artistic to use you wind up with a blurry smudge that looks like this:

In spite of my frustrations with the camera I did get some pleasant shots out of it and a few that actually surprised me.  It's slow and clunky but it does have a pretty sharp lens; I just wish there was more you could do with it (like shooting RAW or manual modes) of course and that the zoom didn't take so long to extend.  Also the Image Stabilization on mine was extremely noisy but that may have just been due to the condition of the camera and fact it likely had been sitting for years and may have had some internal dust in it. 

Aside from the cropped and smeared photo of ducks that was taken at an ISO much higher then I needed (as I turned it off auto ISO for an indoor Macro shot and forgot to turn it back to Auto) here's a few of the shots that did turn out with this thrift store find:

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 13: Canon Rebel T2i (Canon 550D)

 The Canon Rebel T2i is the newest Canon interchangeable lens camera I currently own but not the newest I've shot. Prior to 2019 I was mainly a Canon shooter and used a Canon 80D which was a much more advanced camera.  

Since then I jumped ship to Nikon as my primary system so the Canon DSLRs I own are now just cameras I shoot for fun. As far as Pro/Prosumer cameras with all the bells and whistles I've become a bigger fan of how Nikon does things.  

Simplicity is why I really like these cameras. The Canon Rebel series reminds me of a simpler time when I was just learning about photography, and they are absolutely great cameras to learn Photography on. 

The Canon Rebel/XXXD series are lightweight, no nonsense cameras and just a lot of fun to shoot when I just want to get outside and not over-think about photography. That's a big reason I collect and still shoot with them: they are cheap but solid and can still do 95% of the things a higher end DSLR or MICL camera can do, just perhaps requiring you to slow down and enjoy shooting a little, which is not a bad thing.

This camera in particular was a Birthday present this year from a long time friend, who I thank for helping with me in my addiction to get more cameras for the collection.  The T2i I own is a little beat up and a little picky but its not the only camera I have like this.  A collection camera doesn't have to be in the more "perfect" shape my workhorse/reliable cameras are in afterall.

The Canon T2i came out in 2010 and was the cheapest version of this new 18mp sensor Canon had put out (550D/60D/7D mk I).  This was the camera that really solidified the Rebel/XXXD camera as it sold like hotcakes getting many new photographers into the hobby.

It has an 18mp 1.6x APS-C sensor that goes up to ISO 6400 (but is only useable up to 1600 or 3200 in some cases) and has all the expected features from this line one would expect. When compared to the Rebel T1i (which I also own and will review another time) the differences are very minor; yet this would be the sensor that Canon would choose to carry the entry level DSLR camera for the next Decade where the 15mp sensor on the T1i would quickly fade into a one and done design.

Canon made so many of these 18mp APS-C sensors that they're still available on new cameras over a decade later. You can still to this day buy a new unopened camera that is more or less a re-badged Canon Rebel T2i/550D.  It's known as the Canon Rebel T100 or 4000D and is often found bundled with a lens at Walmart and other budget retailers for around $300 USD. It shows how much Canon really loved the design of this camera when you can find one that's a very close match brand new 13 years later. It's one of Canon's last still produced DSLRs along with the 90D and latest 1DX. 

In late 2010 Digital Camera sensors were starting to reach a plateau, as in each new model would just build on more features instead of building a brand new camera with a brand new sensor every time. I have no reason to go out and buy a Rebel T3i-T5i, T5-T6, SL1 or T100 as they are almost the exact same camera as this one.

Last week I reviewed the 6mp Canon Digital Rebel that started it all, and this week was the Rebel that carried it forward.  So let's see what improved 7 years later:  In short a lot has changed, and you will see some of these incremental upgrades when I review the other classic Canon Rebels I own in later reviews.

First off, let's talk startup time.  The Canon Rebel T2i does have one but its a quarter to half a second as opposed to 3-4 seconds with the Original Digital Rebel.  Which is HUGE. Unless I have the camera up to my eye when I turn it on I don't see the brief "Wait" that is displayed in viewfinder.  The time it takes for me to raise the camera to eye level from chest or hip level it's all ready to shoot.

The second really noticeable difference off the bat is buffer and write speed. I shot my Digital Rebel on JPEG mode because it would take a good amount of time (5-10 seconds) between a string of photos if I shot it in RAW.  So long as I'm not using this camera heavily in Burst Mode (something I don't use all that often) I can snap away to my hearts content on single shot in RAW and the files in the buffer are written to the card by the time I am ready to take my next photo.

Resolution is also a noticeable difference too of course, but I don't base my reviews off of how many Megapixels a camera has.  I have plenty of cameras I really enjoy shooting that are 6-12 Megapixels. But for prints the 18mp becomes the start of the sweet spot for printing anything larger then 8x10.

And then of course the elephant in the room: low light performance/ ISO noise and dynamic range.  Modern sensors will still blow the socks off this camera, but this sensor was still a huge improvement over anything from the late 2000's.  The Canon Rebel T2i was a strong start to a new decade of Digital Photography.

I shot the T2i in a variety of conditions: Indoor with good lighting, indoor with less then ideal lighting and outdoors in bright direct sunlight.  It did pretty well in all three of these conditions. Here are a few samples from what I shot during this week of weather flux in early Spring of 2023: