Rebel t3i Hands On SLR Camera Review

Rebel T3i Initial Thoughts

Out of the box, this is definitely a good looking Camera. Canon decided to class this one up a bit, as it's noticeably a more serious camera than previous ones, both in look and feel. Picking it up, the rebel t3i felt good on a tactile level. The rubberized grip material is better quality than previous versions, and the camera fit comfortably in my medium-sized hands. Turning the camera over, all the doors and flaps for memory card, batteries, etc.. were well secured and out of the way. They also open and close quickly and easily for when you need to access them during shooting.

ViewFinder

One of the biggest bright spots of this new camera is the Vari-angle LCD viewfinder. As I played around with this, I was quite impressed. I had the camera outside on a sunny day. Even in bright sunlight the large icons and characters were easy enough to see on the viewfinder.

Photo Quality

Overall, the rebel t3i produced sharp, crisp pictures consistently. One thing that was immediately noticeable was how much faster the camera seemed to be due to the new Digic 4 Processor. When preparing to shoot, the focus was pretty fast and accurate, although the focus dots themselves are fairly small and were hard to see at times. The 9 point AF system was extremely responsive in bright light. It still worked well in darker settings, but was a tad slower due to the slower aperture range in the lens.

Video

As I'd heard good things about it's capabilities, I was anxious to try out the video function on this camera. Initially, I had trouble manually focusing between each take. It's not that it was hard, it was just awkward and not very fluid at first. Once I got the hang of it there was no problem, and the need to focus between takes is the norm with DSLRs, so this isn't really a negative. Besides, the vari-angle LCD on this camera still blows away most other cameras in it's class.

Menu System

In my opinion, Canon really did a great job with the menu system on the rebel t3i. Knowing their audience, they geared much of it towards beginner DSLR users. The interface has lots of instructions and helper images for beginners- for those of you more experienced users-you do have the option of turning them off, which I ended up doing. One of the coolest features here- the "My Menu" settings area allows you to register your most frequently used settings. If you're usually shooting in the same type of environment, this helps keep your optimal settings so you don't have to redo them each time.

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