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A first look at the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi

by Bob Atkins; created April 2008

I just received the new Canon Digital Rebel XSi, $800 (known in Europe as the EOS 450D) and two new lenses: the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, $170, and the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS, $299, lenses. I'll be looking at them in detail over the next few weeks and then posting a full review, but I thought some readers might be interested in my first impressions.

The Rebel XSi is quite a small camera (95 x 127 x 65mm) compared to the Canon EOS 40D (review), (146 x 108 x 74mm) and it's also quite a bit lighter (Rebel XSi: 510g without battery, Canon 40D: 740g without battery). It doesn't fit my hand quite as well as the 40D does, but I'm 6ft and those with smaller hands might prefer the XSi. If it were any smaller, I'd have difficulty holding it with one hand. After working with it for a few hours I really didn't notice the smaller size. It doesn't feel as "solid" as the EOS 40D, but that's only to be expected. The feel of the camera doesn't affect the images and I'm sure many people would actually prefer a smaller, lighter camera body.

Controls

The Rebel XSi has a pretty clean user interface. The 3" LCD screen is very legible. Like just about all LCD screens though, it can be difficult to read in bright sunlight. That's where a top LCD screen comes in useful, but none of the Digital Rebels (including the XSi) have one. If you can't see the screen well, the viewfinder of the XSi reads out the shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation and, for the first time on a Digital Rebel, the ISO setting.

Even without a manual I found the camera controls to be pretty obvious, though I am a long time Canon EOS user and the XSi menu structure is close to that of the EOS 40D. There are dedicated buttons to set ISO, White balance, Drive mode, AF mode, metering mode and picture style.

Viewfinder

The viewfinder is quite bright and larger than that of any previous Digital Rebel. I remember the viewfinder of the 300D and it was like looking through a tunnel! When I picked up the XSi and looked through the viewfinder it wasn't obvious that it was smaller than that of the 40D, though on comparing the two side by side it is. It's just slightly smaller than the viewfinder of the Canon EOS 20D (review). The Rebel XSi's viewfinder is clear and bright (despite being a pentamirror system) and has a diopter adjustment. The 9 AF points arranged in a diamond shape are clearly marked.

New IS Lenses

The Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, $170, and the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS, $299, are Canon's latest low cost image stabilized (IS) lenses. They use a newer, simpler system for IS but Canon still claims 3-4 stops of stabilization. Both are small, lightweight lenses with plastic barrels and lens mounts. The 18-55 uses an aspheric element to improve image quality and the 55-250 has a UD element to better control chromatic aberration. The 55-250 has automatic panning detection which can turn off stabilization on one axis if it detects you are panning to follow a moving subject.

Memory Cards and Batteries

With the XSi, Canon has chosen to move to image recording on SD memory cards for the first time on a consumer DSLR. SD cards are fine, however all previous Canon consumer DSLRs use CF cards. There's now no memory card compatibility with previous models (except for 1D series cameras which could use both CF and SD cards). On the plus side, for photographers moving up from a P&S digital camera to their first DSLR, the use of SD cards may be an advantage since almost all current P&S digicams also use SD memory cards. There's no battery compatibility either as the XSi uses a new Li-ion battery, the LP-E5. The new Li-ion battery has greater capacity than the one used in the Rebel XTi, so again that's a plus unless you have both cameras and want battery compatibility.

Test Run

I took around 180 photographs with the XSi using the 18-55 IS and the 55-200 IS. Just about all of the photographs were well focused and the exposure was good. I was capturing in fairly bright sunlight most of the time and the AF worked very well with no "hunting" for focus. I had the camera set to use the center AF point, aperture-priority exposure, and evaluative (multi-segment) metering. All other camera settings were left at the factory defaults. White balance was set to auto and I tried ISO settings from 100 to 800.

I was quite impressed with the results from both the 18-55 IS and the 55-250 IS lenses considering their price. Both seemed very resistant to flare (I photographed some frames directly into the sun). The IS system seemed to function well, though I did not subject it to any type of serious test. I did notice that the 55-250 IS vignettes quite noticeably when used wide open at longer focal lengths. It was quite visible on a number of photographs of aircraft against a clear blue sky. Stopped down to f/8 it's much better. The 18-55 IS has noticeable barrel distortion at 18mm, expected for a lens of this type. My initial impression of sharpness is that both lenses are quite good but I have not done any quantitative testing yet.

Also, the overall image quality was good. Colors seemed accurate and very similar to those I saw from photographs taken with an EOS 40D at the same time.

Image Noise

I didn't see any excessive noise in the XSi images at ISO 400, even when looking at them at 100% magnification. I did do a quick test comparing noise in unprocessed JPEG images at ISO 1600 with the EOS 40D and saw a little more noise in the Rebel XSi image, which may be the small price you pay for a higher pixel count. I have not yet looked at the effects of turning on in-camera noise reduction or using Canon's DPP RAW converter.

Where to Buy

The Canon Digital Rebel XSi, $800 (known in Europe as the EOS 450D) the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, $170 and the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS, $299 are available from Amazon.com

Conclusion

Overall, my initial impressions of both the camera and the lenses are pretty favorable. I'll have more to say when I've used and tested them over the next few weeks, but I was quite comfortable using the camera today and any problems with the images I photographed were much more likely to be due to the photographer than the equipment. A few examples are shown below.

Canon Digital Rebel XSi Sample Images

Bob Atkins - Rebel XSi, 55-250IS, 250mm f11
Bob Atkins

Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS, 250mm, 1/250s with IS while panning with the IS on, f/11. The photograph is sharp, but I don't know if it would have been less sharp without the IS. This will be tested in the full-length review.
Bob Atkins - Rebel XSi, 55-250IS, 74mm f5.6
Bob Atkins

Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS, 74mm, f/5.6. Good sharpness, even at the edges. Very little chromatic aberration. Only very slight vignetting at 74mm, f/5.6
Bob Atkins - Rebel XSi, 18-55IS, 18mm f5.6
Bob Atkins

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, 18mm, f/5.6. At 18mm, the 18-55 IS seems to have some barrel distortion. Not unexpected, but I'm pretty sure that the horizon wasn't curved like that!

Bob Atkins - Rebel XSi, 55-250IS, 250mm f5.6
Bob Atkins

Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS, 250mm, f/5.6. Vignetting wide open at 250mm is quite evident. I also saw similar vignetting wide open at 160mm.

Bob Atkins - Rebel XSi, 18-55IS, 1/1600 @ f8
Bob Atkins

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, 28mm, f/8. Photographing directly into the sun at 28mm with the 18-55 IS lens. No flare spots are visible.
Bob Atkins - Rebel XSi; EF70-300/4-5.6IS USM, 300mm f5.6
Bob Atkins

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM (review), 300mm, f/5.6

Original text ©2008 Bob Atkins, photography by Bob Atkins.

Readers' Comments


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Chinmaya Sn , April 21, 2008; 02:08 P.M.

Since XSi is part of Rebel series, nice to see some of your thoughts on upgrade from XT or XTi.

Steve Peer , April 21, 2008; 07:30 P.M.

I can't wait to read the full review. I'm wondering how some of the 40D-esque features incorporated into the XSi work, and how it compares to the XTi.

Geoff Francis , April 21, 2008; 08:26 P.M.

Good review Bob. Based on your shot above, the noise at ISO 1600 looks quite a bit worse than the 40D.

Bob Atkins , April 21, 2008; 08:58 P.M.

You have to be careful about drawing conclusions from single measurements of noise. I don't know if the 40D and XSi use different noise reduction algorithms for example. Though high ISO noise reduction was turned off, I'd bet there are default noise reduction algorithms in use at ISO 1600.

Also sharpness settings can make a difference to how the noise looks and it's possible the XSi and 40D use different default sharpness settings.

So while there looks to be extra noise in the XSi image, it may not be true to say that XSi images are inherantly noiser than 40D images under other conditions, or when optimized for low noise.

Both give very usable images at ISO 1600. Getting to the root of the noise and making fair comparisions requires more work than just shooting a couple of images (which is all I did for this test).

HELEN CLEMENT , April 21, 2008; 10:09 P.M.

Looking forward to reading your full review. I have just bought the Canon 450D and the two lenses that you mentioned. I am still "finding" my way around the camera, with the odd focusing problem, but so far very happy with it. This is my first DSLR up from a P&S Olympus.

Marcus Baumgartner , April 22, 2008; 10:30 A.M.

In your full review I'd really like to see how you feel the XSi compares to the XTi in actual perf. (ISO noise (worse w/ higher mp count?), 14b vs. 12b a/d (for whites in bright sun), read/write times, etc.) I enjoy using my XTi, but have a few gripes (mainly things like the viewfinder size (compared to my EOS3)). Overall I enjoy it.

Bob Atkins , April 22, 2008; 01:35 P.M.

I haven't done the test yet (I'm still working on some Sony reviews that I have to finish first), but I can tell you what I expect to find based on previous testing of the 20D vs. 40D.

I'd expect the average image quality of XTi and XSi images to be pretty much the same for the large majority of users under the large majority of conditions. 10MP to 12MP is a small change and it's very hard to see the difference between 12 bit and 14 bit A/D. I'm sure there will be some circumstances and some images which will benefit slighly from the upgrade, but unless you're making big prints you probably won't see them.

Since I don't have an XTi on hand, I won't be doing any "side by side" comparisions, though I can do comparisions of the XSi with the 40D. I don't expect to see any huge differences in image quality between the 40D and XSi either.

What you can measure on a test bench under microscopic examination of images and what you can actually see in a print aren't the same thing.

UPDATE: I may be able to do an XTi vs. XSi comparision after all. One is promised to arrive this week and if it does, I'll do some comparison testing.

Peter Kaczkowski , May 11, 2008; 05:34 P.M.

Thanks for the helpful first look. I have been using an XTi from work for about a year and am planning to buy an XSi for myself ... barring some unforgivable flaw (which you did not find, thankfully!). Of course, I'm looking forward to the extended review.

One characteristic that really irks me about the XTi interface is the lack of ability to 'lock' the buttons on the back. I find that in P-mode I am always changing the ISO inadvertently. I have thought of getting a viewfinder extension to move my face away from the back. Can one lock the buttons on the back? I'm glad to hear that th ISO is displayed in the viewfinder, so at least I might notice the change sooner! Also, is the XSi body slightly smaller than the XTi's? And do you notice any difference using the DIGIC III? --- Thanks much.


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