Canon EOS Rebel XSi Review

The Canon EOS Rebel XSi is a very good entry-level digital SLR. It offers very good photo quality (with the appropriate tweaks), lighting fast performance, live view, and a large LCD display. The camera has its share of flaws, though, including soft JPEGs at default settings, redeye, sluggish contrast detect autofocus, and a rather high price. Still, the Rebel XSi is a solid choice for those looking for their first SLR, and thus, it earns my recommendation.

The Rebel XSi is a fairly compact digital SLR. While it has a metal frame on the inside, the plastic outer shell always felt a bit cheap to me. Like its predecessors, the XSi has a very small grip for your right hand. Despite the addition of a more "sticky" rubber material to the grip, I still don't find it comfortable. Bottom line: try before you buy. The Rebel supports EF and EF-S lenses (with a 1.6X focal length conversion ratio), and the new 18 - 55 IS kit lens is a nice improvement over previous models. The XSi retains the same dust reduction system as its predecessor.

The biggest additions to the Rebel XSi are its 3-inch LCD and live view system. The LCD is large, sharp, and fairly easy-to-see outdoors. Canon's live view system is one of the better ones out there, though it's far from perfect. You can compose photos on the LCD with autofocus, a composition grid, and a live histogram. The view is bright and sharp, even in low light situations, and you can enlarge the view to verify proper focus. There are actually two autofocus modes to choose from in live view, though one is much better than the other. The first one relies on the camera's AF sensor to do the dirty work, though this requires the camera to flip the mirror down for a second. The other method uses contrast detect AF, just like your compact camera. Unfortunately, it's very slow, with focus times of two seconds or more. Strangely enough, live view is unavailable in the automatic and scene modes, which may be a hint as to how useful it is for everyday point-and-shoot users. For those of you shooting with the optical viewfinder, you'll be pleased to hear that its considerably larger than it was on the Rebel XTi.

Jeff Keller

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