Canon Rebel EOS XSi: An Intuitive Camera That's a Pleasure

Having run an Ebay car shop for a major Boston dealer, I quickly found out something interesting about digital cameras - not only are they not only all the same, but some of them aren't even as good as others in the same class.

For example, when I started out shooting ads for our Ebay site, I used an ancient Sony DFC-10 or so. This was the digital that used floppy discs for storage and had a max resolution of about 640 x 480 or about 1.2 Megs, which was okay for Ebay but the camera just wasn't up to the beating I was giving it so I moved up to the DFC-52 which used an 1 Gig SD memory stick and a USB connection to the PC. This was Sony's popular point-and-shoot that had a 3.2 MP resolution.

The only problem with this was that it also wasn't up to the beating it was taking. At the time, I was pushing about 40 to 80 car listings per week with about 40 shots per car and to get the 40 shots I took about 60, so you can do the math. That meant an average photo session was shoot until I ran out of memory, download, and shoot more.

The DFC-52 really wasn't up to that kind of beating and it wasn't giving me what I wanted and having been an SLR user for years, I wanted to get back into SLR photography which I did an I put more than 30,000 images through the 7.1 MP dSLR I was using at the time.

There's a funny time of year here in Boston, though, and it's called winter so I needed something for those days when I didn't want to bring out the big gun (SLR), so I went back to a point-and-shoot and found I used a small Canon product, another Olympus and a Ricoh and they ran into the same problem that I ran into with the original point-and-shoot cameras I used, they weren't up to the task.

So, I picked up a Canon EOS Rebel XSi with two lenses and a tripod and found the combination is quite flexible and it easily meets my needs.

The basic Rebel was joined by the standard Canon f3.5-5.6 18-55 mm zoom and the Tamron 18-300 mm f6.3 zoom that I have found to be my bread-and-butter lens. I'd only add two ultraviolet or skylight filters for lens protection.

I normally use the AP setting (Aperture Preferred) or P (Program) setting on the Rebel and I have found the 10.2 MP resolution to be more than enough for any session. Indeed, if there were any items I were to add to my gadget bag it would be an external strobe because I have found the built-in model a little underpowered and I would add two UV filters.

It looks as if the Rebel EOS has lots of complicated settings, but everything quickly becomes intuitive including an effective 3-diopter eyepiece adjuster that lets me take off my glasses to shoot.

I have always shot with Pentax equipment, but Canon's Rebel has made me a believer.