The Photo Times: Camera Review: Canon EOS 100D

Why change a winning formula? Canon certainly hasn’t sought to do that with the EOS 100D, which is largely based on the excellent EOS 650D DSLR. However, the EOS 100D (Rebel SL1 in North America) is a much more compact kind of SLR, with a whittled down body that gives it a cuter look andâ€”above allâ€”makes it highly portable. So how does this travel-sized 650D shape up?

Handling

Let’s start by stating the obvious: Canon’s EOS 100D is small. It’s more compact than its closest relation, the 650D, as well as the 700D. It’s even smaller than the EOS 1100D and the Panasonic G6. First contact can feel quite surprising, as your hands try to find their bearings on the compact body. But after a few days of testing out what hand positions do and don’t work, it all suddenly seems to fall into place. Yes, it’s small, but Canon’s design is pretty much spot on, making the 100D a real treat to handle and use no matter how big or small your hands. It’s true that larger-handed users will find their ring and little fingers resting underneath the grip handle, but, on the whole, Canon’s design is a success. In fact, it’s so convincing that we’re almost left wondering why other SLRs are still so big!

EOS100D vs700D vs650D

Some of you will be keen to point out that a bigger body makes way for a bigger viewfinder, which should in turn improve comfort and accuracy. And that’s a good point. With the 100D, you have to bring your eye right up to the eyepiece in order to keep the edges of the viewfinder out of view. And even then, you won’t be able to line up shots with complete accuracy, as this viewfinder doesn’t give 100% coverage. Anyone who’s nostalgic for the days of film photography may have fond memories of similarly sized cameras such as the Canon AE1 or Nikon FM3a, which had much brighter, much more comfortable viewfinders while also boasting a full-frame format. But those days are over. Today, we can at least be thankful that Canon has actually included a proper optical viewfinder, as some manufacturers are happy to stick with EVFs or to ditch the viewfinder completely.
Review: Canon EOS 100D - from the back (screen and controls)

Canon has made a remarkable effort with the screen in the 100D. There’s no doubt that this display is a reference for others to follow. The viewing angles are excellent (but that’s a pretty basic essential for any camera worth its salt in 2013) and screen calibration is spot on. The gamma is perfect from the deep black to the bright white, the colour temperature is a stable 6350 K and the Delta E is just 1.7 (which makes onscreen colours more accurate than with many a monitor, even models aimed at graphic designers!). Hats off to Canon! On top of that, this is a capacitive touchscreen! What more could we ask for? Well … maybe next time a more effective anti-reflection finish would be nice and a tilt/swivel function is always welcome. Still, let’s not nitpick too much, especially since Canon does have certain physical limitations here due to the camera’s size. Plus, Canon may not want to encroach on the territory of its higher-end 700D.

EOS100D views

The 100D’s controls are discreet and effective. There’s nothing especially new in store here, with a simple and thrifty set of controls that cover the basics. The camera is pleasant to use, and all the more so since Canon has added a silent shutter mode, turning the otherwise sharp, metallic sound of shooting into a softer, cushioned noise. Ultimately, that’s no major change, butÂ you might as well use this function seeing as it’s there, right?

EOS100D vs700D

All in all, we don’t have too many complaints when to comes to the camera’s handling. Apart from the D100′s small size, which could put off certain users, we’ve got three minor issues with its design. First of all, Canon’s EOS 100D feels quite plasticky despite the fact that the body contains both carbon fibre and fibreglass. Next, the memory card slot is now housed along with the battery in a compartment on the underside of the camera. In SLRs, the memory card is usually found on the side of the camera so you can still access your SD/SDHC/SDXC card while using the camera on a tripod. Finally, the kit lens is way too big, which spoils all the effort Canon has put into trimming down the camera body. In fact, Canon’s compact SLR falls into the same trap as the first mirrorless interchangeable lens compacts, with a lens that looks like a can of pop stuck onto the front of a tiny camera body. The 40 mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens is your only way around that for the time being. Let’s hope that Canon hurries up and releases some smaller lenses covering wider-angle focal lengths.

Responsiveness

The EOS 100D is small but fast. In spite of its size, there’s no question that this is a genuinely well-made SLR, and Canon evidently hasn’t had to compromise too much when trimming down the size of the body. With the 18-55 STM lens, the EOS 100D even slightly out-performs the 650D in each of our responsiveness tests. The camera starts up almost instantly and the speedy autofocus ensures you won’t miss any of the action. And even if you don’t get your shot right first time, there’s practically no lag-time between taking one picture and the next, so you can get back to work right away. With this kind of speed, the only think holding back the EOS 100D will be the user’s dexterity. With a little fast-fingered practice, we were able to shoot almost as fast as in burst mode (at four frames per second) … but that gets very tiring very quickly.

The only slight blip comes with focusing in low light. This slows the camera down (comparatively, of course) taking four times as long to focus as in full daylight. That said, it still does a perfectly respectable job.

Review: Canon EOS 100D - speeds

Picture Quality

Up to that point, the EOS 100D more or less follows in the footsteps of the excellent 650D. However, it’s a different story when it comes to picture quality, as the 100D is actually a little disappointing.

Review: Canon EOS 100D - ISO test, picture quality

The 18-Megapixel CMOS sensor handles ISO sensitivity settings pretty much as expected. The results stay nice and clean up to 1600 ISO. A first few weaknesses can be seen at 3200 ISO, where grainy noise is more visible in dark, shadowy areas. At 6400 ISO, smoothing gets a little stronger, intensifying into a general blur at 12800 ISO. The 25600 ISO setting can’t feasibly be used (unless you shoot in black and white, but that’s cheating). From these results, it’s pretty obvious that the 100D shares a technical base with the 650D.

The kit lens, on the other hand, is a bit of a disaster. At wide-angle, sharpness levels really aren’t great up to f/8, and they don’t get amazingly better beyond that. Add a touch of chromatic aberration, plus some pretty unsightly yellow and magenta fringing, and there’s no way this can pass for a top-quality lens. The middle of the frame gets sharper when you zoom to 35 mm, but the edges are still hazy.

And the worst thing is that no matter how fast the autofocus may be, it’s not always that accurate. With the kit lens (the lens that a large proportion of this camera’s owners will mostly use), the AF focuses a little too far forwards. These few millimetres are enough to ruin all your best efforts … unless you force the autofocus to work on the central AF point alone, although that’s a pretty big restriction for this kind of camera.

Video

As with many other cameras of the moment, the video image is quite dark in the 100D. Plus, highly contrasted zones and metallic objects tend to shimmer. Add to that a particular sensitivity to moirÃ© effects and you’ll soon find plenty of yellow and magenta artefacts spoiling the party. And that’s a shame, since the EOS 100D otherwise does a good job in video mode, filming Full HD footage at 25 interlaced fpsâ€”a feature that’s enough to make 5D Mk III users jealous (they have to make do with 44000 Kbits per second!). You can take a still shot while filming (but in 16:9 format) and adjust the focus by pressing the touchscreen (so long as your subject isn’t too close to the edge of the frame). Focusing is very quiet but zooming is picked up in the background of videos, even when there’s a low level of ambient noise. Note that you can obviously use the continuous focusing function in video mode, but for that you’ll need plenty of patience!

Sound is recorded in mono so there’s no real spatial effect. While the camera can pick out distinct sounds, the audio track soon becomes clamorous when it has to cope with high levels of sound or when there are lots of different frequencies to deal with at once.

Article source: http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/lifestyle/music/photo-gallery-swedish-house-mafia-at-milton-keynes-bowl-1-4059597