Canon Kiss X4 / Rebel T2i / 550D First Week, Quick Overview

Posted: March 8th, 2010 | Author: psychomelody | Filed under: Canon T2i KissX4 550D, Photography, Updates | Tags: 550D, Amazon, Canon, DSLR, KissX4, night shooting, nostalgia, Photography, review, T2i | 7 Comments »

I swear I’m going to get into real post soon and stop talking about this camera all the time, but I’d like to document it when I can.

Overall opinion so far? Fantastic. A learning experience, but fantastic.

Photos look amazing right out of the camera. Video looks the best I’ve seen for a digital file. I’ve edited Canon EOS 5D Mark II footage before and in the same lighting (Though with not the same lens) I am just as impressed. Speaking of editing, I’ve become a fan of Adobe Lightroom for quick photo editing and sorting. I used Apeture for a little bit about a year ago and quickly switched back to Photoshop and iPhoto. So far I can deal with the quirks of Lightroom for it’s speed and ease of use. As far as video, once I made my own Sequence Preset, Final Cut Pro handled the footage great! It was really easy to edit. I will have a sample reel up soon, as I have a few more things I want to shoot.

More photo and (soon) video samples will continue to go up on my Flickr.

Now on to the problems. Some mine, some the lens, some the camera. One of the first worries I had is when I tried zooming with the stock lens. Well… I noticed a jutting in the picture, like something that was automatic wasn’t turned off. Turns out it’s the aperture of the lens. It’s slow and not fixed… or so one of my friends tells me. Still looking into it. I’m still getting use to shooting video on an DSLR. I know how to shoot photos… and video… I’ve made a few mistakes trying to get the video look I’ve wanted. But oh well. Will go out and about in the next few days and hopefully get some video out. Though I already know that I really want a new lens…..

I’m excited to see what I make with this camera. I’ve had the Sony HDR-HC1 since the day it came out and at the time it was the next big thing: Consumer priced HD. The flood that came afterwords made it impossible to make a decent, real choice for the Prosumer. Some people were buying the Canon HV40 and buying prime lens adapters for them. Some were still touting the Panasonic DVX-100 because a lot of the HD cameras lacked the quality, picture, and colors that the already maxed out DV cameras had. The Prosumer HD cams were still really expensive and they all had their problems. Before the Canon EOS 5D Mark II was announced everybody I knew was dreaming of an affordable RED and dying to get their hands on one. Then the video DSLRS hit. It’s when we hit the peak of or a new age of a technology that I see the best stuff from people. They get their hands on something new, something everybody is excited about and wanting to see, and it gets the creative juices flowing. We had out DV revolution, our 24p revolution, our HD revolution, now it’s the DSLR revolution. I’m happy to be part of yet another one.

After I get a bunch of test videos done with the new Canon, I’m going to get all my cameras together and make a test comparison video. I think the only surprise is going to be my Canon Powershot SD960IS, which I still think is the best small point and shoot on the market. Just check out what people on Flickr have shot with this amazing little thing…

I still have a bunch of stuff to change around on this blog and a whole slew of links and blogroll links to add. Eh, I’ll get to it when I get to it.

Lastly, I went out photo shooting at night, one of my favorite things to do, to test my new camera. I almost never use a flash, so I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this camera’s night shots. I only shoot in manual mode, so I’m still getting use to using this camera’s settings. Expect the photos to get better and progress rapidly as I learn how to use this camera better.

Here’s some of my favorites from the shoot:

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