Canon EOS 300D Digital SLR Camera [6MP] - Body Only

So what’s so great about it? Well, any user of a Canon EOS camera will have no trouble getting used to it as it uses the standard sort of controls and interfaces common to Canon for so long, and allows you to use any lenses or gadgets you’ve bought already (eg. Remote photo release button). It’s also an excellent purchase for anyone new to photography – like all EOS cameras, there are a combination of manual modes where you control what’s going on and more automated modes allowing you to get great photos quickly. With this combination you’re able to learn quickly how to take photographs well and with the benefit of the LCD on the back of the camera to see the photo you’ve taken, you’re less likely to take shots which once developed turn out to disappoint.

The photos I’ve had from it (using low cost lenses) has been absolutely superb and the overall ability and feature-set of the camera is so far beyond my current photographing ability that I won’t be making any upgrades for a long time. I’ve been particularly impressed by the cityscape night time shots as they’re so much clearer than anything I’ve taken before; bright landscapes are also far crisper and macro photography does not seem to pixelate at all.

The bundled software is very good – Photoshop Elements (whilst not as full of features as Photoshop or Corel PhotoPaint) is likely to meet most users’ needs, and the Canon ZoomBrowser software allows you to see what settings you used for a specific photo – eg. Exposure compensation, aperture, shutter speed and lens attached are all detailed. Again, this is useful to enable you to learn from mistakes etc. This last tool is really good as it means you don’t have to note down what settings you used (which it’s so easy to forget about anyway).

So, what about the 10D which it’s so often compared against – personally I think you’re better with the 300D… it’s nowhere near as heavy (admittedly the build quality of the 10D is better, but you wouldn’t want to drop either of them anyway! Other reviews I saw suggested the 300D was very plastic and cheap – I don’t agree with this at all), all the basic features are there, the controls are slightly different although I preferred the 300D directional buttons on the back rather than the 10D dial. Actually, the logic I applied was that since I didn’t really understand most the extra features the 10D offered above the 300D I wasn’t likely to need them, and having read up on them I feel this was the right decision.

Oddly (only discovered this yesterday), although both the 300D and 10D offer RAW picture format (for ultra-high quality) and various levels of JPEG, the highest level of JPEG (which is what I recommend for general use as it allows circa 200 photos per 512Mb CompactFlash card, and prints perfectly to A4) is actually compressed less on the 300D than the l0D, which I guess means the picture quality is actually higher on the 300D. The inner workings of the camera are pretty much identical anyway so you can’t get a better photo from one camera against the other if you’re using the same lens and RAW picture format.

Okay, so what are the faults – well, on the scale of things they’re fairly minor but a bit irritating… the battery cannot be recharged whilst it’s in the camera – you have to take the battery out. The pictures can be loaded onto your PC my either removing the CompactFlash card and putting it into a card reader, or using Canon’s software to load the images – you cannot get the camera to appear as an extra drive on your PC to move the files yourself which annoyed me as I didn’t like the Canon software for moving the files. Also, if anything the camera seems to have a slight knack of underexposing although as you’d expect it’s dependent on the environment you’re working on, and can be controlled by very minor exposure compensation or bracketing. I’m not that convinced this wasn’t the case with EOS film cameras though so the verdict’s out on that.

All in all, I can’t recommend this enough – it’s superb, an amateur / semi-pro camera which is light enough to easily take on holiday with you. If you have an EOS camera though remember to avoid the EF-S lens kit though as that won’t fit your other camera. You will not be disappointed!

Unless you already have a collection of Canon lenses going down to at least 18mm, I would recommend going for the lens package as the 1.6x multiplier means that you will need an (expensive!) 18mm lens to go down to a general-use 28mm focal length, 35mm equivalent. In addition to being a good-quality lens in its own right, the EF-S is lightweight, compact and a great value general-use lens for the little bit extra you pay. Look forward to more of the lightweight EF-S lenses in the future (although they will be incompatible with you 35mm bodies).

In addition, you will also want at least a 256mb CF card (preferably 512mb or 1gb if you plan to do a lot of shooting), a good UV filter per lens to protect the front element, a second battery, and a decent camera bag to hold everything. Depending on the type of shooting you do, a tripod - or monopod - is also a good idea.

Bottom line: an excellent starter-intermediate package for about £1,000 all in.

Anyone used to a film SLR will be able to master it pretty quickly and might not even need to read the instructions, I
didnt. I bought a 28-300 Sigma lense and a 500 MB card to go with the camera and on the highest picture quality setting this gives 114 or so pictures. You get good life too from the re chargeable battery. Action shots are now no problem at all
although macro shots are not as easy as with the fuji and the fuji probably shades the 300D on detail and colour sharpness.

Overall I think the 300D is well worth the extra cost over a more compact digital camera due to the flexibility offered
( lense changing, good manual focus and set up ) although the picture quality for me is a little soft focus for my liking, I
like a good sharp image with lots of detail. One good point with the 300D is that you can get very good results in low light without the use of the flash. I also like the fact that the pictures do not need a lot of computer fettling, you can just load them up and print them out for good results.

My advice is that if you are going digital after using a film SLR dont be tempted to save a bit of cash by buying a compact if like me you are likely to take action shots as you will only get frustrated. Buy a 300D, get a good lense and a 500 MB card and also get a good printer as the printer might turn out to be the limiting factor. A minor point is that my 300D and lense will not fit in the camera bag I already had. I dont know what the propper name is for this type of bag but it is the type where the camera goes in lense first, and I could not find a similar bag that it would fit into. I had to get a bag which was probably meant for a camcorder and it is a little too big to carry around and not feel self concious about.

I hope this review helps someone. I can imagine using my 300D for years to come and I think that the quality and facilities are very good and that for most people spending more money than this camera costs would not really be necessary.