Reviews

Camera review: Canon Rebel XTi DSLR

Released on August 24, 2006, the Rebel XTi is Canon’s newest entry-level prosumer DSLR. It’s an update on the popular Rebel XT, and it’s different from it as follows:

Slightly thinner body, heavier (2.56in vs. 2.63in and 510g vs. 485g)
Newer, re-designed sensor with higher resolution (10 megapixels vs. 8.2 megapixels)
Sensor cleaning technology (dust shaken off the sensor with ultrasonic waves)
Bigger display (2.5in vs. 1.8in)

I only listed the significant differences above. You’re welcome to compare the detailed specs if you’d like, right on Canon’s website. Go to the More Information section at the end of this post and use the links listed there to get the full specs.

In my reviews of other DSLRs, like the Canon 30D, the Olympus E-510, or the Olympus E-500, I criticized the Rebel XTi’s small grip, and I still think I’m right. It’s much too small to be held comfortably in a man’s hand, and that’s unfortunate, because the camera is great in every other aspect.

In spite of the camera’s small grip, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the photos it produced, and I wanted to share my findings with you. I avoided reviewing it until now on purpose — as I said, I was displeased with its body design — but after using it, I’m happy to say I would recommend it.

I made a video review of the XTi, which should help you get a better idea of the its dimensions. I discussed the camera at length in the video, and also did a side-by-side comparison between it and my Canon 5D. You can watch it below, or scroll past it to read the rest of my review. You can also watch it here, or download it if you like.

I should also mention I goofed in the video. I talked about the XTi having the DIGIC III processor, but it turns out it still has the DIGIC II processor. What I said about the differences between it and the 5D and 30D with respect to exposure value settings is still correct, so don’t disregard that. You may or may not be aware that when you do not adjust the EV settings on a 5D or 30D, and you shoot outside in bright light, the processor will overexpose the shot. The quick fix is to dial down the EV by 1/3rd, and that usually does the trick. But that’s not right. Shots shouldn’t be overexposed, and I’m glad to see the XTi doesn’t suffer from that bug. It exposes shots beautifully, and you’ll see what I mean when you look at my sample photographs below.

Even though the overall design of the camera is similar to that of the larger DSLRs that Canon makes, certain differences are there, and they are caused both by the price and size of the camera. For example, being used to the 5D, I missed the small at-a-glance display on top of the camera. On the 5D, it lets me know what my settings are without having to consult the LCD screen. I also missed the large settings dial next to the LCD that’s a staple on every other Canon prosumer and pro DSLR. I love that dial/wheel, and I miss it on every non-Canon camera I use.

The exposure value adjustment button, along with the drive settings button, are located next to the display instead of the top of the camera. There is no jog controller for the focus point selection, either. But you can’t have everything. The Rebel XTi is an entry-level DSLR, so you can’t have features that are normally found on the more expensive DSLRs. Plus, its body size makes it impossible to have the same button arrangement.

Despite my gripes, I liked the size of the body, and I liked the feel of the buttons. They had a soft, glossy surface that made it a joy to press them. The small body of the camera makes it possible to hold it very comfortably in the palm of your hand, and that’s a huge plus, because you can stabilize shots a lot better that way.

I really liked the quality of the photos from the XTi. I shot in RAW format, and I was very pleasantly surprised to see how well exposed the photos were, and how accurate the color reproduction was. I’ll show you some photos very shortly where I made no adjustments in post-processing other than adding meta-data, and I think you, too, will find it hard to believe that those were RAW shots straight from the camera.

I can tell you this: the RAW files made by the XTi have better exposure and color, right out of the camera, than the RAW files made by my 5D. It’s a shocker, yes, but it’s true. I suppose that’s to be expected. The 5D uses technology developed in 2005, while the XTi uses technology developed in 2006. But still, I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it, and being a 5D owner who’s shot tens of thousands of photos with the 5D, this was a hard pill to swallow. Having said this, would I give up my 5D for a Rebel XTi? I’m tempted, but no. 🙂

On to the photos. These are two that I took in early afternoon light, which was bright and unforgiving. I shot in RAW and developed the photos in Lightroom. I had to do very little exposure adjustment. Can you believe how well the XTi exposed the photos and reproduced the colors? Can you believe the dynamic range of the sensor? I didn’t expect this from the XTi.

Here’s another photo that shows off the dynamic range of the camera. I shot this with the wonderful 18-55mm kit lens. If you’re confused by my characterization of that lens, watch the XTi’s video review, and I think you’ll understand.

Here’s a macro shot I took with the same 18-55mm kit lens. I was pleasantly surprised with the low noise at 800 ISO.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again. I love the colors that I get out of this camera! Have a look at these two photos to see what I mean.

I thought I’d put in a dog photo for good measure. This happy pooch posed for me in downtown Alexandria this past summer. I used Keith McCammon‘s XTi for the shot.

What else can I say? If I’ve missed anything, let me know in the comments. The Canon Rebel XTi is a great prosumer DSLR. You won’t have to try very hard to get wonderful photos with it, and its affordable price will help make your decision a little easier.

Buy the XTi

Reviews

The right CF card reader for me

I had a really hard time finding a good Compact Flash card reader to use with my 5D ever since I purchased it this past April. I almost resigned myself to waiting half an hour to download photos from a single 2GB CF card, until I found something that works as advertised.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, either. Have a look below to see the various card readers I tried. None of them worked properly.

The first one I bought was the SanDisk CF PC Card Adapter. It worked with all of my CF cards, but was horribly slow. Even though it was advertised as a USB 2.0 product, the speeds I got out of it were pretty much USB 1.1.

Then there was another SanDisk product, the little silver reader you see next to the PC Card Adapter. This one was also advertised as a USB 2.0 product, but did it work? Not with all my CF cards. It only worked with the Transcend 4 GB one, but not with the 2 ATP 2GB cards (only one is pictured above). And it also didn’t yield USB 2.0 transfer speeds. It was more like USB 1.5, if there is such a thing.

I figured I’d try a different brand, so I bought the Targus pictured above. This one was advertised as USB 2.0, and supposed to read over 50 different memory cards. Again, it only worked with my Transcend card, not with my ATP cards. It yielded USB 2.0 transfer speeds when it worked, but overall, it was still unsatisfactory.

I finally bought a card reader that works with all my cards (CF and SD included), was less expensive than the Targus, is super fast, and made me happy enough to want to blog about it.

It’s the i-rocks card reader. It makes no silly, untrue claims like the other card readers I own. It reads all the cards I need, it’s very fast, and that’s all I need to know. It also looks pretty good. If you’ve been having problems with your card readers, give the i-rocks a try. It works as advertised, and that’s more than I can say for most products out there…

Reviews

Windows Family Safety

Windows Family Safety (WFS) is a new offering from Microsoft that aims to offer protection from questionable or indecent websites to families or individuals. I tried it out for a couple of weeks, and found it to work fairly well, except for a few hiccups here and there.

It is a software-based internet filtering mechanism. The difference between a software-based internet filter and a hardware-based one is that the software needs to be installed on every computer where filtering is desired. A hardware-based internet filter is usually self-contained in a box or appliance that gets placed between the user’s internet connection and the internet. The benefit of such an appliance is readily seen. There’s nothing to install on client computers. Unfortunately, hardware-based solutions have been fairly expensive, historically speaking.

Software-based internet filtering has also cost money, until now. As a matter of fact, Microsoft used to offer one such software-based solution with its premium MSN service. Windows Family Safety may be that same offering, repackaged as a free service.

Having used other software-based internet filters, I can tell you Windows Family Safety is a lot easier to use, and much less annoying than paid products. Those other services, who don’t even deserve to be called by their names, were just plain awful. I had to authenticate every time I tried to access a website, and logins didn’t even take at times. What’s worse, if a single website called out to other websites to display information, as is so common these days, I had to authenticate for every single request. They were a nightmare, and I quickly uninstalled them.

Windows Family Safety requires a simple install, and the selection of a master account which can set the level of access for that computer. It uses Microsoft Passport sign-ons, which means I was able to use my Hotmail account to log in. After that, it was a matter of logging in every time I turned on my computer or came back from standby. This was one area where I encountered a hiccup though. The software had an option to allow me to save my username and password, so I wouldn’t have to enter them so often, but that option didn’t seem to work. I was stuck logging in much more than I cared to do, but still, this was nothing compared to the torture I went through with other software-based filters — as already mentioned in the paragraph above.

Just how does WFS work? It turns out that it uses a proxy to filter the traffic. It means that every time you make a call to a website, that call first goes through the WFS servers, where it gets matched to their content database and the website deemed to be appropriate for the level of safety that you’ve chosen. Here’s where I encountered two hiccups.

The first was that at peak times, the speed of my internet connection was slowed down to a crawl until it could pass through the fairly busy proxy servers and be filtered. That was really annoying, but I assume that’s going to get better as MS dedicates more proxy servers to the service. Perhaps it might be better to download content filters directly to each computer and filter the traffic locally, so the chance of a bottleneck is reduced or eliminated.

The second was the seemingly arbitrary designation of some sites as inappropriate. I chose to filter out adult, gambling and violent websites. Somehow, both of my blogs (ComeAcross and Dignoscentia) didn’t meet that standard, which was very surprising to me. Neither of those sites can even remotely be classified under those questionable categories. Fortunately, there’s a fairly simple process for requesting that a site be reconsidered for proper classification, and it’s built into the Windows Family Safety website. I followed the procedure, and within days, my sites were properly classified. But the fact that I had to go through all of that makes me wonder how they’re classified in the first place.

Overall, I found that WFS still hasn’t gotten proper branding. What I mean by that is that it’s not clearly identified as a product by Microsoft. The Windows Live OneCare Family Safety website is part of the Live Family of sites, true, but it’s not even identified on most of the other sites in that family (Hotmail, SkyDrive, etc.) I also found that configuring one’s WFS account can be pretty unintuitive, as the navigation on the WFS site is cumbersome and lacking focus (much like the Windows Live OneCare site, come to think of it.) I even got code errors when I tried to surf through it recently, which is not what I expected from a public MS site.

On a general note, Microsoft really needs to do some work in associating each MS product with the Windows Live account that uses it, and making it easy for each user to access the online/offline settings for each product. Google does a great job with this, and MS could stand to learn from them here.

Windows Family Safety is a good solution, and it works well considering that it’s free. If you’re looking to set up some easy internet filtering at your home, it could turn out to work great for you. Give it a try and see!

Thoughts

A few site improvements

Over the last few days, I’ve been making small changes to the site design. You may or may not have noticed them. Here are a few:

Made the header graphics smaller, to reduce page height. This change was subtle, but it did save about 80 pixels.
Moved the byline and feed flares to the top of each post. They were previously located at the bottom. The feed flares are the links that allow you to share posts with others via social networking sites or email, should you find them interesting. If you do, I encourage you to use them. I put a LOT of time and effort into my blog every day, and it means a lot to me when others find value in my content and spread the word about it.
Removed certain sections from the sidebar, to reduce clutter.
Moved the translation links from the sidebar to the footer. These links allow you to do a one-click translation of whatever page you’re on into another language, using Google’s Language Tools. If you speak another language, try them out, and let me know if you’re happy with the accuracy of the translation.

I finished upgrading the site to WordPress 2.2.2 tonight. It took a couple of hours, but I like the new admin interface, and the new built-in caching capabilities should help as the site traffic continues to grow. I highly recommend WP’s extended upgrade instructions, in case you’re thinking about upgrading your own WP installs.

I’ll continue to make various improvements to the site here and there to ensure a good user experience. If you have any suggestions about making the site easier to read, or making content easier to find, or some other feedback about my blog, please let me know.

Reviews

Hardware review: WD My Book Pro Edition II

Less than a month ago, I reviewed the WD My Book World Edition II, a NAS device from Western Digital, and I promised that I’d also review the My Book Pro Edition II, which I also bought. Here are my thoughts.

❗ Updated 12/13/2007: Before I say anything else, I need to discourage you strongly from buying this drive. There are MANY flawed units of this drive on the market. There are serious problems with cooling, which result in excessive fan noise and even random drive shutdowns while in use. Scroll to the end of the review to read the updates and see what sorts of problems I’ve had with the drive.

Design

The Pro Edition II should be a better and faster external hard drive than the World Edition II when it comes to working with my photo library, since it connects directly to my computer instead of going through the network. Its exterior design is just as good as that of the World Edition II, and the photos enclosed below will show it.

I have to confess that I’m design-obsessed. If something looks good, I’m willing to overlook the fact that it may not work as expected, which is definitely the case with this device. Of course, if it were truly designed well, it wouldn’t have the serious problems that it has, but at least it looks good on my desk… I suppose I could call it a very expensive paperweight. It’s so unfortunate that Western Digital couldn’t deliver with this product. It looks so nice, and does so poorly…

The drive has three interfaces: USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. A nice touch is the inclusion of two Firewire 800 ports. This is probably because most computers have only one Firewire 800 port, and the WD engineers wanted to give us the ability to daisy-chain other devices onto the drive. In terms of the RAID settings, it has RAID 0 and RAID 1. I’m using my drive in RAID 1, to get the data redundancy I need when it comes to my photo library.

Serious problems

I’ve read complaints about the drive being loud, and I agree. I’ll say this: when it works fine, it’s quiet. When it has problems, it’s VERY loud. There are persistent cooling issues with the drive, that have been partially solved through firmware updates, but they keep showing up even on later builds. I think the WD engineers still have a LOT of work ahead of them when it comes to this model. See below for more on this.

My workflow involves working mainly with Adobe Lightroom, and doing the following:

Importing and viewing RAW files
Winnowing
Adding meta data
Editing images and
Exporting them to JPG files for the web or for clients

The drive is usually fine with this, but if I spend more than an hour (and sometimes, even less than an hour in Lightroom), it’ll start to overheat. Then the fan speed will auto-switch to what I call “medium speed”, and the drive will get a little louder. If after a few minutes or so, I’m still not done working, the drive fan will kick into high gear, something that I and others call “hairdryer mode”. After a couple of minutes at that speed, the drive will either return to “medium speed” or shut off completely, leaving me and Lightroom wondering where the photo library went.

I’ve learned to save my work and exit Lightroom when the drive fan goes into “hairdryer mode”, because I can almost certainly expect the drive to shut off. I called WD Support on this, and I applied a firmware fix a few weeks ago, but the cooling problem is still there. By the way, the drive has to stand vertically at all times, or you’ll have even more serious cooling problems.

Getting support

I need to say that WD Support are responsive, but they live in serious denial. They will agree to an RMA, but they insist that these drives are just fine, which is definitely NOT the case. Speaking from personal experience, WD Support is better than the support I’ve gotten from other tech companies like Microsoft and HP. At least they try to be helpful and polite. This was one of the main reasons I stuck with the drive through serious, repeated problems.

As I stated at the start of this post, I continue to have problems with my drive, even after two replacements. I like the design, and I like the fact that it has three interfaces. But I cannot use it long-term, because, let’s face it, it’s an unreliable piece of crap, and it’s very frustrating to use it when it overheats and crashes my computer. I’ve already bought a Drobo (which I love) for my photo library, and I’m going to re-purpose this drive to store some other files.

Working with the drive

In my review of the My Book World Edition II, I mentioned how I’m in a mixed OS environment at home. I have both an iMac and a Windows laptop. It’s necessary for me to be able to read and write to my external devices from both computers. This is in case I do large file transfers, which are obviously a lot faster to do over a USB or Firewire connection than a wireless network. So what I did to solve this problem was to format the My Book Pro Edition II in the Mac file system (HFS+ Journaled). Now I can read and write just fine to it from both machines because I purchased MacDrive, a piece of software that lets you access Mac drives on Windows as if they were NTFS or FAT32 volumes.

Let’s review

I like the drive, and the design, but it has SERIOUS quality control problems and manufacturing defects. Make sure to read through the Updates section below for the latest news on the drive, and remember to spare yourself the agony I’m going through by NOT buying it.

Updates

❗ Updated 10/30/07: It turns out the cooling problems with my drive weren’t normal. After calling WD Support a second time, I was offered an RMA. They sent out a replacement drive to me via 2-day Fedex, free of charge, and let me keep my old drive for a month while I transferred my photos over to the new drive. During that month, I worked exclusively on the new drive, to make sure that it wouldn’t overheat and shut off anymore. While it goes into “hairdryer mode” once in a blue moon, the fan speed always returns to “low speed”, which is barely audible, and the drive never shuts off. Whatever problems existed in the earlier builds of this drive, WD fixed them, and the new drives work just fine. If you’re having cooling problems with your My Book Pro, I encourage you to contact WD Support and see if you can exchange it.

❗ Updated 12/03/07: I’ve just arranged to receive my 2nd replacement drive from WD via RMA. While I like the consistently high level of customer support they provide, I have to point out that there are manufacturing defects that still haven’t been ironed out. While my first drive, the one I purchased from a store, only overheated, and worked okay otherwise, the replacement drive had three problems. It also overheated, although less often than the original drive. Its Firewire 400 connector didn’t work. I tried different cables, to no avail. The computer just didn’t see it while it could see other Firewire drives just fine. Most importantly, it kept crashing my iMac every time I connected it. Not right away, but within minutes or less than an hour, it would crash the system so badly that I’d have to reset it. I’d get the standard Apple screen of death with a message that asked me to reset the computer. When I’d look at the logs, they’d always point to the USB as the problem for the crash, and the only drive I had connected via USB was the My Book Pro. Let’s hope this third drive that WD will send me will finally work properly.

❗ Updated 12/13/07: As stated at the top of this post, DO NOT buy this drive, for the reasons already detailed. I am NOT alone in having problems with this drive. Many Mac users are having the same problems with it, and you can see this by doing a search on the Apple forums for “My Book Western Digital“.

The drive also DOES NOT work as advertised. The specs say it works with USB, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800, but it DOES NOT work with Firewire 400. I have not had the chance to test it with Firewire 800, so I can’t speak about that, but I know for sure that Apple computers cannot see it when connected through Firewire 400. It does work with USB, but it tends to crash Apple computers when connected to them through that protocol. Trust me on that last bit, I’ve checked the error logs every time and confirmed it reliably — it’ll crash my iMac, which runs Leopard (the latest Mac OS X), when connected through USB, while other USB or Firewire drives can connect just fine and have no problems. Have a look at this article of mine for a video of the crashes it causes, and for photos of the damaged drives that WD sends out as replacements.

Western Digital is also NOT doing a good job testing these drives before they send them out. I’m now on my third replacement drive from Western Digital (My Book Pro), and it exhibits the same problems: overheating and NOT working with Firewire 400. Western Digital Support refuses to believe it and continues to stubbornly cling to the idea that the drive works just fine since it can connect through USB. They offered to send me out another replacement drive, and I refused. I’m not going to spend my entire life swapping drives and data until Western Digital decides to get their manufacturing and quality control processes in order.

I also want to mention that the re-certified drives they send out can be scratched, scuffed and smudged. They are NOT cleaned, and Western Digital simply DOES NOT care if they send you a drive in bad aesthetic condition. My re-certified drives arrived in progressively worse condition, to the point where this last replacement drive looks absolutely horrible. It looks like it’s been banged up and dragged on the floor. It’s got oily smudge marks on its sides… basically, it’s a mess.

DO NOT BUY this drive unless you want to run into the problems I’m having right now, and believe me, it’s not fun at all. Western Digital needs to get its act in order on this model, because they’re churning out some real duds.

➡ Updated 7/3/08: I updated my other post about the My Book Pro as well with the following information.

On 4/16/08, I received a replacement drive from Western Digital. It’s a 2TB Studio Edition II drive, which works in USB, Firewire 400/800 and eSATA modes. I’ve been using it since in RAID 0, and it’s been working great. To see how I use it, read this recent post of mine, where I talk about the hardware I use on a daily basis. I also plan to write a detailed review of the drive shortly.

I guess the lesson is that the My Book Pro line had serious faults, and WD got things right with the My Book Studio line. So, if you’re in the market for a drive, DO NOT get a My Book Pro. But DO get a My Book Studio drive. They seem to work alright.

Raoul Pop

One man's life

Tag Archives: design