Insights For Success

Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security

Canon SL1 may be the perfect family dSLR

technologyEdward Kiledjian
SL1-large.gif

As the holiday season approaches, you may be looking for a great all purpose camera and the Canon Rebel  SL1 will definitely not disappoint. It is called the world's smallest and lightest APS-C dSLR.

The Rebel SL1 is the smaller brother of the larger Rebel T5i. They both share the same 18MP sensor and DIGIC 5 processor.  Its fantastic that Canon was able to fit all of the t5i guts into such a small body and at the same time keeping most of the Rebel family buttons intact.

Typically most users jumping to this family of device are coming from point and shoot devices and are looking for better quality photos but also fast autofocus. The Rebel SL1 won't disappoint with the generation 2 of Canon's hybrid CMOS Autofocus system. 

Picture Quality

Even though I knew the SL1 contains the same guts as the T5i, I was expecting sub-par image quality but I was wrong. The device produced beautiful beautiful, vivid and sharp JPG images from ISO 100 to ISO 800. The in camera processing was excellent which means you won't have to save in RAW then spend time converting to JPG with a PC app. When you reach ISO 1600, you start to lose some of the finer detail and the inclusion of light artifacts.

As you continue to increase the ISO, the images become less sharp, you start seeing chromatic aberrations and you lose some of the vividness. The worst of it hits around ISO 12000.

The camera supports the Canon RAW format and at lower ISO (under 1600) the quality is comparable to the in-camera generated JPG. The higher the ISO the better it is to shoot in RAW so you can perform post-processing to improve the final results.

 

SL1-large-2.gif

Conclusion

Overall I think this is a fantastic camera for the general camera user looking for a small and light dSLR. The design is small but easy to grip. Images up to ISO 6400 are wonderful even when using the in-camera JPG conversion feature. The screen is touch responsive and a good representation of the picture you will take. The new hybrid auto-focus is fast and accurate (little lag between press and take). Little chromatic aberrations and full HD video recording capabilities.

Are there any negatives? Yes Sir!

Although many may prefer the smaller frame, those with bigger hands may find it too small.the Autofocus illuminator is built into the flash which means the flash has to be enabled to use it. This is not desirable because I tend to prefer non-flash pictures when possible.

Overall an excellent purchase for most consumers and highly recommended.