Continuing on from last week’s review of the Canon EOS 400D/Rebel Xti, here’s the review of the camera bag to go with my purchase.
I lucked out with this bag in that I had just popped into a photography store in Salt Lake City to see if I could get a Shieldzone screen protector (which are from SLC) and they had this bag sitting on display.
I’ll make this review simple, this is an great bag for an SLR and I wouldn’t have gotten some of the better photos this year without it. Why? Basically, every once in a while, I’ll have a moment of madness, realize there’s going to be a beautiful sunset somewhere, throw the bag over my shoulder and clip the waistbelt in, and take off at a run for the highest vantage point. As a warning, I’ve almost being ill from running up said hills but you can’t really blame the bag for that :)

The bag has enough space for an SLR with a medium size zoom lens attached (up to about 80mm) and room for two more lens (or accessories beside it). I don’t own one but I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t accept a large zoom along with the camera so if you have one of those, you might want to have a look at something larger. I’ve seen reports however on Amazon that people say it will take a 100-300mm zoom lens with just the SLR however. Also, the padded dividers internally can be moved around to suit your gear as they’re attached by velcro.
There’s a zip pocket on the front that easily accommodates some miscellaneous items like battery charger, etc. To give an idea of what I used to carry in this while traveling on planes, this bag used to contain the SLR and two lenses (one on the camera), a universal plug converter, Archos photo storage device, all necessary cables, earphones, SLR battery charger, and documentation required for flights. Quite a lot for such a small bag!

The big selling point for me was the integrated waist-belt. With solitary shoulder strap the bag flops around when moving briskly (i.e. running) or climbing (i.e. hanging on a rope waiting to get some photos of another route). With the waist-belt fastened, there’s not a kick out of it and it’s especially comforting with all the hardware being kept nice and snug. there’s some padding internally also which helps with the bag being dropped, sorry bumped ;) It was especially useful while moving around cities as it’s easy to access the compartment to swap lenses. In comparison to the backpacks, you can just swing it around front and just lie the gear into the bag to swap.

Overall: if you like moving around with a camera over your shoulder with easy access to everything in it, and like to move actively, a brilliant bag and you won’t be complaining.

continuing on from last week’s review of the Canon EOS Rebel Xti (400D), here’s the continuation of the review to cover the lens.
I’d decided straight away (especially after reviews that the lens is so critical to the camera, I didn’t trust the stock lens Canon must supply) to just purchase the body and purchase a separate lens that would suit my needs more.
Firstly, I’m sure a lot of you will be aware, but this does cost more money. Lenses are NOT cheap! Still though, I thought it was a worthwhile investment.

I purchased two lenses:
1. the stock Canon EF 50mm f1.8 fixed lens
if you own a Canon SLR, buy this lens for portrait shots, etc. It’s tiny so makes the camera nice and small and not intimidating like the usual bulky SLR (who likes having a camera stuck in their face!?). It’s also brilliant in low light without flash (aperature). A must buy.
Note #1: try to purchase in the States as it’s sooo much cheaper over there - $77/€52.50 instead of $142/€97 - I know I did ;).
Note #2: When used on the 400D/Xti, it’s actually about a 80mm lens due to 1.6 magnification on the smaller camera sensor of the consumer level SLR’s Canon and Nikon sell. I’m not going into details: the short answer is if you’re purchasing a lens and it has ‘EF’, it means it’s going to be magnified, if it has EF-S it’s what it says on the tin, errr, lens.

2. the Canon 17-85mm Image Stabilized that this review is based on.
I’ll keep it pretty short. Once again, this camera has visited 4 continents this year and taken a respectable battering along the way. I can’t fault it for any manufacturing quality issues.
I’ll be honest also - I wasn’t overly sure on whether I liked this lens when I first purchased it. Considering it costs almost the price of the camera (about $150/€110 less) this obviously wasn’t a good thing! Still though, as I’ve used it more and more, I’ve really come to appreciate it’s versatility.
Having taken some photos with and without the image stabilization, I can confirm that there’s definitely some improvements due to it. To the ordinary user, you’ll basically notice it if you’re using the lens in poor light as there’s less need for the flash. As an example, this photo below was taken in a really steep crag in Australia on maximum zoom. Zero modifications were made to the photo to improve the quality of the photo.

In between all that, one big compliment is that the lens is so quiet. It’s definitely a compliment, and you really notice how loud the mirror on the SLR is when taking a photo after using this lens.

Good Points: it’s a rock solid lens and giving great versatility. It’s a pretty decent wide-angle (although only a mm more than the stock canon lens) and a pretty decent zoom (much more than the stock Canon lens!) giving great opportunities for using while taking portrait or long distance shots. In my ideal world, it’d have a wider zoom (but I think we’d all like that :) but I’m just being picky.
Bad Points: it’s pretty heavy and having it on the 400D/Xti which is a ridiculously light camera, means it’s noticeable. Having said that, I did have a 200mm EF professional lens on the camera a few months ago and now THAT was heavy so I suppose I can’t really complain :)

NEWBRIDGE, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Since it’s coming up to Christmas, I thought now would be the best time to throw up a long term test review of my Canon EOS 400D, or Rebel XTi as it’s known in the States (the exact same model). Maybe it’ll tempt one or two people into a purchase.
First things first: I highly reccommend the purchase of a screen protector like Shieldzone’s specific one. Since the screen is so large, and you’ll regularly have the camera lying against your chest, it’s quite easy for it to pick up marks. My protector is showing some dents proving it was a justified purchase.
Note that this is being based on a traveling and sports point of view as having being purchased at the beginning of the year, this camera has been to Asia, Europe, Australasia and North America and taken an estimated 4,000+ photos. Basically, it’s a report on whether it’s still working or not :)
In short, this camera has performed admirably right from the very beginning and I’m still finding very little I can fault with it.
The real highlights that I’ve found while traveling: The battery is amazing, especially considering the size of the large (3 inches) screen. Canon have really thought the unit through as it has an automatic light sensor so that it turns off when your eye up the viewfinder. Along with that, it’s standby mode seems to use no power whatsoever. I regularly would leave the camera on for a few days, come back, tap the trigger and find it’s still full power. Canon’s estimation of 500 shots on a full charge definitely isn’t inaccurate. Even with heavy use of the screen to review photos, you’ll still easily get into the 300 range - I’m not joking when I say I’ve only charged the camera no more than 20 times in the whole year. I didn’t even bring a spare battery as it was so good.
The camera has taken an absolute beating due to the nature of my existence for the past year and hasn’t missed a beat. Other than some minor scrapes, it still looks as good as new.
With regards to dust getting on the sensor (a potentially common problem for SLR’s when you swap lenses and very difficult to clean at the best of times), I had one small issue right at very beginning with some grit showing up on a batch of photos. I don’t know whether it was the in-built sensor cleaner or just something that cleaned itself, but I haven’t cleaned the sensor since purchasing the camera and the problem disappeared. If anything, the sensor cleaner makes the most disturbing noise of the whole camera (it ‘cleans’ the sensor every time the unit is turned on or off): it sounds like something metal rattling around in the camera for a brief moment on startup and shutdown. Seems to do it’s job however so great stuff.

Other than that, the image quality has been great. With a 10.1 megapixel sensor, there’s lots of allwance to crop photos (as crappy photographers like myself regularly have to do :) without sacrificing quality. With regards to quality, any of the photos I’ve used on this blog have come from the camera and most have only received minor tweaks for brightness and contrast using iPhoto. For more photos check out my Flickr collection.

One additional side benefit is that the camera has sucked me into trying all it’s features. As a compliment to the button and feature layout, I now almost exclusively use the camera on fully Manual or Aperature Priority. That can only be a good thing I suppose?

In short, if anyone is thinking of making the step up from a stand point-and-shoot to a more advanced level camera, a) you won’t regret it due to usually better quality photos from the larger sensor and b) it’ll take a hammering while you’re off doing whatever silly sport keeps you sane :)

Good Points: Amazing battery life. Great sensor. Expandable with additional lenses.

Bad Points: Additional lenses are very expensive. Sometimes (but only sometimes) I wish it could take continuous photos quicker (buy the next model up if that’s what you need). That’s pretty much it in that area!