Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBest combination of image quality, viewfinder, and size
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2013
I am impressed with my new Canon SL1 with the 18-55 kit lens. As a long time dedicated amateur photographer with a shelf full of other equipment, including fancier and much more expensive equipment, this will now be the one I take with me and use most of the time. Here's why:
* Incredibly small and incredibly light. The biggest single reason for the recent spate of mirrorless cameras (Sony NEX, Fujifilm X) is now negated! I am sitting here looking at the SL1 next to my Fujifilm XE-1 with a comparable 18-55 zoom lens. The SL1 is lighter and smaller than the Fuji mirrorless camera with its electronic viewfinder. The SL1 optical viewfinder, while more compressed than the one in a large high-end DSLR, to my eyes is still far superior to any electronic viewfinder, which is like looking at a fuzzy little television from the 1960's. Canon appears to have achieved the small size by repackaging the sensor and shutter; impressive engineering and I expect that Nikon and others will have to follow suit. Let's hope we will now see a new generation of tiny DSLRs.
*Image quality: OK you say, it's small. So what am I giving up? Answer is - not really much. Image quality is excellent. The electronics of sensors have advanced rapidly in the last few years and the newest entry level camera is going to perform better than the high end product you bought two years ago. And new half frame sensors may be comparable to full frame sensors from a few years back. Also, the entry level DSLR market is the most competitive. Nikon (D3200) and Canon (SL1 or T5) are forced to give you more for your money than with high end full frame cameras. The SL1 is a bargain. Yes, you can get a marginal improvement in images and controls by going up market, but you will pay 3X as much in dollars, and in weight, and in volume. The cost of any technology is usually on a log scale; 90% of state of the art costs X and 95% costs 3X and 99% costs 9X. It makes no sense to ride this curve unless you do very specialized or commercial photography. For most of us, the most important thing is whether we have the camera with us when the photo opp comes up.
*Comparison. The images coming out of this Canon SL1 are lovely, contrasty and with excellent colors. I compared directly with my full frame Nikon D600 and also Sony NEX 6 at ISO 400. Results; unless you are a fanatical pixel peeper, they are all in the same ballpark. Only by blowing up the central 10% to fill the computer screen can one begin to see significant differences. If you do make this extreme blowup, the full frame D600 had the cleanest, lowest noise, and finest detail. But then the D600 costs 4X the SL1 and weighs more than twice as much! And anyway, does it really matter if some other sensor is s-l-i-g-h-t-l-y better? No it doesn't. Having the 'best' equipment is just not the determining factor in capturing beautiful photos that I will take pride in years down the road. The SL1 gives me 90% of the quality I will get from any camera anywhere at 1/4 the cost of a high end DSLR. The main difference is that the viewfinder is cramped and the settings are in menus rather than dedicated buttons. Big deal. You can still do any creative thing you want and win photo contests with this camera.
*How about the kit lens?: Just fine. By profession I am interested in the details of lens design and I admire beautiful finely crafted Zeiss lenses just as much as as the next fanatic. But as a photographer I can tell you that for actually capturing once-in-a-lifetime handheld photo opportunities with a sharp high quality image, there are two things that matter much more than ultimate optical quality: a) image stabilization and b) zoom so you can scale the desired image to fill your sensor. Are high quality prime lenses "better?" In practical terms, usually not. For most photography, they will not produce a more detailed image unless your camera is on a tripod and the scene just happens to be matched to the focal length. For general opportunistic or travel photography, squeezing out the last iota of lens quality is close to irrelevant. This is especially so these days when the camera JPG engine corrects typical lens defects such as distortion and chromatic aberration automatically. Modern lenses no longer have to be perfect in the glass; they all end up pretty much alike after the software corrections are applied. This is also why spending hours diddling around with RAW images in Photoshop no longer makes much sense for most of us - the JPEG engine has been programmed to optimize the specific lens - and it will take much time and skill to equal or improve on this on one's own. Today, post processing is not optional so JPEG is how cameras should be judged.
Image stabilization in particular has a lot more to do with sharpness for handheld photos then ultimate lens quality. The stabilization on this Canon lens works fine, showing its best advantage with shutter speeds around 1/10 to 1/25 second and giving effective reduced jitter as if you were shooting at 1/200. (If the required exposure is much slower than 1/25, let's say 1/5 or slower, even IS will not help - and if it's much faster, don't need IS and it won't improve anything.) And as noted, using a zoom has a lot bigger impact on quality then the niceties of a prime lens because one doesn't need to crop down. If I crop to the central 1/4 of the image area because my lens did not frame the scene optimally, I am throwing away 3/4 of my pixels, so I no longer have 18MP anyway. Overall results will be better with a zoom, even if it's optically imperfect.
*So is mirrorless no longer needed? There is one factor which does still favor mirrorless over SLR; the size of lenses, which are limited by the laws of physics and the long flange-to-sensor distance that comes with an SLR mirror. For the Canon SL1 or any SLR, zoom lenses will usually be bigger than the body. So I also bought the 40mm f2.8 Canon pancake lens which is compact for walk-around, although if I have to use a fixed lens I would prefer a wider angle. Canon makes a dozen other mid range zooms such as the 15-85, but you will have to accept a weight of 575-645 g compared to 205 g for the kit lens. In fixed focal lengths, Canon also makes two nice wide angle (24 mm and 28mm) lenses with image stabilization that weigh only 260-281 g and would offer a good match for the SL1. The 50mm f1.8 should be considered instead of the 40mm; faster and costs less. And of course you may already own a shelf full of Canon EF or EF-S lenses.
*But isn't the SL1 plasticky? Yes, it is plasticky, and there are tacky "sculpted" buttons on the back, ala consumer cameras, and the shutter release is not as snappy as my Nikon D600. It does not give the impression of a professional tool. I regret that Canon interpreted "small and light" as "entry level;" I would have been willing to pay more for a compact but higher precision package. But it's also very light. And it's so handy I'm going to take it with me when I travel as opposed to leaving my big full frame Nikon at home. And if it gets stolen or dropped, not such a tragedy. Every camera is a compromise. In my opinion enthusiasts sometimes obsess too much over 'build quality.' Yes, there is a tactile pleasure to high precision Leicas from the 1950's, but that kind of mechanical quality is no longer necessary for quality photos. Cameras today, like so many other products are made of plastic and software but the results - photographs - are better than ever.
*Interface and ease of use. Canon along with all other Japanese camera brands cram their interfaces with all sorts of useless clutter in the form of indecipherable icons, unnecessary modes and confusing redundancies. What does that odd little icon which looks like an upside down flag with a teardrop mean? Why not just use plain old WORDS to label it? And has anyone you know actually used the "Food Mode?" Is it really more convenient to have three or four redundant ways to change the ISO setting, or just confusing? Canon and the other makers should really drastically simplify the whole thing - look at your iPhone, which does many more things than a camera but has very few icons and labels and buttons. All the major Japanese cameras have the same overly complicated philosophy, but the SL1 Canon is somewhat easier to figure out than most, and the touch screen is a definite plus. In any case, although this is considered an 'entry level' DSLR, the full manual nevertheless runs to 388 pages, so plenty of options. There is also a remote control available as an option, to get yourself in family photos or for nature photography. In short, there is very little you can't do with the SL1.
*Flaws? There is one real photographic deficiency. When I switch to Live View for still photos (this means lock up the mirror and use the LCD to frame photos, like a point-and-shoot), the autofocus becomes very slow and hunts for a lock. The mirrored autofocus runs on a fast phase detection principle but in Live View the sensor focusses using some combination of contrast detection (slow in poor light) with special phase pixels. The solution; don't use Live View for still photos, keep it for movies. Other minor annoyances: the on/off switch is not in the most natural place. Also the optical viewfinder picture is not only cramped but also does not capture 100% of the full sensor field; more like 79%, so you will have to learn to compensate by overfilling the viewfinder frame a bit. I wish the buttons on the back were bigger (Note to Canon: Just because the back of the camera is small does not mean the buttons have to be small - get it?) Finally the flash pops up when I don't want it to, although there is mode dial setting to suppress that.
*Movies. Since one cannot use the optical SLR viewfinder to make movies, an SLR like this is not really the best camera for movies. In you want to concentrate on movies, the Sony NEX design is much better suited.
*Bottom line: This is a great little state of the art camera and lens which takes lovely still photos without much fuss in an affordable tiny package. It benefits from the latest up to the minute sensor technology, the photos are quite comparable to high end mirrorless or other half frame DSLR cameras and only slightly inferior to full frame costing much more and weighing much more. Yes, it is cluttered with too many modes and icons, but they all do that. With the kit lens you get the benefits of zoom and image stabilization and still the overall package is very portable. There is very little one might wish to do in art photography which cannot be done with the SL1. Speaking for myself, a small half-frame camera with an optical viewfinder is just the ticket - the best overall combination of image quality, viewfinder and functionality for the size and weight. It seems to me that the main justification for half frame mirrorless designs with electronic viewfinders has been negated. Is there a time when I won't use the SL1? Yes, for street photography where people may be intimidated by having a camera pointed at them - the Sony NEX with its articulated rear display is better for that. But for any photography where SLR works best, Canon has produced an advance similar to that of the Olympus OM series in the 1970's. Small is beautiful. Bravo, Canon; you will sell a lot of these!
Note added in response to comments below:
Thanks to everyone who commented but perhaps I did not make my viewpoint clear. Yes I know a knowledgable PhotoShop artist who spends time fiddling with an image may produce a better result than the in-camera JPEG. That's not the point. Post RAW processing is no longer optional since lenses are now designed assuming their distortions and aberrations will be corrected in software. Since the efficiency of the in-camera JPEG is part of the product and the mode most people will use, it should be part of the review. For any hobbyist who insists on doing it all by hand, be my guest, knock yourself out!
Second, yes it is possible to get somewhat better, somewhat lower noise images at high ISO from a full frame sensor such as the D600. But in my tests this was only apparent if I crop to a small part of the original image. Normally the difference - in my judgement - is not great enough to make it worth lugging the big heavy D600.
One more update: Consumer Reports just reviewed the SL1 and rated it near the top of DSLR overall
