My latest images for sale at Shutterstock:

My most popular images for sale at Shutterstock:

Monday, February 7, 2011

Canon Announces Rebel T3i

Well, here's the latest warm-over from Canon:


The speed of these releases which truly don't add much new to the previous version of the camera have left me a little jaded.

The T3i has a articulated LCD and integrated wireless flash control and some other software doo-dads (video cropping) for the soccer mom/dad market. Otherwise, it's exactly the same camera as before.

What would I have liked to see?

1) Native intervalometer
2) Native HDR like on G12
3) Dual card slots
5) Microlense adjustment
6) Rotary control dial like on xxD series and above

Yes, yes, I know... Canon will never cannibalize feature sets on its higher-end DSLRs and put them in the entry-level series. Well, that's just too bad. Pentax doesn't have any problems offering even base-level nicely-specc'ed cameras. Too bad Pentax hasn't been doing at that great for the last couple of years.

The first two things on my wish list can be accomplished on the T2i thanks to the hard work of the people over at Magic Lantern. Canon could take a tip from groups like CHDK and Magic Lantern, and offer the same features in future camera firmware with a professional polish. If they did this, their cameras would have an edge over competitors and sell even better. But no, what they do is adjust the firmware to make it harder for CHDK and Magic Lantern to tweak the firmware. With the G12, they have even taken issue with people using third-party accessories; if one uses a Cybersyncs, the screen blanks out. Uh... OK... loyal customers keep coming back and buying your stuff because they can spec it out. You cut them off at the knees. Hmm, maybe they'll stop coming back?



No comments: