Canon 550D Review

For the opportunity EOS 550D Review Many thanks to Vitaliy Kukota.

This review presents the camera itself. Canon EOS 550D body. BODY in the name means that the camera without a lens, and KIT means the camera comes with some kind of lens. Typically, the Canon 550D comes with one of the lenses:

• Canon EF-S 17-85mm f / 4-5.6 IS
• Canon EF-S 18-135mm f / 3.5-5.6 IS
• Canon EF-S 18-200mm f / 3.5-5.6 IS
• Canon EF-S 18-55mm f / 3.5-5.6
• Canon EF-S 18-55mm f / 3.5-5.6 IS
• Canon EF-S 18-55mm f / 3.5-5.6 IS II
• Canon EF-S 55-250mm f / 4.0-5.6 IS
• Canon EF-S 55-250mm f / 4.0-5.6 IS II

Canon 550D can work with EF, EF-S lenses. This means that any modern Canon lens is suitable for it. When using the Canon 550D, you should always remember crop factorwhich for Canon APS-C cameras is 1.6x.

Canon 550D camera uses 9 focus points. This is neither much nor little. Many Canon cameras use so many focus points. This amount is enough for an amateur. In auto focus mode, the camera does a good job of focusing. The Canon 550D uses three conventional focus modes that can be found on many of Canon’s other cameras. Auto focus is very dependent on the lens and shooting conditions.

The display on the Canon 550D is very good, 3-inch with 1,040 million dots. The same display is installed on many other Canon cameras. Compared to a smaller display Canon 1100DThe Canon 550D display is a pleasure to work with.

Canon 550D can shoot video in HD quality 1920 × 1080. You can set the frame rate: 30, 25, 20. Video is the strong point of Canon 550D, in video mode, aperture control is available and shutter speed, which allows you to create and control the process of shooting video. By the way, the highlight priority function also works in video mode. Also, the Canon 550D supports the installation of an external stereo microphone, which is very important for video. And also, you can shoot in 720p mode with 1280 × 720 at 60 or 50 fps, as well as 640 × 480 at 60 or 50 fps, which allows you to create unique videos with a slow-motion effect.

Of course, the camera has a Live View function, which allows you to use the camera as an ordinary soap dish. True, the inconvenience of Live View is that in order to start recording video you need to switch the camera control dial to the desired position. In Live View mode, an approximation of the image section with a multiplicity of 4x and 10x is available, very useful when using old autofocus lenses.

The Canon 550D can operate at ISO 100-6400 and expand the range to H (12800). Please note, to expand the range to 12800, you need to disable the light priority function in the camera menu and enable the ISO range extension function in the same menu. The Canon 550D camera behaves quite well at high ISO values ​​and shows not as strong noises as you might think when looking at its 18MP matrix. Please also note that when the Highlight Tone Priority function is enabled, the use of ISO 100 is not available.

The camera body is made of plastic, it is quite nice to hold the camera. Ergonomics is no different from other Canon cameras.

Note that the Canon 550D has different names in different countries. So, in the USA – Canon Rebel T2iin Japan Canon EOS Kiss digital x4we have Canon EOS 550D. True, I have never seen cameras with captions Rebel T2i or Kiss digital x4 but on the Internet you can find how they look.

Canon 550D does a good job of measuring exposure. Metering system exposure the same as the Canon 7D, built on a 63-zone sensor. In any case, in difficult working conditions exposure may fail just like an automatic white balance.

Canon 550D uses SDHX, SDHC, SD memory cards. The copy from this review works well with SDHC 32GB, SDHC 16GB. Since the camera is very gluttonous due to the huge number of megapixels, I recommend using the fastest memory cards. The camera shows the number of pictures that can fit on the free space of the card. On average, a RAW file weighs from 17 to 36 MB, and JPEG L weighs from 2 to 10 MB.

One of the most important indicators of camera performance and speed is frame bufferor rather, its capacity. Canon 550D Snapshot Buffer can hold:

• RAW without add. functions – 6 frames
• JPEG L without add. functions – 9 frames
• JPEG L without add. functions at high ISO – 8 frames
• RAW with add. functions – 4 framebut the camera continues to shoot as if in a frame buffer 5-6
• JPEG L with add. functions – 2 framebut the camera continues to shoot as if in a frame buffer 5-6

The most important metric is the RAW framebuffer capacity, and at any ISO setting it is a maximum of 6 frames. After 2 seconds of shooting in continuous mode, the camera starts to slow down and write BUSY. This is a fairly low figure. Also note that advanced features such as Highlight Tone Priority, High ISO Noise Reduction, Long Exposure Noise Reduction will greatly reduce the number of frames in the framebuffer. The good news is that the Canon 550D uses 14 bit RAW.

Canon 550D uses a huge 17.9 megapixel CMOS matrix, which can form an image 5184 by 3456 pixels. In the reviews, you can find information that the Canon 550D has a whole 18.7MP, this is not true, since the effective pixels of the camera are only 18.0, but when creating a JPEG image, a picture that includes only 17.9MP is obtained. The difference is miserable, in any case, the Canon 550D has just a stunning number of pixels. With the Canon 550D, you can safely print A1 format posters. Most likely the Canon 550D uses an upgraded matrix from a professional Canon 7D. Similar matrices with 18MP can be found in advanced amateur Canon 60Dspecialized Canon 60Da and similar amateur cameras Canon 650D и Canon 600D.

Roughly speaking, the Canon 550D can produce the same high-quality image as the Canon 7D. Creating a matrix is ​​very expensive, because the same matrix is ​​often used in different camera models.

The Canon 550D’s burst speed is not high at just 3.7 frames per second. This is not a little and not a lot, given the small buffer of the camera, continuous shooting can work normally only with the quality of the JPEG image and a good, high-speed memory card.

The Canon 550D has useful features:

1. A special indicator that determines whether the camera is held to the face. The indicator turns off the display.when focusing is performed through the optical viewfinder. Nice feature.
2. Highlight Priority Function (Highlight tone priority) This function takes a slightly underexposed shot and programmatically expands the dynamic range, pulling information from dark areas.
3. Convenient special button that is responsible for setting the ISO
4. Canon 550D has matrix cleaning system. The function is configured to clean the sensor when it is turned on or off, or forced.
5. Red-eye reduction in flash shots.
6. Noise reduction function at high ISO. It has several values ​​of effectiveness. A very useful thing when shooting in JPEG.
7. Noise reduction function at slow shutter speeds.
8. Peripheral lighting control function (vignetting)

What the Canon 550D lacks in comparison to advanced amateur cameras:

1. Fast sync with flash. Minimum synchronization is available only for 1 \ 200s.
2. The ability to control flashes remotely, which helps a lot when creating interesting effects with lighting
3. An additional display for quick access to settings, such as Canon 60D.
4. Short excerpts 1 \ 8000. Canon 550D has a maximum shutter speed of 1 \ 4000, which sometimes complicates the work with high-aperture optics in good light.

Examples of photos without processing:

Here link to the archive with the originals – 1.4 GB, 60 photos in .CR2 format (RAW) from the camera Canon EOS 550D. Lens used during shooting Canon Zoom Lens EF 24-105mm 1: 4 L IS USM Ultrasonic и safety filter Kenko Pro1D Protector (W) 77mm Made In Japan. All photos in the gallery above are thumbnail on-camera JPEG.

And some more photos

Personal impressions:

The Canon 550D has a nice viewfinder, however, the viewfinder covers only 95% of the frame. Managing the camera is quite simple with one hand. Video shooting is not important for me. In principle, a good camera for fans.

Prices for modern Canon cameras in popular stores can look at this link.

In comments Can I ask you a question on the topic and you will answer, and you can also express your opinion or describe your experience. Many little things for a photo can be found on AliExpress.

Conclusions:

Canon 550D – great amateur camera with good image and video quality. I recommend.

Material prepared Arkady Shapoval. Training/Consultations | Youtube | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Telegram.