Canon Rebel XS / 1000D Overview

by Shawn Barnett and

Siegfried Weidelich

Review Date: 12/14/08

Canon's new EOS Rebel XS is a new budget digital SLR designed to compete with Nikon's D60 and other sub-$700 digital SLR cameras by Pentax, Olympus, and Sony. To meet the lower price point, the Canon XS includes fewer of the features of the Rebel XSi, but the XS is still a quality offering in its own right.

The Canon Rebel XS shares some features with the XTi announced in 2006, with a 10.1-megapixel image sensor and a 2.5-inch LCD, compared to the Rebel XSi's 12.1 and 3-inch LCD. The XS also returns to the 7-point AF sensor from the Rebel XT, compared to the 9-point AF sensor in the XTi and XSi). The XS also returns to 12-bit processing compared to the XSi's 14-bit system, and the infrared remote control on the front and proximity sensors on the back are also removed in the XS.

Though Canon says that the Rebel XS is capable of shooting JPEGs at a steady three frames per second up to the available flash card capacity (we got 7 frames with our difficult-to-compress target), RAW shooters may be disappointed to find that the Canon Rebel XS can only manage 1.5 frames per second when shooting in RAW mode. Even though the pace is much slower, the XS also manages to capture just 6 RAW frames before the buffer fills (we got 4 RAW frames in our testing).

The Canon XS maintains some very important features that could make it a worthwhile upgrade for XT and XTi owners. Most notably, Canon Rebel XS has a live view mode with phase-detection or contrast-detection autofocusing. There's also Canon's DIGIC III image processor, while the XTi was based on the older DIGIC II processor. The newer processor offers better performance and image quality. Battery life should be increased by around 50% as compared to the XTi, with the Rebel XS using the same LP-E5 battery from the XSi.

The Canon XS kit includes an excellent image-stabilized 18-55mm lens, rounding out the package, improving the camera's ability to compete in this increasingly image-stabilized market.

For full information, Please visit www.Canon.com

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