Canon EOS 1000D review

Canon's entry-level DSLR contender offers compatibility with a wide range of optics and accessories. Should it be your next purchase?

Reassuringly chunky despite its plastic body construction, and well-disguised by a matte black finish, Canon’s new EOS 1000D slots in beneath the earlier 450D in the manufacturer’s range as its new entry-level option. With a body-only SRP some £100 less than that model, the 1000D is still more expensive than equally beginner-friendly competitors in the Nikon D60, Olympus E-420 and Sony A200. So what makes it worth your time and investigation?

Though it doesn’t quite match the Olympus in terms of compactness and portability (in fact it’s rather boxy), the 1000D is nevertheless the lightest DSLR in Canon’s EOS line-up at 450g body only, and a third smaller in size when compared to semipro offerings such as Nikon’s D700. A comfortably moulded grip houses a supplied lithium-ion rechargeable battery in its base and lends both weight and stability when composing a shot, the left hand naturally encircling the zoom or focus ring on the DSLR’s kit lens.

While outwardly the 1000D and feels looks the part, with a surprisingly busy back-plate and 12-option shooting dial in place of LCD window up top, a glance at the spec sheet reveals that inwardly the camera resembles a pared-down 450D. It offers 10 megapixels instead of its predecessor’s 12MP, three frames per second continuous capture instead of 3.5fps, seven-point wide-area Auto Focus instead of nine-point, and a 2.5-inch rear LCD monitor rather than three inches.

While to the enthusiast the 1000D may represent a compromise of sorts, in truth, the beginner at whom the DSLR is aimed won’t notice any serious omissions. Unlike Sony’s A200, the Canon does feature Live View, allowing the LCD to be used for image composition as well as review, so the baby hasn’t truly been thrown out with the bathwater.

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LENS QUALITY

Though the best price on the 1000D is for body alone, both EF mount compatible lens and removable media card (in this case the very common SD or higher capacity SDHC) are needed before shooting can commence. Nobody expects a kit lens bundled with a starter DSLR to be of the finest quality, but for anyone trading up from a compact for the first time, the EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS (£580 body and lens) suggests a very sensible option.

With that suffix denoting ‘image stabilisation’, something that Canon has yet to build into its DSLR bodies in the form of mechanically stabilised sensors, in fact it’s something of a must. The lens features a side switch to manually turn stabilisation off if so desired, while a second enables users to swap between auto and manual focus – the latter required when its seven-point AF occasionally fails to detect your intended target if presented with fine detail or a busy scene.

Fortunately, those looking to get ‘hands on’ and determine focus manually are rewarded with a large, bright and clear optical viewfinder, though the 1000D lacks frills such as an eye sensor to automatically turn off the clearly-presented shooting info displayed on the rear LCD when the user brings their eye level. Aiding the myopic, a diopter control wheel requiring fingertip manipulation has been squeezed into the corner of the squashy eyecup.

When the AF gets it right, the supplied zoom equips itself reasonably well, providing consistent results and edge-to-edge sharpness that only visibly tails off at maximum wide angle, and then only under very close inspection. To our eyes the results could have been uniformly crisper, but a modest application of Unsharp mask in Photoshop quickly adds more punch. In truth, for a kit lens it’s not at all bad, as our collected test results verify.

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FEATURES AND CONTROLS

The 1000D’s rear- and top-plate control layouts, while fairly busy in the case of the latter, feature large, comfortably rounded buttons and dials. For the most part they’re clearly labelled too, so little here, with the possible exception of the partly recessed diopter control, feels fiddly or unfriendly.

A flick of the on/off switch that encircles the base of the helpfully ridged mode dial, which offers just the right amount of resistance, and the camera powers up for shot in a second, though it’s a further blink of the eye before the rear LCD bursts into life. With a half-press of the shutter release button located on the forward slope of the grip, the camera is reasonably accurate in determining an intended chosen subject, unless, as we’ve noted, attempting to focus on detail or pick someone out from a busy scene, while metering and exposure perform consistently.

Mystifyingly though, should any user want to attempt a low- or high-angle shot that’ll prevent their eye coming level with the optical viewfinder – and so use the rear monitor for framing instead – they’ll find Live View doesn’t have a dedicated button marked as such. First you have to wade through the on-screen setup menus to enable it, and then access it with a press of the ‘set’ button in the centre of the four-key control pad on the camera back. Even then, the default setting requires the user to focus manually. Not a problem, but it presents one of the few potentially confusing hurdles for the first-time DSLR adopter.

Thankfully, as with the 450D, the ability to automatically clean the sensor free of any dust or grit on powering down (the default setting) is a boon for those planning on switching lenses with any regularity.

What’s also interesting about this starter DSLR, but in a good way, is that as well as featuring the creative quartet of program, shutter priority, aperture priority and manual shooting options, you can further refine the look and feel of an image via both pre-programmed and user definable Picture Style settings. Flattering skin tones are delivered by the Portrait option, Landscape delivers punchier greens and blues, while Neutral delivers more subdued results, the default option being Standard (vivid, sharp and crisp, to a point).

As we’d expect from Canon, this fall-back setting delivers colour-rich JPEGs that manage to look sufficiently vibrant without straying into the realms of the unnatural.

Let’s not forget that unprocessed RAW files are offered too. In single shot Capture mode, maximum resolution, least compression JPEGS, delivering a file size of around 3MB, are committed to card in an instant. However, the buffer memory seizes up after a sequence of three RAW captures, and users have a wait of six to seven seconds before they can fire off a further shot. This is nothing unusual, and about average for this class of DSLR. For those who want the immediacy of JPEG but the integrity of RAW, JPEG + RAW shooting is also offered.

A press of the dedicated ISO button on the top-plate, an unusual find on a budget DSLR, as it’s more typically located via on-screen menus, provides access to a fairly modest range from a minimum ISO 100 incrementally through to a maximum ISO 1600. That said, images taken at the highest setting are surprisingly noise-free for a budget model, matching the ISO 800 (or lower) performance of other competing brands at this price point. While that’s cause for celebration, you wonder why Canon didn’t go higher, and then you recall the need for differentiation between this and models higher up its range.

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RIVAL CAMERAS

As we mentioned at the start, thanks to some serious price-cutting of late, on the face of it the 1000D is looking like one of the more costly options for those trading up from a digital compact to their first DSLR.

The manufacturer’s suggested pricing for the 10 megapixel Nikon D60 with Vibration Reduction (image stabilised) 18-55mm zoom is the same as a body-only Canon, for example, while the Olympus E-420 and Sony Alpha A200 without lens are currently between £150 and £170 cheaper, going by the same SRP. Both matching the Canon in terms of headline resolution, the A200 featuring the advantage of built-in image stabilisation, courtesy of Super SteadyShot, but no Live View option (look to the A350 for that), while the Olympus does feature continuous Live View but lacks built-in stabilisation. Inevitably it’s a case of horses for courses. If it’s portability you’re after, the E-420 nevertheless offers a compelling argument, while negatives, as regards the Sony, are its plastic-feel bodywork. More positively, it does feature an ISO range that extends to 3200, yet the Canon delivers better (read cleaner) results at higher ISOs overall.

Coming after the launch of the EOS 450D and, with a less impressive feature set in order to do direct battle with Nikon (to whom it’s reportedly been losing market share) et al, it’s inevitable that the 1000D fails to truly excite. But, while there’s nothing revolutionary here, there’s not much wrong either, and in general terms it’s fast, responsive and moreover reliable in use.

Though pricey if set against other manufacturers’ starter DSLRs, it does currently offer the least expensive entry point into the Canon EOS system, which to many will provide reason for celebration alone. Of course, those swayed by the numbers game shouldn’t forget Canon’s own rival in the 450D for just £100 more at the time of writing.