Canon 450D EOS Digital Rebel XSi Specifications

The Canon EOS 450D / Digital Rebel XSi has been announced at January 2008.The info provided here has become a comparison between what I’ve supposed the specifications will be and the actual product.

Considering the latest product releases from Canon, the Canon PowerShot G9, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III and Canon EOS 40D it seems that the successor of the 400D Digital Rebel XTi will have a price about 900-1000 USD

Here is the specifications:

• Max resolution: 4000 x 3000 (4272 x 2848 pixels, 3/2 aspect ratio instead of a 4/3)
• Effective pixels: 12 megapixels
• Sensor size: 22.2 x 14.8 mm
• Sensor type: CMOS
• ISO rating: 100 - 1600
• Auto Focus: Yes
• Manual Focus: Yes
• Auto focus type: Multi-BASIS TTL, 9 focus points (diamond shape) (9-point CMOS sensor, cross-type F2.8 at center)
• White balance override: 8 positions & manual preset (7 positions and manual preset)
• Min shutter: 30 sec + Bulb
• Max shutter: 1/4000 sec
• Built-in Flash: Yes
• External flash: Yes, hot-shoe & sync
• Flash modes: External
• Exposure compensation: -2 to +2 EV in 1/3 EV or 1/2 EV steps (-3 to +3 EV in 1/3 EV or 1/2 EV steps)
• Metering: TTL 35-zone SPC, center weighted, partial, spot
• Aperture priority: Yes
• Shutter priority: Yes
• Focal length multiplier: 1.6
• Lens thread: Canon EOS EF, EF-S mount
• Continuous Drive: Yes, 3 fps max 60 JPEG, 17 RAW (3.5 fps up to 53 JPEG / 6 RAW frames)
• Movie Clips: YES
• Self-timer: 10 sec or 2sec
• Storage types: Compact Flash (Type I or II) (SD / SDHC card)
• Uncompressed format: RAW
• Compressed format: JPEG (EXIF 2.2)
• Quality Levels: Fine, Normal
• Viewfinder: TTL
• LCD: 3″ with Live View
• Video out: Yes
• USB: Yes, 2.0

If you’ll check the whole list of improvements from the 400d to 450d you’ll be really impressed. There are only two things that might cause a problem (from my point of view):

The 450d has almost the same physical dimensions as the 400d, for my hands, it’s too small.

Image quality at 12 megapixels, a cropped sensor and the current lenses. It seems that if somebody would like to get the best out of this camera would be to buy very expensive Canon L series lenses. I really don’t think that the standard kit lens has enough resolution to cover this sensor (remember, the kit lens was first introduced on Canon 300D – only a 6 megapixels sensor)

However, overall, this is a very impressive camera. Considering the 14bit capability and the possible usage of L series lenses, this camera could provide the same image quality as a Canon 5D at only half the price!