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Scott's Column
Canon EOS Rebel T2i, Inexpensive 7.1 Home
Theater... in an Apartment
June 1, 2010
By Scott Lewis
Introductory paragraph goes here.
Current Topics:
I spent a lot of time going over what dSLR camera I
wanted. I spent way too many hours thinking about this. This is the way
I am with purchases like this. I would hate myself if I bought one
camera and within a couple of months discovered I made the wrong choice.
The Choices
I had it narrowed to the Nikon D90 or the Canon
EOS Rebel T1i. I could not decide. The Canon's single command
wheel was a favorite over the D90's two scroll wheels, but it was at the
front of the camera. The Nikon D5000 has its single command wheel at the
thumb, and that's where I think it should go. Is the Canon at an
advantage for having one command wheel if it is located in the wrong
place?
The D90 has a few extra features over the T1i, speed being a big one. It
shoots faster in continuous mode, and will get off a couple more shots
before waiting to write the images to memory. But how often will I use
this feature?
The D90 has a better sensor, and I like the fact they don't push too
many megapixels at you. The Canon's 15 MP (to the Nikon's 12) seems like
megapixels for the sake of megapixels to sell cameras. I feel Nikon's
approach toward megapixels is quality over quantity. However, I have
read that good lenses make up for this with the Canon cameras. As you
know if you read my previous article
on choosing lenses I plan on getting some pretty nice lenses.
Finally the D90's built-in flash can control remote flashes. With the
Canon I would have to first buy an external flash as a master before I
could buy slave flashes.
The Lenses
We want a dSLR for a number of reasons, the top two being the large
sensor that does a better job of capturing light, and better optics for
getting that light to the sensor. Yes, we also want the advanced
controls, fast continuous shooting, external flash, etc., etc. But the
fact is the lens is going to play a very important role in our dSLR
journey.
I never planned on getting a "kit" lens. I want fast lenses, with large
apertures of under f/2.0 on non-zoom lenses. Since I will be spending a
premium on lenses it is critical that the lenses are very good.
Remember, we said you can, and most likely will, out grow your camera
body, but quality lenses will stay with you for the long hall. That
means the lenses are more important than the camera.
That being said I did another go around with the lenses listed on
BHPhoto's web site. I
originally wanted to get a good dSLR camera with a fixed focal length
lens (non-zoom) at the standard 50mm. This gives the closest
approximation to what your eye sees as you are looking at a scene.
Remember that Canon cameras (below $2000) have a crop factor of 1.6, and
Nikon's have a crop factor of 1.5. If we buy a 50mm lens it equates to
80mm for Canon, or 75mm for Nikon. That is mild telephoto range. This
would be very pleasing for portraits... as long as you have the room to
move back (sneaker zoom). However, I am not a portrait photographer.
When I bought my first camera (A Canon T50 if you will recall) it came
with a 50mm lens... and that is all I ever used on that camera. I never
got the chance to buy any other lenses. For decades people bought film
SLR cameras with 50mm lenses and were completely happy.
So I entertained the idea of getting a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens for either
the Nikon or the Canon. I read some good things about this $430 lens. On
the Canon it would have an equivalent of 48mm, and on the Nikon it would
work like a 45mm. That is close to perfect. But further digging revealed
that the Sigma is good, but not as good as the f/1.4 lenses from the
camera makers.
So how do I get close to 50mm while sticking with the manufacture's
lenses. Canon makes a 35mm f/1.4 lens... for $1,400. Ouch! The closest
thing to this in Nikon's catalog is a 35mm f/1.4 manual focus
lens. Besides being a manual focus lens in an auto-focus world, this is
an import lens not meant to be sold in the US (we call this gray
market). Both Canon and Nikon have a 35mm f/2.0 lens. This is not quite
as good as I would like, but these should make excellent general purpose
lens for the money.
I have seen comparison photos of various focal length macro lenses.
100mm seems to hit the target for me. Canon has two very good 100mm
macro lenses, one for around $600 and an L Series with image
stabilization for close to $1,000. Nikon has a 105mm macro lens without
vibration reduction priced for $900.
The deciding factor was one particular Canon lens. The 24-105mm f/4L IS
lens. I originally wanted to go with the faster 24-70mm f/2.8L for
maximum depth of field control. Nikon has a similar lens. However, the
difference between f/4.0 and f/2.8 is only one stop. Canon's 24-105mm
has Image Stabilization (IS). Neither Canon's nor Nikon's 24-70mm lenses
has this feature.
Canon claims that the IS on the 24-105mm will reduce camera shake by the
equivalent of 3 stops. That means that you can slow the shutter down by
3 full stops and still hand hold the camera. For instance, shooting at
1/125 sec without image stabilization is like shooting at 1/15 second
with image stabilization. I think the IS will be more important to me in
low light shooting than a one stop improvement in aperture control. The
extra range on the zoom is just icing on the cake.
I could not find any Nikon lens that compared to the Canon 24-105mm with
its image stabilization. Nikon does have a 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 that
includes there VR technology, but this lens is no where near the optical
quality of the Canon L Series lens.
Last Minute Entry
After I wrote all my articles Canon announced the EOS Rebel T2i. This is
not strickly a replacement for the T1i, but slots in slightly above it
and below the Canon 50D. The T2i provides the same HD video capability
and megapixels from the $1,700 7D camera.
The Verdict - Canon EOS Rebel T2i
Since I had decided to go with Canon for there lens selection, and I
didn't want to kick myself in a few months for not getting the best
camera I could afford. I bought the Canon EOS Rebel T2i. Even though I
say don't get the camera with the kit lens... that is what I did. I
needed the camera in time for a vacation in Florida in August. However,
an opportunity to go to a Corvette Car show made me accelerate my
purchase by a couple of months. I checked everyplace online and nobody
had the T2i in stock. However, Best Buy had plenty of them... just a
couple miles from my home.
Best Buy only offers the Canon T2i with the 18-55mm lens in their
stores. So I bought the camera with the kit lens... and immediately got
on BHPhoto's web site and ordered the 50mm f/1.4 lens.
I really want the 24-105mm f/4L lens from Canon, but I cannot afford
that at this time. Maybe next year. I really wanted their 35mm f/1.4L
prime lens, but price puts that completely out of range. I will see how
the 50mm lens works. Depending on how I like the 50mm lens, I may get
Canon's 28mm f/1.8 lens as my next prime lens. With the 1.6x crop factor
of the T2i the 28mm lens will be the equivalent of a 45mm lens, close
enough to the magic 50mm, and the price is in the $400-500 range.
Finally, I might consider Canons 17-55mm F2.8 IS lens. This is not an L
series lens, but it is close. It has both the
fast f/2.8 aperture through the entire zoom range and
image stabilization.
There you have it... I have a Canon EOS Rebel T2i with three lenses. The
18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens (the kit lens), a 50mm f/1.4 prime lens and
finally a really old 80-200mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens from my Canon EOS
Rebel S film camera.
Inexpensive 7.1 Home Theater... in an Apartment
As part of
Life 2.0, I am now living in an apartment. I had just enough money
to get a flat panel TV, but not much more. How would I be able to get
the most of the TV in my apartment?
I bought a Sony STR-DH800 7.1 receiver for $261, and an
LG BD-570 Blu-Ray player for $230. I went so cheap on
speakers that I didn't spend anything. That's right free
speakers. I still have the 5.1 speakers that came with
my first HTIB (Home Theater In a Box)
from 1998. This included a center channel speaker and 4
non-center channel speakers for left/right/surround. Plus there was the
sub-woofer. What about the 6th & 7th speakers? Simple, I had some
speakers left over from a 5.1 system I put on a computer a few years
ago. I only needed two of those speakers.
The TV is a Panasonic TC-P46G10 I got for $840. This is
a 2009 model TV. It looks awesome. I mounted it on the wall... yes in an
apartment. I cut a hole behind the TV and another one down by the
outlets. I put a remodel box in the bottom hole and ran the HDMI & power
cords through this. So there are no wires hanging down from the TV. I
will have to patch the hole behind the TV when I move out, but I could
probably get away with putting a faceplate with a phone jack in it into
the remodel box. The next tenant would just wonder what that jack was
for.
My living room is 12 by 12. My head is about 9 feet from the screen when
watching movies. I have the surround speakers on end tables at either
side of the sofa, and the rear speakers are on a shelf directly behind
the sofa. Sound is amazing. Granted... I am at relatively low volume
levels. I am sure at higher levels it would fall apart. But the room is
small so it does not take much to fill it with sound. And I will have to
worry about bothering my neighbors if I do try to go for a lot of
volume.
I was most interested in the deep black levels of a plasma TV, and
wanted the surround sound effect more than load
explosions. I hit a perfect balance... and for a price of $1,331...
complete.
Conclusion
That's it for this month. I don't know what's coming in the next few months. I am playing with my new camera and all my money is going toward a trip to Florida this summer. I am taking my boys to Celebration V, a very large Star Wars conference. Getting topics for this column may be tough.
Stay tuned, I am sure I will think of something.
