Finally I got the camera I was dreaming about

What was my dream camera? It was a Canon T2i or what’s called in Europe Canon EOS 550D. Last week, after about one year of waiting to save the money, my dream has become a reality and I am the proud owner of this brand new Canon T2i digital camera. How is this camera? Is it really as good as it’s hyped up to be? Find out what I like and what I don’t like about this camera.

First off…the Canon T2i is hard to find! I always buy my electronics from B&H Photo Video because in addition to the best price, they have free shipping and no taxes on virtually every product. Plus, Canon had a $50 off for this camera with the kit lens. So, when I decided to buy it I realized that it was out of stock. I checked Newegg…same thing! Checked BeachCamera.com…out of stock! What’s up with this camera? I knew it had great reviews and that it was a brand new model from Canon, but come on! This is a digital camera…not a collector’s item!

The new Canon T2i is an awesome DSLR camera.

Anyway, after looking and looking at B&H site for weeks…literally, I found it in stock one day.  I ordered and checked after 3 days and the camera was out of stock again! Well…I guess everyone wants one! Finally, after about a week I got my new Canon T2i in the mail…brand new!

Great things about the Canon T2i

If you have been reading my site for a while you know that I make no claims about being a professional photographer…I’m not. So my camera reviews are somewhat sparse on technical details because there are much better sites to provide all the technical information you would want. I’m including some links at the bottom of this article…I’ve read all of them I think.

Ok, ok…so what do I like about the new Canon T2i? Here’s a quick list:

Build quality. I wanted to mention this one first because this is what most reviewers complain about. I have been using my brothers old Canon 20D camera for about a year and I love that camera too. Yes, the Canon 20D and obviously the new Canon 50D and 7D have a more rugged build. However, the Canon T2i features great build quality as well even though it’s plastic. The body is made of hard plastic and the knobs have a strong feel to them. Yes the 20D feels more solid, but it’s because it is more solid and much heavier. I would much rather go with a lighter body because I do quite a bit of travel photography.

High ISO settings. I’ve been taking pictures in low light using ISO 6400 as my setting. The pictures have some noise in them, but definitely usable. The colors are awesome even in low light.

Image Stabilization. If you have an Image Stabilization lens, then this feature is very handy especially in low light conditions. You can definitely see the difference between shooting with IS enabled and having IS disabled on your lens. This is a great feature.

Video. I definitely wanted video with my camera. The ability to take video has been limited to Point and Shoot cameras until recently. Now, a few entry level DSLRs have the ability to take video as well. I love this feature because I don’t have to take my Point and Shoot camera with me just to shoot videos. While I don’t care much about shooting HD videos right now, maybe one day I will use the feature.

Things that are not so great about the Canon T2i

Video Auto Focus. This is the only real problem I see with the camera so far. While greatly advertised by Canon, the auto focus feature of the Canon T2i during video is not very usable. Not because it’s not working, but mainly because of the noise the lens makes when auto focusing. The microphone that comes with the camera picks that noise right away which is very annoying. If you plan to add some music to your movies, then you don’t care, but I certainly don’t have time for video editing.

I just realized last night that I can get around the video auto focus problem by turning the auto focus switch to off on my lens. This way I can focus manually while I film. This can create pretty cool effects as I can blur the image very easily.

As I play and use the camera for different events I’ll keep adding information to this article. For now, this is a quick first look at the new Canon T2i.

Additional resources

• Check out the new Canon T2i at B&H Photo Video. It will probably not be in stock :)
• DP Review article about the pre-release version of the Canon 550D (t2i in the USA).
• Camera Labs extensive review of Canon T2i. You can get all the technical details about this camera here.

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