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CANON ROCKED the digital SLR world—and sent competitors scrambling—when they announced the original 6.3-megapixel Digital Rebel for less than $1,000 in August 2003. The second generation Digital Rebel XT boasts additional features, improved performance, 8 megapixels and outstanding image quality—all for the same original price as its predecessor, which is now available for only $800 (including zoom lens).
Smaller and lighter than the first Digital Rebel and most other digital SLRs, the Rebel XT is available in black or silver. Unfortunately, its plastic body feels chintzy, giving the solid and sturdy Nikon D50 a slight competitive edge. But if you don't mind the plastic feel, you'll enjoy using the Rebel XT with its logical control layout and clear menu system.
An expanded feature set, sophisticated enough to handle the most challenging shooting conditions, will even tempt current Rebel owners to step up to the XT. Some of the new additions include nine custom functions (borrowed from the higherend EOS 20D), selectable metering and auto-focus modes (although there's still no spot metering option), flash exposure compensation, expanded white balance control and a black and white mode. White balance and exposure bracketing, along with selectable color space (for more user-controlled color management) are also among the camera's notable features.
In addition to multiple quality and compression settings, you can now shoot in either RAW or RAW plus high-quality JPEG. This is a big plus, because other cameras often only allow you to shoot a "normal" resolution JPEG along with RAW. With the Rebel XT, you can opt to have a high-resolution copy of the RAW file.
The Rebel XT is not only about manual controls. If and when you don't want to mess with aperture and shutter speed settings, the Rebel XT offers auto, program AE and a variety of scene modes. Even when opting for these camera-controlled options, the Rebel XT delivers great images.
Impressive performance—including extremely fast start-up, shot-to-shot time and excellent battery life (even with a physically smaller battery)—is one of the camera's strong suits, thanks to the incorporation of Canon's DIGIC II technology. Continuous shooting speed has been improved slightly from 2.5 to 3 frames per second. More importantly, the buffer size has been substantially increased, so now you can capture up to 14 consecutive highresolution JPEG files instead of the first Rebel's 4-shot capacity.
Like all digital SLRs, the Rebel XT doesn't come with a CompactFlash card, so you'll have to purchase one—spring for high capacity and high speed. (We tested the camera with a 1GB SanDisk Extreme card.) A wide range of accessories is available, and Rebel XT owners can use any of Canon's EF and EF-S lenses. A battery grip is also available, so you can use two of the camera's proprietary rechargeable lithium-ion batteries or six AAs.
Image quality was excellent, with beautifully rendered colors, above average detail capture and dynamic range. Exposures were accurate and image noise was kept amazingly under control even at high ISOs and during long exposures. For an extra $100, you can buy the Digital Rebel XT with an 18-55mm lens bundled, however, we weren't as impressed with the sharpness of our test shots taken with that lens versus other Canon lenses.
This is an excellent camera with image quality and performance rivaling more expensive models. If only Canon would transfer the camera's image quality, performance and feature set into a sturdier body at the same price, this camera might well deserve our highest recommendation.
–THEANO NIKITAS
Digital Rebel XT: 
Canon USA | www.powershot.com | 800-652-2666 | $1,000 (with 18-55mm lens), $900 (body only)
Pros: Excellent image quality, excellent performance, very little image noise at high ISOs, advanced feature set, lightweight, competitively priced.
Cons: Plastic body feels chintzy, LCD difficult to see in direct sunlight, no spot metering, popup flash doubles as an AF assist lamp, bundled lens isn't as sharp as other Canon lenses.
Requires: Power Mac with builtin USB, OS 10.1 and higher (some bundled software compatible with OS 9.x)
macHOME recommends: High-capacity, highspeed CompactFlash card
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