Ease of Use
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The Canon EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 is a
small and lightweight DSLR camera with a stainless steel chassis and
all-aluminium exterior, weighing in at 480g with the battery and memory
card fitted and measuring 129.6 x 99.7 x 77.9 mm, which is commendably
almost the same size and weight as the all-plastic EOS 1100D. In terms
of build quality, the Canon EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 is a real surprise,
feeling more than solid enough for a mid-range DSLR, never mind an
entry-level one.
The Canon EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 has a
much better grip than the previous EOS 1100D, too, feeling a lot more
comfotable to hold thanks to a larger grip with a textured surface, with
a similarly textured thumb-rest on the rear. The rest of the camera is
finished in an appealingly matt black finish. Like all of Canon's APS-C
digital SLR cameras, the EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 is compatible with the
manufacturer's entire line-up of lenses, including both EF and EF-S
glass. When changing lenses, EF lenses need to be aligned with the red
dot on the lens mount, whereas EF-S lenses must be aligned with the
white mark.
The 1200D's control layout is very
similar to the 1100D, with just a a couple of changes. Virtually all of
the important controls are located together at the right-hand side of
the rear of the camera, rather than more liberally scattered around the
body, which allows for a straight-forward transition from compact camera
to DSLR. Taking advantage of the extra room allowed by the fixed LCD
screen, the buttons are also quite large, again another subtle and
effective concession to the 1200D's market. All of the buttons are
clearly labelled but, with some of them being flush to the body, can be a
little hard to press at times.
The EOS 1200D has a bigger 3-inch and
higher-resolution 460k dot fixed LCD screen than the the older EOS
1100D, but it's still one of the main ways that it achieves its budget
price-point. The bright Pentamirror optical viewfinder
is the same as the previous model, offering 95% coverage of the scene,
0.80x magnification and dioptre control for glasses wearers. Depth of
Field Preview is available when assigned to the SET button via Custom
Function 8-5.
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| Front | Rear |
We tested the EOS 1200D with the EF-S
18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II kit lens, which offers a fairly standard focal
range for a kit lens and crucially includes image stabilisation. This is
important for Canon, as competitors like Sony, Olympus and Pentax all
offer image stabilisation in their DSLRs. The difference between Canon
(and Nikon) and the others is that Sony, Olympus and Pentax have opted
for stabilisation via the camera body, rather than the lens, which
therefore works with their entire range of lenses. Canon's system is
obviously limited by which lenses you choose, but it does offer the
slight advantage of showing the stabilising effect through the
viewfinder. Canon and Nikon also claim that a lens-based anti-shake
system is inherently better too, but the jury's out on that one.
The EOS 1200D's top-mounted shooting
mode dial has a multitude of letters and icons. The so-called Creative
Zone features Programmed Auto (P), Shutter Priority (Tv), Aperture
Priority (Av), and Manual (M) modes. Canon's unique A-DEP (Automatic
Depth of Field) mode has quietly been dropped from the EOS 1200D.
The EOS 1200D now features the
fully-automatic Scene Intelligent Auto mode, which analyses the scene in
front of you and automatically picking the best settings, much like the
systems used by lot of digital compacts. The 1200D also offer a
Creative Auto mode which allows you to change a few key settings using
the LCD screen via a simple slider system for changing the aperture and
exposure compensation, or Background and Exposure as the camera refers
to them. Creative Auto also includes Basic +. Essentially a more extreme
version of the well-established Picture Styles, this offers nine
options including Standard, Vivid, Soft, Warm, Intense, Cool, Brighter,
Darker and Monochrome, all of which can be interactively tweaked to suit
your taste.
There's a host of scene modes
including Flash Off, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night Portrait and,
oddly enough for an interchangeable-lens camera, a close-up mode as
well. The majority of these scene modes allow users who do not want to
fiddle with shutter speeds, f-stops, white balance or ISO settings to
let the camera know what type of photo they are about to take, which
helps the EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 to optimise these settings for that
particular subject. We struggled to see the point of the close-up mode
though, as the quality of one's close-up shots depends more on the use
of the right kinds of accessory - such as a macro lens and possibly a
ring flash - than any camera setting. The now established Feature Guide
option in the EOS 1200D’s menu system usefully provides a brief
description of each setting and its effect.
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| Front | Side |
In the Creative Zone, the photographer
gets to set a lot of shooting variables, including white balance,
sensitivity, AF mode, exposure compensation, drive mode and so on. Most
of these functions have their own dedicated buttons on the back of the
camera, while others can be set on the interactive status screen
accessible via the Q (Quick Control) button. Examples for the latter
include file quality settings, metering mode, flash exposure
compensation and Auto Lighting Optimiser.
The available white balance settings
are Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash and
Custom; there is no way to enter a Kelvin value manually. You can
fine-tune any of the presets using the White Balance Correction feature.
The ISO speed can be changed by pressing the ISO button and turning the
control wheel or using the arrow buttons on the navigation pad. You do
not have to hold down the button while changing the setting. The ISO
speed can be set from ISO 100 to ISO 6400 in full-stop increments, and
Auto ISO is also available. The chosen ISO speed is also displayed in
the viewfinder.
The EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 offers a
range of three auto focus modes (One Shot, AI Focus and AI Servo) and
there's a 9-point AF module with a cross-type centre point and eight
line-type AF sensors. One Shot AF is equivalent to AF-S, while AI Servo
is the same thing as AF-C on other manufacturers' models. AI Focus is
similar to what some other camera makers call AF-A in that it
automatically switches from One Shot AF to AI Servo if a still subject
starts moving. As regards AF point selection, it can be done manually
by hitting the AF point selector button first, then using the four-way
controller to select the AF point. The chosen/active AF point lights up
in red in the viewfinder. In use, we have found the AF system to be
pretty quick even with the kit lens, although the focus motor was a bit
loud for our tastes (not surprisingly, given that the 18-55mm IS lens
does not have USM).
There are a number of drive modes
available on the Canon EOS 1200D / Rebel T5. These include Single Shot,
Continuous Shooting, Self-timer and Remote Controlled Shooting. In
Continuous Shooting mode, the camera can take pictures at a speed of 3
frames per second for up to 69 Large Fine JPEGs or 3fps for up to 6 RAW
files.
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| Pop-up Flash | Top |
The metering modes offered by the
camera include Evaluative, Centre-weighted and Partial, which uses 10%
of the frame area - the 1200D doesn't have a spot metering option. In
use, we found that the Evaluative metering mode provided fairly good
exposures with a variety of subjects, thanks to the 63-zone metering
sensor. When shooting contrasty scenes, it is worth using the Evaluative
mode in conjunction with the Auto Lighting Optimiser feature,
accessible by hitting the Q button and using the interactive status
panel.
The Live View button is within easy
reach of your right thumb. Using this button it is easy to enter Live
View, but it takes a surprising amount of time for the camera to
actually display the live image (think several seconds). A grid line
display and very useful live histogram can be enabled to help with
composition and exposure, and you can zoom in by up to 10x magnification
of the image displayed on the LCD screen. Focusing in Live View is
achieved via a half-press of the shutter release as for normal shooting.
There are three auto focus options in
Live View, including Quick, Live and Face Detection. The use of the
Quick mode briefly interrupts the live view feed as the mirror is
momentarily lowered so that the AF sensors can be engaged, and it also
involves a lot of mirror slapping for the same reason. Live mode
circumvents this problem by employing a contrast-detect method. While
this is slower, and sometimes it may still take up to three seconds for
the camera to lock focus in this mode, we found that about half a second
was enough most of the time. This is still too slow for anything that
moves - use the optical finder and the regular auto focus module for
that type of shooting - but it is perfectly OK with still subjects.
Obviously, you can also opt to focus manually, and as noted above, you
can even magnify into the live image by up to 10x, which allows very
accurate focusing.
Live View is also used for the Canon
EOS 1200D / Rebel T5's movie mode. There's a choice of 24, 25or 30fps
when shooting video at 1080p 1920x1080 pixels and 60/50fps at 720p
1280x720 pixels. Note that the available frame rates are also dependent
on what you have set in the menu under "Video system": NTSC or PAL. If
you turn the mode dial to the position denoted by the movie camera icon,
the camera will enter Live View automatically. Before you start
filming, you need to focus on the subject either manually or using auto
focus as described above. You can now set the aperture, shutter speed
and ISO manually as on the 700D, with the camera also offering automatic
exposure control, and you can also use functions like AE lock and
exposure compensation if you feel a need for it.
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| Memory Card Slot | Battery Compartment |
Once everything is set up, you start
filming by setting the shooting mode dial to the video mode and then
hitting the Live View/Record button on the back of the camera. The EOS
1200D / Rebel T5 can now continuously adjust the focus during filming,
an important upgrade on the previous model. You can also manually
initiate auto focus at any time while recording a clip. However, be
warned that the microphone can pick up the sound of the focus motor,
which is especially loud on the kit lens, and the subject might even go
out of focus for a few seconds. Setting a small aperture and relying on
depth of field for focus is a better idea. Of course you may wish to
utilise the DSLR's ability to produce footage with a shallow depth of
field, but in that case, it might be a wise idea to purchase a couple of
third-party accessories that make manual focusing and focus pulling
easier.
The EOS 1200D's has a built-in pop-up
flash with a guide number of 9.2 at ISO 100, coverage up to 17mm focal
length, X-sync speed of 1/200sec and a recycle time of 2 seconds.
There's also the expected hotshoe for use with one of Canon's external
flashguns. There is a built-in microphone for mono recording, but you
can't connect an external microphone for stereo recording. The HDMI port
allows you to connect the EOS 1200D directly to an HDTV set. One
notable omission is the lack of the EOS integrated cleaning system,
which means that you'll need to manually clean the camera's sensor more
often, something that we suspect most of the EOS 1200Ds owners will not
even attempt.
The camera runs on a proprietary
LP-E10 battery which, according to measurements that conform with CIPA
standards, provides enough power for around 500 shots, quite a big drop
from the EOS 1100D's 750-shot life. The battery can be charged in the
supplied LC-E10(E) charger. Also in the box is a neck strap, a software
CD and a user manual, which Canon thankfully provides in printed form,
in several languages.
This concludes our evaluation of the
EOS 1200D's ergonomics, handling, feature set and performance. Let's
take a look at its Image Quality next.
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