Digital Trends

Good, but Minolta 5D better

by Tim on Oct 20th, 2005 at 9:59 AM:

I had a chance to use both the Maxxum 5D and Rebel XT and compare them for a few days. Here is what I found... Both are pretty good in weight, size and feel. In terms of build quality, the XT feels a bit cheap/plastic vs. the 5D, except for the 5D shutter/mirror which is extremely loud & sounds cheaper. The XT has a “pop up flash” that automatically pops itself up (in auto mode) or can be engaged via a button. In my opinion, Minolta went cheap on this, offering neither an auto pop up nor a button to manually pop it (must raise w/ fingers manually). Despite having a pocket Canon digital, I have never found their menu system very easy to navigate or their icons particularly intuitive, and also found this with the XT. Again, this is perhaps personal preference, but I just find the 5D menu easier to navigate, with the exception of the “zoom” function in playback mode. Here, Canon allows stepped zooming in; Minolta zooms all the way in first, and only then allows stepped zooming out and back in. Re: the display itself, the very large 2.5 inch display of the 5D offers a much easier way to view the camera settings than the XT, in my opinion, though they both use 115,000 pixels total. The practical effect of this is that the LCD panel on the 5D appears “grainier”. To me, the graininess was not that bad and I find it a reasonable compromise in getting a larger 2.5 inch display vs. the 1.8” on the XT. W/ the viewfinders I did notice is that the XT exposure compensation scale appears larger and thus easier to read in the viewfinder than is the 5D’s. Perhaps this is because of the space for the “anti-shake” indicators in the viewfinder. Control layout (buttons / switches) are pretty good on both, though I think the 5D looks a bit cleaner / less cluttered. One complaint on the 5D – the on/off is on the left hand side of the camera meaning you can’t pick up the camera w/ the right hand and turn it on w/ that same hand. As for metering, one advantage of the 5D is spot metering. In terms of Auto White Balance, I found both were inadequate under low wattage tungsten, though overall the 5D was much less bad. In theory, the Canon offers better white balance control via a 4 quadrant grid, but it looks like a lot of trouble and testing would need to be done to get it right. As for the Minolta anti-shake, I have to say it seems to work well. I did not test it extensively, but did use it a bit and liked it. As for image quality, I found the skintones SIGNIFICANTLY more natural with the 5D. The Canon skintones were too pinkish and fake looking for my liking. I have seen the exact same unnatural effect w/ my pocket Canon s400. Fine detail surprisingly seemed a bit better w/ the 5D, depending on the shot. However, in the bright highlights (white shirt in the sun) the Canon did better. But overall, the image just looked better w/ the 5D. This was far from a scientific test, just my initial impressions, but it convinced me that I made not just an OK choice w/ the 5D, but the BETTER choice in terms of image quality. Others my disagree, this is just my opinion (and my wife’s when I had her compare the images without saying which came from which camera). In summary, I am very happy with my choice of the 5D over the Rebel XT. The thing that drew me the 5D was the larger display and the anti-shake. I was concerned about the lower megapixels and imaging capabilities, but after looking at side by side images, I think overall the 5D outperformed the XT despite having fewer MP. If you are looking at a camera in this class, I suggest you seriously consider the 5D unless you are tied to the Canon system or need its greater range of flexibility.