Introduction

Ease of Use

Externally the Canon EOS 1300D bears a close resemblance to the 1200D. Control and button placement is as good as identical, and so too is the camera’s physical size and weight. At 129mm wide, 101.3mm high and 77.6mm deep, the 1300D is 0.6mm narrower and 0.3mm shallower than the 1200D, but 1.6mm taller. The new camera also weighs almost the same at 485g ready to shoot. That makes it 25g heavier than a Nikon D3300, and the Nikon is also smaller than 1300D in every dimension, measuring 124 x 98 x 75.5mm.

However, such marginal size and weight differences have little impact in real world shooting. Here the 1300D’s carbon fibre polycarbonate body feels reasonably solid and well built, though predictably for an entry level Canon DSLR, it isn’t weather sealed. If that’s a deal-breaker for you and you can’t stretch to a water and dust-resistant EOS 70D, then the weather-sealed Pentax K-S2 is worth considering. The 1300D also works well ergonomically, with a decent-sized rear thumb rest and the exposure compensation and playback zoom buttons positioned conveniently on either side of it. The main hand grip is nice enough, but the finger recess is a little shallow, which can make it difficult to grasp comfortably if you’ve got larger hands. Still, given the 1300D’s light weight, this isn’t a major bugbear.

A primary selling point of the Canon EOS 1300D to first time DSLR buyers is its ease of use. Little has changed in this respect from the 1200D, but that’s no bad thing. The 1300D still gets dedicated ISO and white balance buttons on the rear panel – physical controls you won’t find on a Nikon D3300 – while other key shooting settings like file quality and exposure modes can be accessed easily by pressing the Q button which activates the quick-access menu. This will also let you adjust the +/- 5EV of exposure compensation, but it’s quicker and easier to set this by pressing the dedicated exposure compensation button located immediately above the Q button whilst rotating the single, top-panel control wheel.

Front of the Canon EOS 1300D

As well as the clear and functional quick-access menu, the main menu is also well laid out and easy to navigate. A total of ten menu tabs split into shooting, playback, camera settings and a My Menu customisation tab can be scrolled across using the control wheel or rear panel directional buttons. The menu functions are mostly logically positioned, though a few features are less easily accessible. For instance, if you want to reveal the camera’s expanded ISO 12800 sensitivity, this is hidden away on page 2 of the Custom Functions menu entry.

Another aspect of the Canon EOS 1300D which isn’t immediately intuitive is the mode dial. It’s cluttered with various scene mode settings, including Night Portrait, Food, Sports, Macro, Landscape, and Portrait presets. There’s also a Creative Auto mode that operates exactly as regular Auto mode, except you control the extent of background blur you’d like behind your subject by adjusting a virtual slider. All this does is adjust the lens aperture, so once you’ve learnt about aperture, good old aperture priority mode renders Creative Auto pointless. Aside from the usual selection of auto, semi-automatic and manual modes, the 1300D’s mode dial also includes a video mode and a Flash Off mode, whereby the camera shoots automatically but won’t fire the flash; useful in museums or religious buildings.

Returning to the rear panel and, along with the dedicated ISO and white balance buttons, the 1300D also offers a convenient drive mode button. This lets you choose between single shot, continuous, self-timer with a 10-second or 2-second delay, and also a continuous self-timer function where the camera will snap a burst of shots after an initial delay. Standard continuous shooting speed is unchanged from the 1200D and is still a rather sluggish 3fps, mainly due to the 1300D using essentially the same image processor. The 1300D does get a Digic 4+ chip compared to the 1200D’s plain Digic 4 device, but the only obvious enhancement this brings is an increased buffer capacity. Where the 1200D could only manage to shoot a burst of 69 JPEGs at 3fps, the 1300D can fire off 1110 JPEGs, though still only 6 consecutive RAW images. It’s quite an increase, but upping the burst shooting speed to 5fps to match the Nikon D3300 would have been more useful.

Rear of the Canon EOS 1300D

Another area where the new Canon still trails the two year old Nikon D3300 is video, although the difference is slight. Both cameras will shoot Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, but where the D3300 can do so at 60fps, the 1300D can only manage 30fps. Shooting a video first requires you to rotate the main mode dial to the video position, where you can then press the Live View button located alongside the viewfinder to start and stop recording. The 1300D also includes a Video Snapshot feature, whereby the camera will record video clips lasting two, four or eight seconds and compile them into a Video Snapshot Album (a montage sequence) with the option to add your own background music.

While most of the hardware inside the Canon EOS 1300D has been carried over from the 1200D, the new camera does sport an uprated LCD monitor. The 3-inch size remains the same, as does the 170-degree horizontal and vertical viewing angles, but the 1300D’s monitor boosts resolution from a paltry 460,000 dots to a more respectable 920,000 dots. This is particularly useful when shooting close-up shots using live view, where focussing accuracy is critical. Sadly, the screen doesn’t feature touch sensitivity. This makes sense in terms of cost cutting, but it isn’t such a smart move when you consider a significant portion of 1300D buyers are likely to be young first-time DSLR buyers used to touch-driven photography.

Top of the Canon EOS 1300D

But the most significant new element of the 1300D is its built-in Wi-Fi with NFC pairing. The system uses Canon’s Camera Connect mobile app to enable wireless image transfer and remote camera control. Connecting your smart device is painless, and once linked, the 1300D can be controlled remotely with very little signal lag. The app also lets you control shooting functions like ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation and the drive mode. When it comes to sharing your shots, the Wi-Fi link transfers a full resolution image almost instantly, although image previews do take a couple of seconds per shot to preview properly when scrolling through your memory card’s images. Considering that the Nikon D3300 requires you to purchase a WU-1a dongle to get Wi-Fi connectivity, Canon’s built-in system is certainly a step up in value and convenience. However it’s worth remembering that, as extra features go, Wi-Fi is no longer cutting edge, high-end tech. After all, a basic Canon IXUS 180 compact camera packs Wi-Fi with NFC for less than £130.

When it comes to shooting, the Canon EOS 1300D will switch on and fire a shot in around 0.7 seconds, although it takes a second or so longer for the LCD screen to display anything. Focussing speed is largely dependent on your choice of lens. Our 1300D test sample came paired with Canon’s excellent 18-55mm IS STM optic, which is the kit lens for the 750D. The 1300D’s kit lenses (for the UK market at least) are either a basic, non-stabilised 18-55mm lens, or the 18-55mm IS II lens. Given the 1300D’s mediocre high ISO performance, going for the non-IS lens and relying on faster shutter speeds and higher sensitivities isn’t advisable. The 18-55mm IS STM lens is smoother and quieter to focus, but you’d need to buy the camera body and this lens separately; a combo that costs £90 more than the 18-55mm IS II kit, and that’s a tough price hike to justify to a beginner. It’d make more sense to put the same money towards an entry-level telephoto lens in order to experiment with shallow depth of field effects.

The Canon EOS 1300D In-hand

Whichever lens you choose, the Canon EOS 1300D’s 9 AF points are well spread across the image frame, and though only the central point is the more accurate cross-type, autofocussing in our hands was quick and mostly accurate in all but the darkest conditions. Switch to live view and things get much slower though, with contrast-detect focussing requiring a second or so to establish maximum sharpness and correct focus. However, this needn’t be a major issue when using live view to compose and shoot shots like close-ups, where careful consideration and an eye for detail are more important than speed.

Last but not least is battery life, which is unchanged from the 1200D at 500 shots from the LP-E10 rechargeable Li-ion power pack. That’s pretty good when compared to the 750D that can only manage 440 shots per charge, however, as with so many of the 1300D specs, it lags way behind the D3300’s impressive 700-shot CIPA rating. It’s also worth noting that the 1300D’s battery compartment on the bottom of the camera also contains the memory card slot, which is a little fiddly to access and can also be blocked completely by larger tripod mounting plates. The D3300 and 750D’s conventional side-accessed card slots are much more convenient.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 18 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6Mb.

With Nikon’s move to fit a 24MP sensor to the D3200 in 2012, Canon’s decision to stick with its venerable 18MP device for the EOS 1300D is a disappointment. Even so, in terms of real world image quality, it’s still able to deliver satisfactory – if far from stunning – results.

Fitted with our 18-55mm IS STM lens, the Canon EOS 1300D resolved plenty of detail up to ISO 1600. However, the sensor and Digic 4 image processor’s age do start to show when it comes to high ISO image quality. At ISO 3200 there’s noticeable detail loss, colours become blotchy and colour speckling is evident in shadow areas – something rarely seen from comparable cameras at this sensitivity. Push on to ISO 6400 and it’s more of the same, with the colour speckling now visible even at 25% image size in some low light shots. Consequently it’s easy to see why Canon doesn’t flaunt the 1300D’s expanded ISO 12800 setting, such is the unsightly amount of noise at this sensitivity. But if you mount a stabilised or large aperture lens, there’ll be few times when sensitivities higher than ISO 3200 are required.

The EOS 1300D’s 63-zone exposure metering generally produces accurate exposures in a range of lighting conditions, although the sensor’s relatively restricted dynamic range can cause high-contrast images to appear dark with murky shadow areas. The flip side is highlights that are rarely overexposed, but it can be beneficial to sacrifice some highlight detail by dialling in a stop of positive exposure compensation to produce a brighter overall image.

Customising the camera’s colour preferences may also be required, as the EOS 1300D’s restrained colour reproduction won’t be to everyone’s taste, especially if you’re used to the punchier colour palette produced by modern smartphone cameras.

Noise

The Canon EOS 1300D has seven sensitivity settings ranging from ISO 100 to 6400. This can be expanded one stop to add a High (ISO 12800) sensitivity by enabling ‘ISO expansion’ via the main menu. The camera’s auto ISO upper limit can also be configured, with a maximum sensitivity of ISO 6400. However, the 1300D’s sensitivity scale only changes in 1EV steps and there’s no option to add 1/3EV increments.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)	ISO 12800 (100% Crop)

File Quality

Numerous file quality and size options are available. At full 18MP resolution you can shoot in raw (average 25MB file size), JPEG Fine (4-10MB) and JPEG Normal (2-5MB). There’s also a RAW+JPEG Fine setting.

The medium (M) image size translates to 8MP (3456x2304) photos, with Fine and Normal compression options available. Selecting the ‘S1’ image size gives 4.5MP images at 2592x1728 resolution, again with Fine (approx. 1.8MB file size) and Normal (0.9MB) compression options. S2 image size results in 1920x1280 shots, also around 1MB in size. Finally, the ‘S3’ option generates 720x480 shots which consume less than 500KB of card space.

Fine (6.23Mb) (100% Crop)	Normal (2.98Mb) (100% Crop)
RAW (23.7Mb) (100% Crop)

Flash

The built-in flash has relatively few options. From the Flash Control entry in the main menu, you can configure it to operate in first or second curtain sync modes, dial in +/- 2EV of exposure compensation, and select between evaluative or average TTL metering. Red-eye reduction is also enabled or disabled via the main menu.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (29mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (29mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (88mm)	Flash On - Telephoto (88mm)

With or without red-eye reduction, the Canon EOS 1300D successfully avoided red-eye during our testing. The flash did produce some minor vignetting when shooting a white surface at a distance of 1.5m with an 18mm focal length, but falloff was gone by 55mm.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

In program auto mode and with auto ISO, it’s easy to snap sharp night-time shots, although the final image is unnaturally bright. ISO 6400 is required to keep shutter speeds high enough to counteract camera shake, and this inevitably introduces noticeable noise.

To avoid this you’ll need to carry a tripod and switch to shutter priority or manual mode to record a long exposure. This 8-second, ISO 100 image has a more realistic exposure than the handheld shot and is free from noise.

Night Program	Night Program (100% Crop)
Night	Night (100% Crop)

Creative Filters

The entry-level nature of the EOS 1300D means Canon has seen fit to equip it with five Creative Filter effects, however they can only be applied to saved photos in playback mode. The effects are: Grainy B&W, Soft focus, Fish-eye effect, Toy camera effect, and Miniature effect.

Grainy B&W	Soft focus
Fish-eye Effect	Toy Camera Effect
Miniature Effect

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Canon EOS 1300D camera, which were all taken using the 18 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Canon EOS 1300D enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We’ve provided some Canon RAW (CR2) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Canon EOS 1300D

Front of the Canon EOS 1300D

Side of the Canon EOS 1300D

Side of the Canon EOS 1300D

Side of the Canon EOS 1300D / Flash Raised

Rear of the Canon EOS 1300D

Rear of the Canon EOS 1300D / Image Displayed

Rear of the Canon EOS 1300D / Info Screen

Top of the Canon EOS 1300D

Bottom of the Canon EOS 1300D

Side of the Canon EOS 1300D

Side of the Canon EOS 1300D

Front of the Canon EOS 1300D

Memory Card Slot / Battery Compartment

Conclusion

An entry-level DSLR is always going to be a tricky product to positon within a manufacturer’s range, as there’s only so much tech you can incorporate before it’ll encroach on mid-range models. However, with the competing Nikon D3300 already offering a higher resolution and more sensitive sensor than the 1200D, along with a faster continuous shooting rate and a slightly more sophisticated AF system, Canon needed to up its game for the EOS 1300D. Trouble is, it hasn’t.

The EOS 1300D is fundamentally unchanged from its predecessor, hence the sensor, shooting speed, AF and video frame rate all continue to trail the D3300. The 1300D’s upgraded screen merely matches the Nikon’s monitor resolution, so in terms of headline features, the Canon has to rely solely on its new Wi-Fi connectivity to win on a specs comparison. Assuming that the D3300’s replacement will almost certainly feature built-in Wi-Fi, the 1300D looks even more vulnerable.

But spec sheets aside, the Canon EOS 1300D is a decent all-round performer in the real world. Its sensor may date back to the dark ages, but it still produces acceptable image quality up to ISO 3200 and it’ll resolve plenty of detail with an 18-55mm kit lens. A 3fps shooting speed is hardly blistering, but this is a camera aimed at DSLR newcomers, not hard-core sports photographers, and for this market things like a leisurely burst shooting speed and basic autofocussing are unlikely to be deal-breakers. What’s more important is a simple and logical control layout that helps you get to grips with manual photography, and here the 1300D excels. Aside from the internal Wi-Fi, it’s the only area that’s superior to the D3300. Sure, the Nikon offers a prettier LCD readout and a guide mode, but when it gets down to the business of actually shooting, the 1300D is more intuitive to operate with dedicated ISO and white balance buttons that greatly enhance its usability.

If you’re looking for your first DSLR, both the Canon EOS 1300D and Nikon D3300 are capable, well-priced introductions to creative photography. Ultimately the Nikon’s superior specs give added value and therefore make it our preferred choice, but the 1300D’s wireless connectivity and excellent usability – along with Canon’s huge range of optics – mean that if you choose to go with the red team, you’re unlikely to be disappointed.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	3.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	3.5
Value for money	4

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Canon EOS 1300D.

Specifications

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