Introduction

Ease of Use

Outwardly, the Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i looks a lot like its predecessor. It is a fairly small camera with a largely plastic shell and a pretty narrow, thus mildly uncomfortable hand-grip. The emphasis is on the word "mildly", though - in actual use, the size and shape of the grip proved not to be a real annoyance. In terms of build quality, the Canon EOS 550D / T2i certainly feels solid enough for a consumer-grade DSLR, although not in the same league as the semi-professional EOS 50D and 7D models. Like all of Canon's APS-C digital SLR cameras, the EOS 550D / T2i 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.

Most of the controls are in the same place as on the 500D, with the changes being mostly cosmetic in nature. The mode dial is now black instead of silver, the four-way controller has been subtly redesigned and now features matt rather than glossy buttons, and the Live View / Record button has found a new home closer to the thumb rest. The shape of some buttons has also changed somewhat, and there is a new Q button that provides quick access to the interactive status screen. The buttons are clearly labelled but, being flush to the body, can be a little hard to press at times. The 1,040,000-dot resolution of the rear LCD panel may not sound like a lot more than the 920,000 dots of the 500D's display, but given that the new screen has an aspect ratio of 3:2 - i.e. identical to that of the sensor - the photos now fill the screen completely, with no black stripes along the top and bottom.

The EOS 550D'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), Manual (M) and A-DEP modes. The first four of these need no explanation, but A-DEP might be new to those who have never used a Canon SLR camera before. The abbreviation stands for Automatic Depth of Field, as in this mode, the camera will pick an f-stop that allows all the subjects covered by the nine AF points to be  sharply rendered, and will also calculate and set the necessary shutter speed on its own.

Front	Rear

The camera also has a Full Auto and a Creative Auto mode, differentiated by the amount of user control provided over certain image parameters; and a host of scene modes. These include 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 550D / T2i 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.

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 - ISO on the top panel, the rest on the back - while others can be set on the interactive status screen accessible via the new 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 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 in front of it. You do not have to hold down the button while turning the wheel. The ISO speed can be set from ISO 100 to ISO 6,400 in full-stop increments. If you turn ISO Expansion on in the Custom Functions menu, you can even dial in ISO 12,800; a boosted setting. Auto ISO is also available. The chosen ISO speed is also displayed in the viewfinder.

The EOS 550D / T2i 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).

Top	Pop-up Flash

There are a number of drive modes available on the Canon EOS 550D / T2i. 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 3.7 frames per second for up to 34 Large Fine JPEGs or 6 raw files. This is marginally faster than the EOS 500D but much slower than the 8fps of the 7D - which is no wonder given that the 7D has two Digic 4 processors, while the 550D / T2i has only one.

The metering modes offered by the camera include Centre-weighted, Evaluative, Partial and Spot. The difference between Partial and Spot metering is that the former uses 9% of the frame area, whereas the latter uses only 4% (still a bit too much for spot metering, but there you go). Both of these selective metering modes are midtone-based; there is no highlight- or shadow-based spot metering available as with some rivals. In use, we've found that the Evaluative metering mode provided fairly good exposures with a variety of subjects, thanks to the advanced 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.

As noted earlier in this review, the Live View button has been moved to a new position, and is now 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 has been simplified, you no longer need to use the * button to initiate auto focus but can use a half-press of the shutter release as normal.

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 view 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, I have 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 - the large and high-res screen is a real boon to those who do this on a regular basis. As noted above, you can even magnify into the live image, by up to 10x, which allows very accurate focusing. The only criticism that can be levelled against the screen is that it isn't articulated - this is something that's hard to understand given that Canon was amongst the first manufacturers to put vari-angle displays on some of its compacts - long-long years ago.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

Live View is also used for the feature that will arguably generate the most interest in the Canon EOS 550D / T2i: its movie mode. 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, and optionally set exposure and ISO. To be able to do this, you first need to enter the menu, highlight "Movie exposure" on the relevant tab, and select "Manual". Now you can set aperture, shutter speed (within limits) and ISO manually. (Note that even if you do not enable manual exposure for movies, you can still use functions like AE lock and exposure compensation if you feel a need for it.) Once everything is set up, you can start filming by hitting the Live View/Record button on the back of the camera. The EOS 550D / T2i will not automatically adjust focus during filming, but you can initiate auto focus at any time while recording a clip. However, be warned that this can do more harm than good, as the microphone can pick up the sound of the focus motor, 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.

One big improvement over the 500D is the much wider choice of frame rates. Where the older model allowed users to shoot either 1080p movies at 20fps or 720p video at 30fps, the EOS 550D / T2i offers a choice of 24, 25 or 30fps when recording Full HD video clips, and 50/60fps when shooting at 720p or VGA resolution. Note however that the available frame rates are also dependent on what you have set in the menu under "Video system": NTSC or PAL. Another novelty of the EOS 550D / T2i is that if you shoot a standard-definition clip, you can use a new function called "Movie crop". This means that you can tell the camera to use only the central 640×480 pixels on the sensor to record video, which effectively gives you nearly 8x magnification. This can come in handy when you do not have the necessary telephoto reach to film something that is happening at a distance. There is a built-in microphone for mono recording, and you can connect an external microphone equipped with a stereo mini plug to the camera's external microphone IN terminal.

The camera runs on a proprietary LP-E8 battery which, according to measurements that conform with CIPA standards, provides enough power for 400-440 images when using the optical viewfinder, and about 150-180 shots with Live View or about one and a half hours of video recording. The battery can be charged in the supplied LC-E8(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.

In use, we found the Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i to be a responsive and versatile camera that almost never got in the way of picture taking. As noted earlier, the auto focus was fast when using the optical viewfinder, and not always painstakingly slow when using Live View, either. Its continuous shooting speed is about average for its class, though its six-frame raw buffer is smaller than we'd like. It takes a bit of time for the camera to fully start up if you wait for the sensor cleaning cycle to be completed, but as sensor cleaning can always be interrupted at a half-press of the shutter release, this is not a real issue. The only thing we found to be truly and somewhat inexplicably slow was entering Live View - it invariably took several seconds for the camera to raise its mirror and display the live image.

This concludes our evaluation of the EOS 550D's ergonomics, handling, feature set and performance. Let us now move on to the image quality part...

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.

During the review, the Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i produced images of outstanding quality. The resolution is absolutely best in class, though you will want to shoot RAW for best results and possibly purchase something else than the 18-55mm IS kit zoom we had in for testing, as it does not do the camera full justice, even stopped down (the camera is available in a number of kits and there is a body-only option as well.) Noise handling is also very good considering the pixel density. Shooting RAW is again a good idea if you plan on taking lots of high-ISO shots, as you can get better detail with less chroma noise than by shooting JPEG. As regards the colours, we have found them to be a little on the dull side, though this is nothing you can't change in-camera, by way of tweaking the available Picture Styles or creating your own. The camera's Highlight Tone Priority mode allowed us to retain more highlight detail in contrasty scenes than would otherwise be possible without underexposing the midtones and the shadows. The built-in flash caused no red-eye, and the night photo came out very well. Overall, a very good showing from a camera that has considerably smaller pixels than some of its competitors.

Noise

ISO sensitivity can be set between ISO 100 and ISO 6,400 in full-stop increments, and a boosted setting of ISO 12,800 is also available. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting, with JPEG on the left and the RAW equivalent on the right: The RAW files were developed with Lightroom 3 Beta 2, using the software's default settings.

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

The Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i has 2 different JPEG file quality settings available, including Fine and Normal, with Fine being the higher quality option. Here are two 100% crops which show the quality of the two options.

Fine (100% Crop)	Normal (100% Crop)

Sharpening

The out-of-camera JPEGs are quite soft and at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can also change the in-camera sharpening level to suit your tastes via the Picture Style options.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS kit lens handled chromatic aberrations well during the review, but on a couple of occasions, it produced some nasty purple fringing even stopped down. The examples shown here at 100% represent the absolute worst results you can expect from this lens mated to the EOS 550D / T2i.

Example 1 (100% Crop)	Example 2 (100% Crop)

Flash

The flash settings on the EOS 550D / T2i are Auto, Manual Flash On/Off, and Red-Eye Reduction. These shots of a white coloured ceiling were taken at a distance of 1m.

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

And here are a couple of portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Flash On setting nor the Red-Eye Reduction option caused any amount of red-eye.

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

Night

The Canon EOS 550D's maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds and there's a Bulb mode for even longer exposures, which is excellent news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 30 seconds, aperture of f/8 at ISO 100. Here is a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Image Stabilisation

The Canon EOS 550D's EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS kit lens offers image stabilisation, which allows you to take sharp photos at slower shutter speeds than with lenses that lack this function. To test this, I took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with Image Stabilisation turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are two 100% crops of the images to show the results. As you can see, with Image Stabilisation turned on, the images are much sharper than with anti-shake turned off. This feature really does seem to make a difference and could mean capturing a successful, sharp shot or missing the opportunity altogether.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/10th / 29mm

Picture Controls

Canon's Picture Controls are preset combinations of different sharpness, contrast, saturation and colour tone settings. The available Picture Controls are shown below in the following series, which demonstrates the differences. You can tweak these Picture Controls to your liking, and there are also User Defined styles so that you can create your own look.

Standard	Portrait
Landscape	Neutral
Faithful	Monochrome

Highlight Tone Priority

Highlight Tone Priority is a custom function (C.Fn-6), which can be enabled from the menu. Use of this custom function improves highlight detail by expanding the camera's dynamic range in the highlights. To test the effectiveness of this function, I photographed the same high-contrast scene in M mode at ISO 200 (the lowest sensitivity setting available with Highlight Tone Priority enabled), exposing for open shade. The bright, sunlit buildings were several stops brighter. As you can see from these examples, Highlight Tone Priority reduced the extent of highlight blow-out considerably. The 100% crops also reveal that highlight detail was better retained and defined.

Off	On

Peripheral Illumination Correction

Peripheral Illumination Correction, first seen in the EOS 500D, is an in-camera solution designed to reduce the effect of light fall-off in the image corners. It works, though the difference is not night and day.

Off	On

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Canon EOS 550D 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 550D 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 Camera

Isometric View

Isometric View

Front of the Camera

Flash Raised

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Bottom of the Camera

Top of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Battery Compartment

Memory Card Slot

Conclusion

The Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i is a solid mid-range camera whose main virtue is that it allows you to capture incredibly detailed photos without ever getting in the way or spoiling the fun of picture taking. Surely enough, it doesn't have the robust build, comfortable hand-grip, weather sealing, dual control wheels, large viewfinder, 8fps burst mode or 19-point auto focus module of the EOS 7D - but then a Rebel probably never will. Canon understands the principles of product differentiation, and knows that those who really need these features will eventually cough up the price for the higher-specified model, while the rest of the target market will happily embrace the smaller, lighter and friendlier Rebel.

Not to mention that apart from these few things, the Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i has practically everything its bigger brother has to offer. 18 megapixels? Tick. 63-zone metering sensor? Tick. Full HD movie recording with user selectable frame rates? 1,040,000-dot LCD screen with 3:2 aspect ratio? Some of these are things the 7D doesn't even have (which is not to say its 4:3 VGA screen is bad, but still). Clearly, if you are shopping for a new DSLR camera, the EOS 550D / T2i should be high on your list. Just make sure you understand that if you are mainly attracted to it by its headline-grabbing resolution, you will need to buy something better than the 18-55mm kit lens to actually make the most out of all those pixels.

Things are a bit different if you already own its predecessor, the 500D / T1i. More pixels, more sophisticated metering, higher screen resolution and a wider exposure compensation range are all nice and well, but I doubt that any or all of these would or should tempt 500D owners to upgrade. Unless... unless they find themselves shooting lots of video footage and are not happy with what their current camera can offer in this area. The dizzying number of frame rate options, full manual control over exposure and the option to connect an external stereo microphone may indeed make the 550D / T2i attractive to these people.

On the other hand, Canon is obviously not in a vacuum - the competitors might not have any 18-megapixel consumer DSLRs just yet, and few of them can match what the EOS 550D / T2i has to offer in terms of video capture, but they do have some very capable, feature-packed models that actually cost a lot less these days. Tthe 550D might be a lot cheaper than the 7D, but at £699.00 / $799.99 without a lens, it's not particularly aggressively priced within its own competitive set.

As far as we are concerned, we have found the Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i to be a convincing, well-put-together product that easily earns a Highly Recommended rating.

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

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Canon EOS 550D from around the web.

Specifications

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