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.
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).
This is a sample movie at the highest quality setting of 1920x1080 pixels at 30 frames per second. Please note that this 13 second movie is 76.1Mb in size.
As of February 2025, we are no longer providing full size sample images or videos for download.
Please contact us if you have any feedback on our new policy.
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.
Canon's new mid-range flagship builds on the popular EOS500D by squeezing in an 18Mp CMOS sensor and a top sensitivity of ISO6,400, improved movie capabilities and a higher resolution screen amongst other improvements into the same-sized body. Here we'll take a look at whether it's worth the current asking price of £749 for the body only, or £899 with the 18-55mm IS F/3.5-5-6 lens.
Read the full review »
Canon's EOS 550D – or Rebel T2i as it's known in North America – is the company's latest upper entry-level DSLR. Announced in February 2010, it's numerically the successor to the EOS 500D / T1i, although the older model is expected to remain on-sale at a lower price point throughout 2010.
Read the full review »
Canon's response has been to expand its range of consumer cameras especially in the mid-range area, launching the 15-megapixel EOS 500D towards the end of last year, and now following it up with a new mid-range model, the EOS 550D. With a newly designed 18.1 megapixel CMOS sensor, 1080p HD video recording and the sharpest monitor of any current DSLR it has an impressive specification, handily trumping the D5000 and Alpha A550 in all the crucial areas except price. The Nikon D5000 is currently selling for around £500 body-only, while the Sony A550 is around £550. The EOS 550D is available for just under £700 body only, or around £750 with the kit 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 EF-S image-stabilised lens.
Read the full review »
Specifications
IMAGE SENSOR
Type
22.3 x 14.9mm CMOS
Effective Pixels
Approx. 18.0 megapixels
Total Pixels
Approx. 18.7 megapixels
Aspect Ratio
3:2
Low-Pass Filter
Built-in/Fixed with Self Cleaning Sensor Unit
Sensor Cleaning
EOS integrated cleaning system
Colour Filter Type
Primary Colour
IMAGE PROCESSOR
Type
DIGIC 4
LENS
Lens Mount
EF/EF-S
Focal Length
Equivalent to 1.6x the focal length of the lens
FOCUSING
Type
TTL-CT-SIR AF-dedicated with a CMOS sensor
AF System/ Points
9 AF points (f/5.6 cross type at centre, extra sensitivity at f/2.8)
AF Working Range
EV -0.5 -18 (at 23°C & ISO100)
AF Modes
AI Focus
One Shot
AI Servo
AF Point Selection
Automatic selection, Manual selection
Selected AF Point Display
Superimposed in viewfinder and indicated on LCD monitor
Predictive AF
Yes, up to 10m ¹
AF Lock
Locked when shutter button is pressed half way in One Shot AF mode.
AF Assist Beam
Intermittent firing of built-in flash or emitted by optional dedicated Speedlite
Manual Focus
Selected on lens
EXPOSURE CONTROL
Metering Modes
TTL full aperture metering with 63-zone SPC
(1) Evaluative metering (linked to all AF points)
(2) Partial metering at center (approx. 9% of viewfinder)
(3) Spot metering (approx. 4% of viewfinder at center)
(4) Center weighted average metering
Metering Range
EV 1-20 (at 23°C with 50mm f/1.4 lens ISO100)
AE Lock
Auto: In 1-shot AF mode with evaluative metering exposure is locked when focus is achieved.
Manual: By AE lock button in creative zone modes.
Exposure Compensation
+/-5 EV in 1/3 or 1/2 stop increments (can be combined with AEB).
AEB
3 shots +/- 2 EV, 1/2 or 1/3-stop increments
ISO Sensitivity*
AUTO(100-6400), 100-6400 Expandable to H (approx 12800) in 1-stop increments
SHUTTER
Type
Electronically-controlled focal-plane shutter
Speed
30-1/4000 sec (1/2 or 1/3 stop increments), Bulb (Total shutter speed range. Available range varies by shooting mode)
WHITE BALANCE
Type
Auto white balance with the imaging sensor
Settings
AWB, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, White
Fluorescent light, Flash, Custom.
White balance compensation:
1. Blue/Amber +/-9
2. Magenta/ Green +/-9.
Custom White Balance
Yes, 1 setting can be registered
WB Bracketing
+/-3 levels in single level increments
3 bracketed images per shutter release.
Selectable Blue/Amber bias or Magenta/ Green bias.
VIEWFINDER
Type
Pentamirror
Coverage (Vertical/Horizontal)
Approx. 95%
Magnification
Approx. 0.87x
Eyepoint
Approx. 19mm (from eyepiece lens centre)
Dioptre Correction
-3 to +1 (1/m) (dioptre)
Focusing Screen
Fixed
Mirror
Quick-return half mirror (Transmission: reflection ratio of 40:60, no mirror cut-off with EF600mm f/4 or shorter)
Viewfinder Information
AF information: AF points, focus confirmation light
Exposure information: Shutter speed, aperture value, ISO speed (always displayed), AE lock, exposure level/compensation, spot metering circle, exposure warning, AEB
Flash information: Flash ready, high-speed sync, FE lock, flash exposure compensation, red-eye reduction light
Image information: White balance correction, SD card information, monochrome shooting, maximum burst (1 digit display), Highlight tone priority (D+)
E-TTL II with EX series Speedlites, wireless multi-flash support
External Flash Control
via camera menu screen
SHOOTING
Modes
Auto, Portrait, Landscape, Close-up, Sports, Night Portrait, No Flash, Movie, Program AE , Shutter priority AE, Aperture priority AE, Manual, A-DEP
Picture Styles
Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, Monochrome, User Defined (x3)
Colour Space
sRGB and Adobe RGB
Image Processing
Highlight Tone Priority
Auto Lighting Optimizer (Basic and Creative modes)
Long exposure noise reduction
High ISO speed noise reduction
Peripheral illumination correction
Max. Approx. 3.7fps. (speed maintained for minimum of approx 34 images (JPEG)¹, 6 images (RAW)) ²
LIVE VIEW MODE
Type
Electronic viewfinder with image sensor
Coverage
Approx. 100% (horizontally and vertically)
Frame Rate
30 fps
Focusing
Manual Focus (Magnify the image 5x or 10x at any point on screen)
Autofocus: Quick mode, Live mode
Metering
Real-time evaluative metering with image sensor
Active metering time can be changed
Display Options
Grid overlay, Histogram
FILE TYPE
Still Image Type
JPEG: Fine, Normal (Exif 2.21 [Exif Print] compliant) / Design rule for Camera File system (2.0),
RAW: RAW (14bit, Canon original RAW 2nd edition),
Digital Print Order Format [DPOF] Version 1.1 compliant
RAW+JPEG Simultaneous Recording
Yes (RAW + Large JPEG only)
Image Size
JPEG: (L) 5184x3456 (M) 3456x2304, (S) 2592x1728
RAW: (RAW) 5184x3456
Movie Type
MOV (Video: H.264, Sound: Linear PCM)
Movie Size
1920 x 1080 (29.97, 25, 23.976 fps)
1280 x 720 (59.94, 50 fps)
640 x 480 (59.94, 50 fps)
Movie Length
Max duration 29m 59sec, Max file size 4GB
File Numbering
(1) Consecutive numbering
(2) Auto reset
(3) Manual reset
OTHER FEATURES
Custom Functions
12 Custom Functions with 36 settings
Metadata Tag
User copyright information (can be set in camera)
LCD Panel / Illumination
Yes
Playback Zoom
1.5x - 10x enabled in 15steps
Display Formats
(1) Single image with information (2 levels)
(2) Single image
(3) 4 image index
(4) 9 image index
(5) Jump Display
Slide Show
Image selection: All images, by Date, by Folder, Movies, Stills
Playback time: 1/2/3/5 seconds
Repeat: On/Off
Histogram
Brightness: Yes
RGB: Yes
Highlight Alert
Yes (Shooting information display only)
Image Erase/Protection
Erase: Single image, Checkmarked images, Unprotected images
Protection: Erase protection of one image at a time
Data Verification
Original image verification data can be appended to the image (OSK-E3 required for verification)
Menu Categories
(1) Shooting menu (x4)
(2) Playback menu (x2)
(3) Setup menu (x3)
(4) My Menu
Menu Languages
25 Languages
English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Greek, Russian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Arabic, Thai, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Japanese
Firmware Update
Update possible by the user.
INTERFACE
Computer
Hi-Speed USB
Other
Video output (PAL/ NTSC) (integrated with USB terminal), HDMI mini output (HDMI-CEC compatible), External microphone (3.5mm Stereo mini jack)
DIRECT PRINT
Canon Printers
Canon Compact Photo Printers and PIXMA Printers supporting PictBridge
PictBridge
Yes
STORAGE
Type
SD card, SDHC card or SDXC card
SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEM
PC & Macintosh
Windows XP (SP2/SP3) / Vista inc SP1 (excl. Starter Edition) / 7 (excl. Starter Edition)
OS X v10.4-10.6
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