Canon EOS Rebel T3 review: Canon EOS Rebel T3

Photos:
Canon EOS Rebel T3

Rather than introduce new dSLR models at bargain-basement prices as Pentax and Sony tend to do, Canon traditionally lets its slightly higher-end models gradually fall in price until they're the de facto entry-level models. But its current starter, the EOS Rebel XS, which the Canon EOS Rebel T3 replaces, has been around since the summer of 2008 and even Canon must think it's looking a bit dowdy compared with competitors that, though old, aren't quite that old. So Canon spruced up its low-end models a little with the latest imaging and metering systems--and somehow managed to produce a camera that still feels 3 years old.

7.1

Canon EOS Rebel T3

$145 at Amazon

The Good

Unsurprisingly, the <b>Canon EOS Rebel T3</b> delivers excellent photo quality.

The Bad

Average performance, a nothing-but-the-basics feature set and claustrophobic viewfinder leave the camera an uninspiring shooter.

The Bottom Line

Though it's a perfectly fine entry-level camera, there are better options for the money than the Canon EOS Rebel T3.

That's not to say that the T3 is bad; it's not. In fact, the photo quality is quite good for the price, as we've come to expect from Canon. It has excellent midrange (ISO 400-3,200) sensitivity performance. JPEGs get a bit grainy, but remain very usable, up through ISO 800, and start to get soft at ISO 1,600. At ISO 3,200, the JPEG photos don't look terrible, but you can see some color noise and images develop hot pixels. As usual, Canon's JPEG processing is pretty good. I couldn't get much better results from processing the raw versions--I could get different results, but only by trading off dynamic range for color and grain.

Canon EOS Rebel T3 photo samples

Overall, the T3 delivers excellent color reproduction, though in shadowed areas the white balance gets a little too cool. The default Standard Picture Style pushes the saturation and sharpness a bit more than I like, but there are no wholesale hue shifts and the Neutral style works out well if you prefer. Metering and exposure are solid.

In its Standard Picture Style setting (sharpness at +3), the camera plus 18-55mm lens renders very sharp images--possibly a little too sharp. You can dial it back, however. The lens produces nice out-of-focus highlights, and at its widest the distortion isn't too bad. Like most inexpensive lenses, it's pretty susceptible to fringing. I didn't see any purple, however, and it tends to stay on the edges of the frame.

For the most part, the T3 performs like the rest of the budget dSLRs, although its burst speed is worse than the 3-year-old XSi and pretty much at the bottom of its class. Time to turn on and shoot runs about 0.4 second, while focusing and shooting in good light takes 0.3 second; in dim light, that rises to 0.6 second. Typical JPEG shot-to-shot time rounds up to 0.5 second (raw is a bit slower at 0.6 second), and with flash enabled it--surprisingly--stays the same. All of that is pretty typical, perfectly adequate performance for a low-end model. Continuous shooting, though, is a mediocre 2.9 frames per second, which is just as bad as the Nikon D3100. In practice, that's just fast enough to capture kids and pets, but only if they're moving predictably, and with the knowledge that you may occasionally not get the shot. And Live Mode autofocus is as slow as you'd expect.

The T3's video capture is pretty limited: 720p, with exposure compensation the only control and no autofocus. That said, the quality is OK; it's suitable for capturing random clips.

Though it's not the heaviest camera in its class, the T3's body is rather clunky. And while I like the rubberized grip, the whole camera feels very cheap and plasticky. The control layout is straightforward and functional. The four navigation buttons bring up ISO sensitivity, drive mode, white balance, and autofocus mode options, whereas exposure compensation, movie record/live mode, menu, Quick Control, playback, and display occupy other buttons around them. All of the buttons are flat with little tactile feedback. The only buttons with any sort of travel are the exposure lock and AF point selector buttons, positioned for thumb-based operation. They still manage to feel mushy.

Lots of people don't mind them, but I dislike the low-end Canon viewfinders. This one in particular is the most claustrophobic I've seen in a long time; it's also got the lowest magnification of any Canon camera in the past few years. It's easy to lose the nine tiny autofocus points against the scene, and I frequently find I've used the wrong point to focus and have to prefocus to light them up in order to find the center point. The T3 lacks spot metering, and I think it's because of the small viewfinder; Canon tends to have large spots for its meter, and the combination of a small viewfinder and a large spot means you're already at the partial meter size, anyway.

The LCD also feels small. Since it's not 16:9 aspect, the 2.7-inch size isn't as small as it sounds (it's about as high as a 16:9 3-inch display), but it's another thing that makes the camera feel old. It's also relatively low resolution and difficult to see in direct sunlight.

As I've often complained before, I hate it that you have to use a specific movie mode to shoot video, and I especially hate that it's on the opposite side of the mode dial from the manual modes. For the T3, Canon also made the flash button flat and moved it to the top right side; I had to look up its location in the manual because it was so camouflaged. And you'd think there'd be plenty of room for an SD card slot in the huge grip. Instead, Canon moved it to the bottom, in the battery compartment--a popular but annoying location.

The one bow to modernity seems to be the Feature Guide, which pops up a description of the option in the Shooting Settings display. Creative Auto--it allows you to change aperture (background blur), drive mode, flash, and color "ambience"--is the closest thing Canon offers to a newbie mode. But there's nothing particularly interesting or inspiring in its feature set. Its one advantage over the Nikon D3100 is that it offers bracketing, which you'll need if you want to dabble in HDR, but even that's a bit lackluster: three shots in up to 2-stop increments. (Download the manual for a full accounting of the T3's features and operation.)

Conclusion
Though I'd technically place the D3000 as the T3's main competitor, for roughly $100 more (depending upon where the T3's street price falls to) you can get the D3100 kit or the Pentax K-x, both of which offer significant performance advantages and newer autofocus systems, while the D3100 has a larger (though lower-resolution) LCD and comparable photo quality. Nor is the T3 the cheapest model on the market; as far as I can tell, that nod goes to Sony's Alpha DSLR-A390.

If you really want an entry-level Canon, look at the T1i instead. It's not much more expensive, and offers better performance, comparable or better photo quality, a nicer viewfinder, and a similar feature set.