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As a part of DPReview’s twenty-fifth anniversary, we’re wanting again at among the most important cameras launched through the previous quarter century. Right now, we’re highlighting the Canon Digital Insurgent / EOS-300D, which launched on this present day manner again in 2003.
The Digital Insurgent is greatest remembered as the primary DSLR to interrupt the $1000 value barrier, arriving at a retail value of simply $899 (body-only). Though DSLRs had been round for a number of years earlier than the Digital Insurgent, the expertise was nonetheless new and costly, and earlier fashions have been focused primarily at professionals and well-heeled pictures fanatics.
Click on right here to see Phil Askey’s authentic assessment of the Canon Digital Insurgent
The Digital Insurgent was, in reality, a little bit of a insurgent that disrupted the market, turning into the digital camera that democratized entry to DSLR-quality pictures. It appealed not simply to fanatics however to anybody who wished an interchangeable lens digital camera to take photographs. It opened the floodgates for photographers of all stripes to leap into the DSLR recreation, and it sparked a wave of competitors that continued till a brand new disruptor –the smartphone – entered the scene.
By as we speak’s requirements, the Digital Insurgent might not appear spectacular. At its core was a 6.3MP CMOS sensor. It might be one other 4 years earlier than most different manufacturers made the transfer to CMOS sensors, so this was fairly leading edge on the time. The digital camera had an ISO vary of 100 to 1600 and the flexibility to shoot at 2.5fps – slower than some movie SLRs of the day. Canon additionally used some cost-saving measures to maintain the value down, together with a plastic physique, using a pentamirror rather than a pentaprism, and a single dial interface that outlined the Insurgent/XX0D collection for an additional decade.
However customers did not care. The digital camera delivered picture high quality that might compete with 35mm SLRs however with the comfort (and novelty) of a digital workflow. It sparked a wave of competitors within the entry-level DSLR market and accelerated the demise of movie because the dominant photographic expertise. I knew a number of individuals who bought Digital Rebels and instantly relegated their movie SLRs to the darkish nook of closets from which they by no means emerged.
The Digital Insurgent can be notable for an additional characteristic: it was the primary digital camera to help Canon’s new EF-S lens format (the ‘S’ stood for brief again focus). EF-S featured the identical lens mount and digital contacts as Canon’s EF lenses however was designed particularly for APS-C cameras. It allowed for a rear factor that prolonged additional into the digital camera, bringing it nearer to the picture sensor. Canon packaged its first EF-S lens, the 18-55mm F3.5-5.6, in a package with the Digital Insurgent for an additional $100, which nonetheless stored the value of the digital camera and lens beneath the magic $1000 value level.
In his authentic assessment of the digital camera, Phil Askey known as the Digital Insurgent “formidable,” not for its construct high quality or characteristic set however for its worth to customers and what it may imply for the way forward for DSLRs throughout the whole prosumer digital camera market.
“There is no doubt that there’s an vital place for cameras equivalent to Sony’s DSC-F828 and Minolta’s DiMAGE A1,” he wrote, “However you would need to be carrying blinkers to not understand that anybody contemplating spending over $1000 on an all-in-one digital camera equivalent to that can now put the EOS 300D Equipment excessive on their record.”
Canon Digital Insurgent / EOS 300D pattern gallery
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2024-08-20 19:00:00
Source hyperlink:https://www.dpreview.com/articles/4584372281/on-this-day-2003-canon-announces-the-digital-rebel