Canon Digital Rebel XS - Performance and Price

The XS’s performance is every bit as good as you would expect from a Canon DSLR. The DIGIC III processor provides accurate, vibrant color reproduction, while the included picture styles offer useful variety between, say, landscape mode, in which blues and greens are emphasized, and portrait mode with its warmly enhanced reds and pinks.

The processor also allows the camera to function impressively at high ISO settings in low light. A certain amount of noise under such conditions is to be expected, but the XS produces far less than you might expect, even at ISO1600.

Continuous shooting performance is also good, at least in JPEG mode, where the promise of unlimited shooting until the card is full is borne out in tests. In RAW mode things are less satisfactory: 1.5fps for just a handful of shots isn’t going to win any awards. Anyone interested in rapid burst RAW shooting is advised to look elsewhere.

That aside, the overall feature set and performance of the XS are impressive, and it would seem as though Canon have hit upon another low-end DSLR likely to appeal to a mass audience. Still, time will tell whether Canon have got it right again – and given their reputation for reinventing the consumer DSLR market, who would bet against it?