The trend these days in digital cameras is smaller, smaller, smaller — abandoning the tried-and-true formula of a digital SLR’s optical viewfinder and mirror box for a ‘mirrorless’ system that relies on an electronic read-out of what the camera’s seeing. This is what you get in cameras like the Canon EOS M, the Nikon COOLPIX A, and the Panasonic LUMIX GF5.
The new Canon EOS 100D bucks that trend; it’s still got all the bits and pieces you’d see on a high-end, professional digital SLR like the Nikon D600 or Canon 6D — most importantly that optical viewfinder — but it’s been shrunk significantly compared to any other D-SLR.
This camera is “the world’s smallest and lightest APS-C digital SLR”, and by a fair margin as well. Looking at it next to the superceded EOS 650D (which itself has been replaced by an EOS 700D), it’s 30 per cent lighter, and about 15 per cent smaller in overall dimensions — the EOS 100D is 117x91x69mm versus the 650D’s 133x100x79mm.
Like the 650D and new 700D, the EOS 100D has Canon’s perfectly competent 18-megapixel APS-C-sized CMOS imaging sensor, which can produce excellently-detailed digital photos even in dim lighting. You can compose pictures using the 100D’s optical viewfinder or its 3-inch touchscreen display, which doesn’t have any tilting or swivelling articulation like higher-end models.
You can also shoot Full HD video with the EOS 100D — and the camera comes with an 18-55mm zoom lens with a silent focus motor, so you can keep your videos crisply in focus while recording. Canon’s usual swathe of entry-level user guides and creative scene modes are built into the 100D.
Canon hasn’t said when the EOS 100D will be coming to Australia, or how much it will cost, but we know it’s on its way.
