Should i buy t4i

A new continuous autofocus system works while recording video. The wonderfully responsive capacitive touchscreen. This smartphone feature, on this camera, has impressive results. The much-touted continuous autofocus for video takes several seconds to find its mark. It's annoying for video. For photography, it's excruciating, with its unpredictable, hugely disappointing performance.

The camera's video quality is virtually identical to the performance on the T2i. The noise at high ISOs is still a mess, the image could be sharper, and the aliasing and moire distortions haven't been fixed. Given that video is one of the selling points for this and all Canon cameras , you expect better. It's easy to say there's no difference between an affordable DSLR and a mirrorless camera. But the subtle differences are actually pretty significant.

The T4i reverts to Standard NR in Basic zone modes, during video recording, in Bulb mode and when the camera is powered off. Flash is not supported in MSNR mode. And the camera remains "busy" for a brief period of time after the 4 shot burst - while processing the merged image.

As I see it, this setting is useful for marketing purposes only. Just my opinion of course. ISO results are still ugly. Use the figures above to get a rough estimate of the size card you need. Of course, the JPG file format is significantly more storage space efficient and has selectable levels of image quality that also can adjust space requirements downward dramatically.

My advice is to shoot RAW and buy lots of memory - it is cheap and the cards are useful for temporary archiving and backup use. I don't have any complaints - especially for the price of this camera. As I said in the T3i review - it was not many years ago that we could only dream about this image quality - and would expect to pay many times the T4i's price for lower image quality. Proper exposure is important for a quality image and to this end, the T4i inherits the first-seen-on-the-EOS-7D zone iFCL Intelligent Focus, Color, Luminance Metering System that takes focus, color, illumination and data from all 9 AF points into account when establishing the proper exposure.

Spot, Evaluative, Partial and Center-weighted metering modes are available. Auto White Balance under tungsten lighting continues to be handled very well - and much better than ancestral EOS models.

You've heard me say it before - if the shot is OOF Out of Focus , the best image quality in the world is not going to save it. AF performance matters unless you are using manual focus of course. Perhaps the biggest T4i enhancement is the new AF system. The cross type AF points are sensitive to lines of contrast in two directions instead of one.

The T3i's center AF point is a cross-type center point sensor but the other 8 AF points are horizontal-line-only sensitive. Let me emphasize "fast" for the healthy percentage of T4i owners stepping up from point and shoot models that left them frustrated because the moment they intended to capture would be gone before the camera could take the picture. In one shot mode, focus accuracy has not been an issue with the prior Rebel models, Now, with the cross-type AF points, locking peripheral AF point focus is even easier with more challenging subjects.

My experience is that the T4i quickly focuses with good accuracy in one shot mode. In AI Servo mode, all Canon DSLRs attempt to predictively focus the attached lens at the precise location the subject will be at the moment the shutter opens. The ability to accurately focus-track a subject rapidly approaching the camera is a differentiator between camera models. The faster a subject is approaching the camera and closer the distance is, the more taxing the situation is on AF - and the more out of focus shots you will likely experience with the even best lenses mounted.

Canon's 1-Series cameras and the 5D III as of review time have faster and far more sophisticated AF systems - if your income is depending on you getting the shot, these are the models you need to be using - a huge number of non-pros are using these models as well.

I was hopeful that the T4i's new AF system would bring significant change in the AI Servo AF department, but in the live action testing I did using the center focus point only, my results were not so exciting. There are an infinite number of AF situations to throw at a camera, but subjects moving parallel to the sensor plane typically pose much less of challenge for a camera.

Starter lenses tend to have these narrower apertures at even their widest aperture settings. Hybrid CMOS AF uses the CMOS imaging sensor for both contrast typically slow and phase-difference detection typically very fast autofocusing methods simultaneously to provide fast and smooth important for video focusing.

Continuous AF is also available in still capture mode - to keep the lens prefocused for quick image capture. Subject Tracking AF will attempt to keep the AF frame on a face the T4i tracks faces very well or other selected-via-touch subjects.

The non-continuous-but-fast Quick Mode AF remains available the mirror is lowered for conventional phase detection AF to take place. As of review time, this statement is indeed mostly correct. And as I feared, AF adjustments are easily audible through the on-camera mic. You can hear the AF mechanism of these lenses clunking into position in video recordings. Movie Servo AF is not going to be picked up for use by major motion picture studios in the near future.

It works and will get used, but unless the subject and camera are still, there will be plenty of OOF Out of Focus frames. Embedding AF components on the sensor left me wondering if these system parts would be detectable in images.

The good news is that they are not. Let's jump back to video. Video image quality, especially with the shallow DOF Depth of Field capabilities of compatible lenses, is very impressive for a camera at this price point. I'm not keen on the video autofocus capabilities yet, but using careful setup and manual focusing, very impressive results are obtainable from this camera. Here are additional video recording features and specs: Movie exposures are either Program AE or manual exposure.

The movie file size is now unlimited or limited by the card being used - continuous HD recordings can be as long as approximately 22 minutes utilizing 4GB clips. Created are H. MOV files. Available resolutions and frame rates are: p: xpx at 30fps A new built-in stereo mic captures good sound quality and a 3. Audio gain can be automatically or manually set. An attenuator function reduces audio distortion in unusually loud sounds.

Electronic wind cut filtration is provided. A new Video Snapshot mode allows for two, four, or eight second video segments to be easily recorded and then combined or reordered in-camera. Let's now look at the physical camera. First, the viewfinder. And the first thing point and shoot users will notice when peering into the T4i's viewfinder is that it is surprisingly large and very usable.

And the first thing that 60D or similar body users will notice is that the T4i's viewfinder is very small. It is all about what you are used to, but the T4i continues the Rebel tradition of having a relatively small body size in part due to its relatively small viewfinder. The Rebel T4i also continues the Rebel tradition of using a pentamirror instead of a pentaprism. You are going to have a little more subject in your image than you see in the viewfinder.

I seldom hear people complaining about this - you get used to it. But you might need to crop out something unintentionally present in your image during post processing if you are not careful. The closed-reversed LCD is well-protected from damage during transport, storage or even use including protection from nose prints. Best-available describes the panel. Once again, I was not excited about this new feature. Really, my first thought was that I dreaded the finger prints accumulating on the LCD.

At least the full conventional controls remained available. Concerning battery life, the D gets shots out of its LP-E10 battery , while the T4i can take images on a single charge of its LP-E8 power pack. The adjacent table lists the principal physical characteristics of the two cameras alongside a wider set of alternatives. In case you want to display and compare another camera duo, you can use the CAM-parator app to select your camera combination among a large number of options.

Any camera decision will obviously take relative prices into account. The D was launched at a markedly lower price by 53 percent than the T4i, which puts it into a different market segment. Usually, retail prices stay at first close to the launch price, but after several months, discounts become available.

Later in the product cycle and, in particular, when the replacement model is about to appear, further discounting and stock clearance sales often push the camera price considerably down. The size of the imaging sensor is a crucial determinant of image quality. A large sensor will tend to have larger individual pixels that provide better low-light sensitivity, wider dynamic range , and richer color-depth than smaller pixel-units in a sensor of the same technological generation.

Furthermore, a large sensor camera will give the photographer more possibilities to use shallow depth-of-field in order to isolate a subject from the background.

On the downside, larger sensors are more costly to manufacture and tend to lead to bigger and heavier cameras and lenses. Both cameras under consideration feature an APS-C sensor and have a format factor sometimes also referred to as "crop factor" of 1. Within the spectrum of camera sensors, this places the review cameras among the medium-sized sensor cameras that aim to strike a balance between image quality and portability. Both cameras have a native aspect ratio sensor width to sensor height of The two cameras under review do not only share the same sensor size, but also offer an identical resolution of This similarity in sensor specs implies that both the D and the T4i have the same pixel density, as well as the same pixel size.

It should, however, be noted that the D is much more recent by 5 years and 8 months than the T4i, and its sensor will have benefitted from technological advances during this time. The T4i has on-sensor phase detect pixels , which results in fast and reliable autofocus acquisition even during live view operation.

Since , DXO Mark has published sensor performance measurements that have been derived using a consistent methodology. The Overall DXO ratings for the two cameras under consideration are close, suggesting that they provide similar imaging performance. The table below summarizes the physical sensor characteristics and sensor quality findings and compares them across a set of similar cameras.

Many modern cameras are not only capable of taking still images, but can also record movies. Apart from body and sensor, cameras can and do differ across a variety of features. The D and the T4i are similar in the sense that both have an optical viewfinder. The latter is useful for getting a clear image for framing even in brightly lit environments. The following table reports on some other key feature differences and similarities of the Canon D, the Canon T4i, and comparable cameras.

One differentiating feature between the two cameras concerns the touch sensitivity of the rear screen. The T4i has a touchscreen , while the D has a conventional panel.