General Image Quality - Canon's 300D (Digital Rebel) vs 10D: Battle of the DSLRs
General Image Quality
All of these samples were taken using the same Canon 50mm f2.5 macro lens attached. Each camera was reset to the factory default settings. The Rebel and the 10D were set to Av Mode (apertures noted for each picture). The quality setting with the lowest compression (highest quality) was used (Large/Fine-3072x2048). To avoid focus differences, each camera was set to focus using the center focal point. The pictures were taken between 11 AM and 12 PM on a bright day on N.C. State University's campus with the use of a tripod. The pictures were not manipulated in any way. They are right out of the camera. Click any picture for the full-size version.| Canon Digital Rebel (100% crop) | Canon 10D (100% crop) |
 f5.6 |  f5.6 |
This first picture shows two substantial differences between the Rebel and the 10D. The Rebel's auto white balance resulted in a bluish look, while the 10D was more accurate at representing the actual colors. Also, the 10D appears to be significantly sharper than the Rebel. We were not expecting such a dramatic difference, especially considering the Rebel includes more in-camera sharpening (by default) than the 10D. Our guess is that the Rebel simply had trouble focusing on the proper plane. Below is a crop from the left portion of the picture, which was spatially farther back from the stool.
| Canon Digital Rebel (100% crop) | Canon 10D (100% crop) |
 f5.6 |  f5.6 |
This crop shows an improvement in sharpness from the stool crop. Here, the Rebel comes much closer to matching the sharpness of the 10D. The same was found for objects to the right of the stool. They get sharper as they move back away from the stool.
| Canon Digital Rebel (100% crop) | Canon 10D (100% crop) |
 f5.6 |  f5.6 |
Interestingly, on our next shot, we came upon these findings. The Rebel is noticably sharper than the 10D; however, it appears that the cement wall is sharper on the 10D. The focal point for this picture was a bit tricky. It was the text written on the metal in the center of the picture. Despite this slightly ambiguous focal point, we expected better clarity on the 10D. This strange finding, in addition to the focusing problem of the last picture, lead us to think that there may be the much-talked-about front/back-focusing issues on both cameras. However, they don't appear to be consistently focusing this way.
| Canon Digital Rebel (100% crop) | Canon 10D (100% crop) |
 f5.6 |  f5.6 |
Here, the 10D appears just a bit sharper than the Rebel. We can also see that the Rebel has a higher default saturation setting than the 10D.
| Canon Digital Rebel (100% crop) | Canon 10D (100% crop) |
 f7.1 |  f7.1 |
The difference between these two is more dramatic. The image shot with the Rebel is washed out (overexposed) on the window shade and the whole picture has a general lightness to it. The 10D, on the other hand, did a pretty good job of exposing the window shades and the bricks, while retaining some definition of the window. You can see that both cameras did a pretty good job in regards to sharpness on this picture.
The three major factors in overall image quality between the Rebel and the 10D were white balance, sharpness, and metering. The auto white balance isn't outstanding in either camera, but the 10D does a better job in our samples here. The inconsistent sharpness of these cameras is a big concern. They both appear to have front/back-focusing issues some of the time. On the pictures where there was a problem, we noticed that the cameras took a little longer to lock focus as they were having trouble determining where the focal point was. In general, the automatic metering of the Rebel doesn't seem to do as well as the evaluative metering of the 10D in producing an even exposure. The Rebel produced pictures that were either too dark or too bright (to the point of overexposing), while the 10D consistently produced even exposures.
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