I got the chance to try out the Canon EOS 200D. (Note: The Mark I variant, and not the later Mark II model).
On first glance, this camera is small! (or perhaps maybe I’ve just been using full-frames and prosumer cameras for too long).
Experience
This camera is an APS-C type sensor (1.6x crop) target for entry-level photographers, featuring a 24.2 megapixel sensor with the DIGIC 7 processor. It has the basic 9-point AF grid, which is expected for this sort of system.
I tested this camera with a 35mm f/2, 35-135mm f/4-5.6, 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6, and a 70-200mm f/2.8 (ignore the 50mm f/1.8 pictured, I didn’t use it), and my experience? Shockingly positive!
The RAW files it spat out ranged from 25MB to 36MB.
Whilst the out-of-camera colours looked flatter and less contrast-y than my 5D Mark III or EOS R, some tweaking in post was able to bring out quite nice and vibrant colours (Canon colour science ftw!)
Usability wise - the features and controls are the same with the other Canon DSLRs, so I felt right at home with navigating around the buttons and dials.
The camera only has a max shutter speed of 1/4000s, which whilst fine in most cases; may be a limitation if you really want to freeze motion. There’s also no bulb exposure, so the longest you can do in a photo is 30 seconds. Photos requiring longer than that will need to be combined in post.
The auto-focus worked quite well for most of the times, however sometimes (like 1/10 times) it failed to acquire correct focus, and I had to restart the AF process.
The screen is an articulating screen, allowing you to flip the screen open and adjust the angle accordingly. Oh and also, the screen is touch screen! (My 5D Mark III is starting to feel abit old and underpowered…)
Again, this camera body is the smallest DSLR I’ve ever seen or felt. It also felt so light that I had sporadic moments of panic that I had forgotten to take the camera with me, when it was just around my arm or shoulder…
It kind of looks ridiculous when I pair it with my 70-200mm…
Conclusion
I’m quite surprised with how well this little buddy works. Despite being an entry-level camera, it is packed with features that even my 5D Mark III doesn’t have - Bluetooth (eh), WiFi (eh), an articulating screen (!!!), touch screen support (eh).
Now, I haven’t tried the camera at night, so I have no idea about its low-light performance; but during the day it is quite a good contender for a decent priced but feature-rich camera. If you really want to find out about its ISO performance, there’s a handful of articles online that you can research.
I would definitely recommend this camera to people who are interested in diving into digital photography!
Might buy and gift this camera for one or two of my friends who have been real keen in asking to borrow my cameras 👀 But the biggest fear I have is that it won’t be used once they have it… I definitely went through that stage when I first started photography. But because I forked out $3000 from my own pocket for the 5D Mark III years ago, I felt compelled to use it… If I give it to them for free they may take it for granted and not use it… aaaaaaaah