Canon EOS 550D review

The 550D is one of the cheapest large-sensor camera to offer full control over the aperture, shutter speed, ISO speed and frame rate in video mode – a critical feature for creative videographers. Quality was excellent, with crisp details, rich colours, barely any noise and no sign of compression artefacts, thanks to the AVC codec and massive 45Mbit/s bit rate. The resulting files are huge, though, and require a fast PC for playback and editing. It also means that the 4GB file limit equates to around 12 minutes of video at 24fps. There’s no countdown to warn when recording is about to stop.

Sound quality from the internal mono microphone was excellent, and there’s a stereo minijack for an external microphone. Autofocus during video recording was terrible, though. The focus darted back and forth like a learner driver trying to reverse park, the soundtrack was obliterated with lens motor noise and manual exposure settings were interrupted as the camera adjusted the image to assist the autofocus. Creative videographers will be happy to focus manually but this video mode isn’t for casual use. We also found that inadequate anti-aliasing sometimes created moiré patterns and odd motion in dense textures – something that won’t bother casual users but is more of an issue for discerning use.

As a stills camera, the 550D excelled for image detail while maintaining extremely low noise. Photos tended towards over-exposure but there’s ample scope to fine-tune the camera’s behaviour. There aren’t masses of controls but they’re used efficiently to keep key settings close to hand. Performance is solid rather than exceptional, with the 3.6fps continuous mode slowing to 2.3fps after 24 JPEGs in our tests.

We’ve reported on slight autofocus problems with the 550D and its predecessors. This time, having the 550D, 60D, 18-55mm lens and 18-135mm lens together allowed us perform some controlled tests. We used all four permutations of camera body and lens and, using a tripod and the centre AF point only, shot using phase-detect autofocus followed by live view’s contrast-detection autofocus at a variety of distances and focal lengths.

With the 550D and 18-55mm lens, six out of seven shots were softer with phase-detect autofocus than contrast-detect. Switching to the 18-135mm lens, the problem disappeared. It reappeared slightly with the 60D and 18-55mm lens and disappeared again with the 60D and 18-135mm lens. It’s clear that the 18-55mm lens is to blame – we’d strongly recommend avoiding it. The 550D and 18-135mm lens costs £789 from Jessops.

The 550D doesn’t do enough to warrant an award but – with the right lens – it’s very much a safe bet. Photo quality is exceptional and videos are too as long as you don’t need continuous autofocus. It’s the natural choice for more creative users who can’t justify spending over £1,000.