Using Canon 600D/T3i in 2021

I have been using this camera since 2019 and I love it to bits. Here’s why the Canon T3i or 600D is still worth buying in this year.

The canon 600D or T3i, release in February 2011 at a launch price of GHc 3500 ($599) has seen better days. The camera is decently built, although with plastic, this is hard plastic so it wouldn’t crack that easily. It weighs 570g/1.26lb.

For the design, we have the hotshoe mount somewhere right at the center, then ISO and DISPLAY button at the top, the mode dial and power switch all at one side for, one handed shooting. There isn’t any top screen for checking out your current settings, but I never use that feature so it doesn’t bother me, as much. It also features a fully articulating 3-inch screen which we’ll get into later in this video.

The left side has this nice textured cover which feels great in the hand. On the same side is a MIC input, an external trigger control port, A/V out and mini HDMI port.

The grip on the right is deep enough to fully sink my fingers in without any issues. And since I have smaller hands, this is ideal for me cos all my 4 fingers can relax comfortably on it. But if you have gigantic hands, then probably getting a battery grip or extension is the way to go.

The bottom is a ¼ inch mount and the battery compartment.

On that note, the camera uses Canon’s   . An 1120mAh battery, rated to have about 440 shots per charge. I can’t really say this is true, cos I have 3 of these and when recording videos, I typically had to switch every 40 to 60mins or so, when recording in Full HD. For pictures, it usually lasts for about 2 to 3 hours before I have to change.

The single card slot is on the right, which I appreciate a lot. The camera also has support for SDHC cards. And with that, I’ll recommend you get at least 80 MB/s read and write speeds for the SD card. The reason for that is in another video I made a while back. More of that, in the video description

Note that this is a Digital Single Lens Reflex or DSLR for short, which means, it has a mirror within which flips out of the way when taking pictures or recording videos.

The camera features a 17.9MP APS-C sensor with a crop factor of 1.6x. which means a 24mm lens on a full frame sensor will look like a 38.4mm on this. Likewise, a 50mm on this crop sensor will look like an 80mm lens on full frame. You just multiple the focal length of the lens by 1.6.

Photos have a resolution of 3456 x 5184 px whiles video recording is maxed out at 1080p 30fps or 60fps at 720p. The 720p videos aren’t really usually. Quality drops drastically. All the village travels videos I made were shot on this camera at 720p, 60fps, so you can check that one out as well. It can shoot up to 3.7 shutter flaps/s and has a maximum shutter speed of 1/4000s.

Wondering how the video quality is, well, check this out

With a max ISO of 6400, it isn’t really the great camera for late night shots. For broad daylight pictures and videos, there are no issues. Actually, as long as you have enough light, you’re good to go. I typically never go above ISO 1600, cos it’s around those areas you start noticing noise on the images and videos. The Digic 4 image processor in this, is the same thing used in the Canon 5DMII, which is a bit too older now, but JPEG images look good enough.

Like I said, the screen is a fully articulatory, making it a lot easier to vlog with or shoot yourself whiles seeing how your framing looks without needing an external monitor. But it doesn’t come with Canon’s amazing Dual Pixel Autofocus technology so, vlogging may not be that ideal. And the screen doesn’t also support touch, so that’s a bummer.

Focusing in Live View mode is quite hectic and super slow. There isn’t any smooth experience. Whiles there is some detection, the contrast-based detection system isn’t very ideal. Here’s how the focus is in Realtime. So, for videos, I’ll recommend you just stick to manual focusing. On that note also, there’s no manual focus peeking to help you know when you nail focus. You just have to guess and believe in your eyes.

But for photos, well, you’re in luck. By using the optical viewfinder makes is a lot easier and faster to nail focus. Just put it over your eye, half press the shutter button and like that, you have you focus.

The viewfinder comes with 95% field of view, which basically means whatever you see in there, is about a slight magnification of what actually is. I had this happened to me, I align my perfect shot, only to realize, I got a bit of the unwanted borders in the shot as well.

It also has a popup flash which I wouldn’t recommend you ever use. I’ve done all the research I could on this button right here but I still do not know what it’s used for. If for some reason you do, please comment below. On the subject of the flash, there are some inexpensive ones like the Godox TT520 II, you can buy for this. More on that speedlight, in the description of the video.