Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon EOS Rebel 2000 Silver Date 35mm SLR Camera Deluxe Kit with 28-90mm Lens

Strengths: Lightweight, easy to use from full automatic to full manual. Depth of field preview (excellent feature!), AE lock, quick auto focus for price range, seven focusing points. Countless lenses and accessories available both from Canon and third party mfgrs. If you have large hands, I recommend the optional battery pack ... which also doubles as a vertical grip with duplicated shutter control and port for remote switch. I simply can't imagine these features on any other camera at a comptetitive price. Thinking about a "point and shoot"? Save your money and get this camera instead.

Weaknesses: Included manual not very comprehensive, but spend a few hours with this camera and you can figure most features out yourself. If you need written instructions, I'd recommend the excellent Magic Lantern guide....

Also, try another lens, like a 28-200mm aspherical lens, if you want just one lens to carry around.

I bought this Canon Rebel 2000 kit after much research and investigation - and I know I made exactly the right choice! It is loaded with features if I want them, but it is also able to "point and shoot" when I don't want to have to think about it. The most noticable feature is that it is as light as a feather - even when compared to my digital pocket camera. The seven focus areas are terrific, allowing for flexibility and creativity. I'm an amateur and find this to be something I can easily operate but it leaves room to grow into later on.

The most helpful thing in my decision making process to buy this camera was a visit to my local camera store to rent one for a weekend. The minute I got back the best prints I have ever taken, I knew I needed to have it!

Drawbacks - The instruction manual is nothing more than a glorified parts diagram. It isn't helpful for beginners or experts... can't imagine who the audience is supposed to be. The flash isn't very strong - its purpose is to be a fill flash, not a substitute for a full-featured detachable flash. Knowing what I know now, if I had it to do over again, I would buy just the body and accessorize it myself.

I talked my wife into letting me buy my own Christmas present and after much deliberation I finally decided on this Camera and kit. She now wishes that she had found something else for me. I can't go anywhere without taking along my camera! With this kit you get the better lens (over the 28-80mm) than the normal Eos Rebel Kits, the quartz date and all the extras things that everyone needs anyway- so why not get them all together at once. The camera gives me the ability to be as creative as I want, but can also be so simple that I can give it to my wife to use as a point and shoot. I have used it for both color photographs and black and white, night and day, action and stills shots. All the photos have turned out great! I would highly recommend the camera for anyone who is buying an SLR for the first time or for someone who has used many before- it's an all around great camera!

I bought this camera not knowing much about cameras but wanting one that would allow me to expand later. I read the manual and knew I'd be using the auto feature most of the time for now. The manual is concise but efficient for beginners. All my pics taken so far have been with Kodak 400 film and are very clear and crisp. The evening shots I took in Vegas were using the pre-set auto feature for darker environments which came out amazing! The vista shots using the pre-set for background shots of Grand Canyon came out spectacular: wide area covered with great detail. It is light weight enough that I walked around Vegas with this on my neck and the battery is still strong after 5 rolls of film. The styling is very updated with the silver body and the 28-90mm lens covered every possible scenario I was interested in taking. The kit I got included (...) a nice Canon canvas case, camera straps, mini-album and battery. Good value for the price. Considered the Olympus IS-50 also but wanted the option of changine lenses later on.

I had a few miscellaneous comments to make. I've had my EOS Rebel 2000 for only two weeks and already am extremely satisfied with it. The first roll of film came back and the photos are nice and sharp. The only thing I could have done differently in the photos was to use some exposure compensation--I was on vacation and was shooting wildlife at a beach on an overcast day, and even then, the sand was reflective enough so that the some of the subjects were a little dark and looked somewhat silhouetted.

Happily, this little camera gives you manual control over shutter speed and aperture, as well as many other nice features, such as depth of field preview (which even the ELAN II lacks), and a respectable 1/2000th of a second top shutter speed. If you've been mostly a point and shoot camera owner until now, your fastest shutter speed will only have been about 1/ 500th of a second, unless you own one of the Contax point and shoots such as the T2, which go up to 1/700th of a second, but cost about 5 times as much as even the more expensive and capable point-and-shoot cameras, not to mention the Rollei, which, at about 10 times the cost of a typical point and shoot, will truly cost you a pile of green stuff, although it has that amazing 1/8000th of a second top shutter speed.

I'm getting used to the controls, which are a little different from my Rollei QZ35W. The jog wheel feature, for adjusting ASA settings and so forth, I find an interesting feature which I'm more used to seeing on Palm PDA clones such as the Sony CLIE, but I find I like it here, too.

In addition to the lens that came with it, I found a Tokina ATX 28-70 mm constant F2.8 Pro Series lens used at a great price, and decided to buy it for the little EOS Rebel. The camera fits comfortably in my hand, if I have one complaint, it's that the grip on the right side is a little small for me with the much bigger Tokina lens mounted, but it's okay.

To give another plug here for this great little camera, a friend at local camera shop says he knows a pro photographer at a large newspaper who uses nothing but EOS Rebel 2000 bodies, and he just puts his expensive pro lenses on it. He says they're capable enough to do anything he wants, but inexpensive enough so he doesn't worry about hurting them. He carries 3 of them at a time with him, and if one has a problem, he just throws away the malfunctioning body and grabs a new one out of his bag.

One final thing I wanted to say is the manual is really well written, very clear and concise. They seem to really want you to learn and make use of the camera's features to make you a better, more technically aware, photographer. So be sure to read the manual.

I've found this to be an exellent little camera at a very reasonable price given all the features Canon has packed into it. Canon has produced an outstanding value and a very capable camera in this little package. I can recommend this camera without reservation, especially if you're considering moving up from the point-and-shoot category to a camera with more advanced features.