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 Canon EOS Rebel GII (approx. street price: $240, with 35-80mm f/4-5.6 Canon Zoom EF III lens focusing to 15 inches; body only, $160)
Minolta was apparently right years ago when their engineers told me it cost virtually as much to make a basic, features-only SLR as one with many advanced features. Make no mistake, the Rebel GII is feature-loaded and sells for almost exactly the same price as the Minolta Maxxum 3. But if you want to know why Canon is one of the most financially successful companies in Japan, look no further than the Rebel GII. While all three of the other "entry-level" SLR makers went through the whole process of designing, retooling, and constructing entirely new or reworked entry-level cameras, Canon simply reached into its inventory of discontinued Rebels and resurrected the original Rebel G of 1998. Recolored a tasteful grayish chrome instead of silver satin, and presto-we have the GII. If indeed there are any new features compared to the original G, I've missed them. Checking prices of a few original Gs still left on dealers' shelves revealed that the older GII and G are selling for nearly identical prices, with the same lenses. For those of you who keep your Pop Photos and want a full test of the G/GII, you can find the G in our May, 1998 issue.
Yes, you can operate the Rebel GII as a snapshot point-and-shoot SLR, by setting the camera on the command dial's "fully auto" green rectangle and ignoring virtually everything else. The camera has enough other features and capabilities to backstop even a pro (except for the very slow 1 fps continuous film advance). These include: six-segment evaluative, partial, and centerweighted metering (but no spotmetering); shiftable program; shutter- and aperture-priority autoexposure; metered manual; five subject modes; automatically calculated depth-of-field mode; exposure compensation and bracketing; multiple exposures; 30 to 1/2000 sec shutter speeds with 1/90 sec top sync speed; full info viewfinder and top-of-camera LED; and user- or camera-selectable central autofocus cross sensor and two linear sensors sensitive to vertical lines, with sensor diagram in viewfinder and atop camera body LCD panel. The pop-up flash covers the field of 28mm lenses, has fill flash and, with accessory flash units, can operate at high shutter speeds. However, there's no flash-exposure confirmation. AF seems slow in low light. The AF-aid light at front of camera is bright and may be annoying to subjects. There's no depth-of-field preview or finder diopter correction, but there is a terminal for a wired remote-control switch. After loading the camera with film and closing the back, film winds to the last exposure. You take pictures as film rewinds, thus protecting pictures already shot. Weight of body: a bit over 12 ounces. It's compact, but larger than the other three cameras.
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