Canon EOS 1200D

The Canon EOS 1200D (also known as the Digital Rebel T5) is the new entry-level model in Canon’s extensive range of digital SLR cameras, replacing the 3 year old 1100D camera. Aimed at first-time DSLR users, the Canon 1200D has an 18 megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor, Digic 4 processor, 3-inch LCD screen, 3fps continuous shooting, 9-point auto focus module, 63-zone iFCL exposure metering, ISO 100-6400 sensitivity, on-screen Feature Guide, stainless steel chassis and all-aluminium exterior, 1080p HD video capture with full control over exposure, focusing and sound levels, and a new EOS Companion smartphone app. The Canon EOS 1200D is priced at £349.99 / €419.99 body only, or £449.99 / $549.99 with the stabilised EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II lens.

Ease of Use

The Canon EOS 1200D tested in this review was kindly provided by CameraWorld, a real camera shop helping you to make the most of your hobby. Our expert team has many years experience within the photographic trade with knowledge gained over 40 years. Many are photographers themselves and enjoy passing their knowledge on. You'll also find our online service fast, efficient and courteous and you can always call us if you want to talk to a human being! We are dedicated to bringing you the very best in service, choice and price. We're very easy to find, our London store is just off Oxford Street between Oxford Circus station and Tottenham Court Road station. The Essex shop is located in High Chelmer Shopping Centre, just off the High Street in Chelmsford. Visit us and you'll always find a friendly welcome. Our policy is to serve our customers as we would like to be served ourselves, a simple ideal that we try hard to live up to.

The Canon EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 is a small and lightweight DSLR camera with a stainless steel chassis and all-aluminium exterior, weighing in at 480g with the battery and memory card fitted and measuring 129.6 x 99.7 x 77.9 mm, which is commendably almost the same size and weight as the all-plastic EOS 1100D. In terms of build quality, the Canon EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 is a real surprise, feeling more than solid enough for a mid-range DSLR, never mind an entry-level one.

The Canon EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 has a much better grip than the previous EOS 1100D, too, feeling a lot more comfotable to hold thanks to a larger grip with a textured surface, with a similarly textured thumb-rest on the rear. The rest of the camera is finished in an appealingly matt black finish. Like all of Canon's APS-C digital SLR cameras, the EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 is compatible with the manufacturer's entire line-up of lenses, including both EF and EF-S glass. When changing lenses, EF lenses need to be aligned with the red dot on the lens mount, whereas EF-S lenses must be aligned with the white mark.

The 1200D's control layout is very similar to the 1100D, with just a a couple of changes. Virtually all of the important controls are located together at the right-hand side of the rear of the camera, rather than more liberally scattered around the body, which allows for a straight-forward transition from compact camera to DSLR. Taking advantage of the extra room allowed by the fixed LCD screen, the buttons are also quite large, again another subtle and effective concession to the 1200D's market. All of the buttons are clearly labelled but, with some of them being flush to the body, can be a little hard to press at times.

The EOS 1200D has a bigger 3-inch and higher-resolution 460k dot fixed LCD screen than the the older EOS 1100D, but it's still one of the main ways that it achieves its budget price-point. The bright Pentamirror optical viewfinder is the same as the previous model, offering 95% coverage of the scene, 0.80x magnification and dioptre control for glasses wearers. Depth of Field Preview is available when assigned to the SET button via Custom Function 8-5.

The EOS 1200D's top-mounted shooting mode dial has a multitude of letters and icons. The so-called Creative Zone features Programmed Auto (P), Shutter Priority (Tv), Aperture Priority (Av), and Manual (M) modes. Canon's unique A-DEP (Automatic Depth of Field) mode has quietly been dropped from the EOS 1200D.

We tested the EOS 1200D with the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II kit lens, which offers a fairly standard focal range for a kit lens and crucially includes image stabilisation. This is important for Canon, as competitors like Sony, Olympus and Pentax all offer image stabilisation in their DSLRs. The difference between Canon (and Nikon) and the others is that Sony, Olympus and Pentax have opted for stabilisation via the camera body, rather than the lens, which therefore works with their entire range of lenses. Canon's system is obviously limited by which lenses you choose, but it does offer the slight advantage of showing the stabilising effect through the viewfinder. Canon and Nikon also claim that a lens-based anti-shake system is inherently better too, but the jury's out on that one.

The EOS 1200D now features the fully-automatic Scene Intelligent Auto mode, which analyses the scene in front of you and automatically picking the best settings, much like the systems used by lot of digital compacts. The 1200D also offer a Creative Auto mode which allows you to change a few key settings using the LCD screen via a simple slider system for changing the aperture and exposure compensation, or Background and Exposure as the camera refers to them. Creative Auto also includes Basic +. Essentially a more extreme version of the well-established Picture Styles, this offers nine options including Standard, Vivid, Soft, Warm, Intense, Cool, Brighter, Darker and Monochrome, all of which can be interactively tweaked to suit your taste.

There's a host of scene modes including Flash Off, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night Portrait and, oddly enough for an interchangeable-lens camera, a close-up mode as well. The majority of these scene modes allow users who do not want to fiddle with shutter speeds, f-stops, white balance or ISO settings to let the camera know what type of photo they are about to take, which helps the EOS 1200D / Rebel T5 to optimise these settings for that particular subject. We struggled to see the point of the close-up mode though, as the quality of one's close-up shots depends more on the use of the right kinds of accessory - such as a macro lens and possibly a ring flash - than any camera setting. The now established Feature Guide option in the EOS 1200D’s menu system usefully provides a brief description of each setting and its effect.