What Memory Cards Work With Canon Rebel T1i
Very good speeds for a consumer digital SLR.
| Startup/Shutdown | ||
| Power on | 0.3 second | Time it takes to turn on and capture a shot. (Short enough that it's hard to measure.) |
| Shutdown | ~0 second | How long it takes camera to turn off before you can remove the memory card. Enabling sensor cleaning on shut-down will increase delay. |
| Buffer clearing time | 7 seconds | Worst case buffer clearing time. -- This is the delay after a set of shots before you can remove the card. |
| 1 second | ||
| 14.5 seconds | ||
| 12.7 seconds | ||
| *Note: Buffer clearing times measured with a SanDisk Extreme 8GB SDHC card. Slower cards will produce correspondingly slower clearing times. Slow cards may also limit length of bursts in continuous mode. ISO sensitivity and noise reduction settings can also affect cycle times and burst mode performance. | ||
The Canon T1i turned in fast startup and shut-down times, fast enough that they're difficult to measure. Enabling sensor cleaning on shut-down will add some delay, but we didn't test that. The Canon T1i's buffer clearing times are quite good, but depend on the image quality and size, as well as the speed of the memory card.
| Mode Switching | ||
|---|---|---|
| Play to Record, | 0.3 second | Time until first shot is captured. |
| Record to play | 1.3 second | Time to display a large/fine file immediately after capture. |
| Display | 0.5 second | Time to display a large/fine file already on the memory card. |
The Canon T1i's mode switching times are good, though Record to play is a bit sluggish.
| Shutter Response (Lag Time) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full Autofocus | 0.159 second | Time from fully pressing shutter button to image capture. (Except where otherwise noted, all AF timing measured with Sigma 70mm f/2.8 Macro lens. - One that cameras seem able to judge focus very quickly with, even if its mechanical AF drive is slower when it actually comes to changing the focus.) |
| Full Autofocus | 0.273 second | Time to capture while forcing flash to fire. Metering pulses from flash sometimes slow shutter response. In the case of the Canon T1i, using the built-in flash in TTL mode increases shutter lag about 0.11 second. |
| Prefocused | 0.089 second | Time to capture, after half-pressing and holding shutter button. |
| Continuous AF | 0.208 second | This mode usually shows no speed increase with our static subject; we have no way to measure performance with moving subjects. |
| Manual Focus | 0.111 second | For most cameras, shutter lag is less in manual focus than autofocus, but usually not as fast as when the camera is "prefocused". |
| Full Autofocus | 1.342 seconds | This is phase-detect autofocus, the camera drops the mirror to focus, then raises it to grab the shot. |
| Full Autofocus | 2.591 seconds | This is contrast-detect autofocus, the camera reads Live View data from the image sensor to determine focus. |
The Canon T1i's full autofocus shutter response is very good at 0.159 second using our standard single-point AF test. Enabling the built-in flash increased full AF lag just slightly to 0.273 second: that small an increase is excellent. "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure results in a lag time of only 0.089 second. Manual focus was slower, at 0.111 second, and Continuous focus was slower still, at 0.208 second.
The Canon T1i's AF lag time in Live View mode was longer, as expected. We measured 1.342 seconds using "Quick Mode" (phase-detect AF), and 2.591 seconds using Live Mode (contrast-detect). The "*" button is used to autofocus in the Canon T1i's Live View mode, so it must be pressed first before the shutter release. The above times include pressing the "*" button and waiting for focus confirmation before tripping the shutter.
| Cycle Time (shot to shot) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Single Shot mode | 0.40 second | Time per shot, averaged over 20 shots, 7 seconds to clear. |
| Single Shot mode | 0.42 second | Time per shot, averaged over 20 shots, 1 second to clear. |
| Single Shot mode | 0.38 second | Time per shot, averaged over 8 shots, 14.5 seconds to clear. |
| Single Shot mode | 0.41 second | Time per shot, averaged over 5 shots, 12.7 seconds to clear. |
| Early shutter | No | Some cameras don't snap another shot if you release and press the shutter too quickly in Single Shot mode, making "No" the preferred answer. |
| Continuous mode | 0.30 second (3.39 frames per second); | Time per shot, averaged over 20 shots (buffer capacity was more than 20 shots). |
| Continuous mode | 0.30 second (3.38 frames per second); | Time per shot, averaged over 20 shots (buffer capacity was more than 20 shots). |
| Continuous mode | 0.29 second (3.40 frames per second); | Time per shot, averaged over buffer length of 8 frames, then slows to about 1.49s or 0.67 fps. |
| Continuous mode | 0.30 second (3.37 frames per second); | Time per shot, averaged over buffer length of 4 frames, then slows to 2.18s or 0.46 fps. |
| Flash recycling | 3.2 seconds | Flash at maximum output. |
| *Note: Buffer clearing times measured with a SanDisk Extreme 8GB SDHC card. Slower cards will produce correspondingly slower clearing times. Slow cards may also limit length of bursts in continuous mode. ISO sensitivity and noise reduction settings can also affect cycle times and burst mode performance. | ||
Shot-to-shot cycle times in the Canon T1i's single-shot mode were quite good, at about 0.4 second for any quality. Buffer length was more than 20 shots for JPEGs, but dropped to 8 for RAW and 5 for RAW+JPEG.
Continuous mode speeds were good, especially considering the large files, at about 3.4 frames/second in any mode. Measured buffer depths were more than 20 frames for large/fine or small/normal JPEGs, 8 frames for RAW mode and 4 frames for RAW+JPEG. (Note that in our cycle time testing we shoot a target consisting of a fine-grained digital noise pattern, designed to be very hard to compress. This gives us worst-case buffer capacity numbers: You're likely to see greater buffer capacity when shooting more normal subjects.)
The Canon T1i's flash took 3.2 seconds to recharge after a full-power pulse, which is also good.
| Download Speed | ||
|---|---|---|
| Windows Computer, USB 2.0 | 6,786 KBytes/sec | Typical Values: |
Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, the Canon T1i's download speeds are fast.
Bottom line, the Canon T1i is pretty fast in just about every aspect of its operation. While continuous mode speeds aren't state-of-the-art, they are fast enough for most moving subjects, and shutter lag and cycle times are quite fast. Very good performance overall for a consumer model.
Battery
Below average battery life for a lithium-ion SLR design.
| Operating Mode | Number of Shots |
|---|---|
| Lithium-ion Rechargeable Battery, | 400 |
| Lithium-ion Rechargeable Battery, | 170 |
The Canon T1i uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. Battery life is below average, even when using the optical viewfinder, so we recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings.
The table above shows the number of shots the Canon T1i is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.
(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))
Storage
The Canon T1i accepts SD/SDHC memory cards, and does not ship with a card.
| Image Capacity with 1GB Memory Card | Fine | Normal | RAW | RAW + L/F JPG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,752 x 3,168 | Images | 186 | 372 | 46 | 36 |
| Approx. | 8:1 | 16:1 | 1.2:1 | - | |
| 3,456 x 2,304 | Images | 311 | 598 | - | - |
| Approx. | 7:1 | 14:1 | - | - | |
| 2,352 x 1,568 | Images | 545 | 1020 | - | - |
| Approx. | 6:1 | 11:1 | - | - | |
We strongly recommend buying a large capacity SD/SDHC memory card for the Canon T1i: at least a 1GB card, preferably a 4 or 8GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings, or when shooting RAW files. (Check the shopping link above, cards are really cheap these days, so no reason to skimp.)
What Memory Cards Work With Canon Rebel T1i
Source: https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/T1I/T1IA6.HTM