The Canon EOS Rebel G, as it’s known here in the United States, was the last film camera I ever bought new. (Outside the USA, it was called the Rebel 500N, and within Japan, the New Rebel Kiss.) It was the first camera I ever owned for which I had a true telephoto lens, and for that reason, it still holds a special place in my photographic heart. Since getting back into film photography, the Rebel G was dug out of the storage box it had been sitting in for over a decade, had its batteries replaced, film loaded, and was used anew. Was I as fond of it today as I was back in the day, now that I know so much more about photography? (Spoiler alert: Not really.)
The Back Story
Pulling my old Rebel out of its storage box, where it had been keeping company with other long-forgotten cameras, was like opening a time capsule. My shift from film to digital was quite swift; once I got my Canon EOS Rebel Digital in 2003 — my first DSLR — that was it; the Rebel G was put away, as were all my film cameras, and I never shot a single frame of film again for nearly 15 years.
In addition to discovering a multipack of Kodak Gold 200 film that had expired in 2004 sitting in the Rebel’s camera case, I discovered that the Rebel G had a partially-shot roll of film inside. The batteries had long since died, and thankfully, hadn’t leaked. But I was curious what might have been on that film; the first mission was to replace the batteries, shoot-off the rest of the frames, then have the roll processed.
Getting re-familiarized with the Rebel G was fairly straightforward. The controls, iconography and other aspects of the camera are not radically different from the Canon EOS Rebel 5Ti / 700D that still functions as my primary DSLR; the main thing missing was the enormous LCD screen. Of course, in the process of getting familiar anew, I was reminded of some of the stuff I didn’t like about this camera, but more on that later.
I can’t remember with certainty, but I believe that I bought this camera with its two lenses and a case as a complete outfit at a warehouse club. The timing would have been right for it to have come from PriceCostco, the transitional name used by our local Price Club stores after Costco acquired them all in the 1990s.
As I mentioned above, it was the first camera I ever owned that had a long (telephoto) lens of any kind — and a zoom lens at that. In fact, both the lenses in the outfit were zooms; the primary lens being a Canon Zoom Lens EF 35-80mm f/4-5.6 II, and the long lens a Canon Zoom Lens EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 II.
I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, but not only was the latter of the two the first telephoto lens I ever owned, the former was also the first wide angle lens I’d ever shot with. These days, I generally like to have three lenses for my 35mm film cameras: something around a 35mm focal length for wide shots, 50mm for general use, and around 135mm or so for a long option. So two lenses, providing an uninterrupted range of 35mm to 300mm in focal length, felt pretty much like nirvana back in 1996 — and it still seems so today.
What I didn’t realize at the time is just how undesirable zoom lenses can often be in general for serious photography, and how marginal these particular lenses were (and are). Between their relatively dark f/4 to f/5.6 maximum aperture, and lightweight, plastic-dominated designs, they were one of the main reasons that a warehouse club could sell the entire outfit for a bargain price; corners had to be cut somewhere to keep the price low.
The Camera
The Canon EOS Rebel G is clearly designed with a singular objective: To be a functional camera that is as lightweight as humanly possible. It weighs less than a pound (roughly 450g), and that’s because the body is plastic, the lens mount is plastic, the lenses included with the camera outfit are plastic, and Canon worked to simplify everything they could in the interest of weight savings.
I would at this point love to get on my soapbox and comment on (or complain about) why camera companies decided at any point to choose weight savings as a design objective, primary or otherwise, because in many respects, it’s the antithesis of quality. Well-built, non-plastic 35mm cameras aren’t exactly particularly heavy to begin with. My circa 1956 Ihagee Exakta Varex IIa, with its 58mm standard lens and its leather case, weighs-in at 2 pounds 10 ounces (about 1.2kg). Having it strapped around my neck for an entire day of shooting is neither especially uncomfortable, nor particularly fatiguing — and that’s with a leather strap less than half an inch wide, not some modern, fat, neoprene comfort strap like the Op/Tech models I typically use. Were consumers really clamoring for sub-one-pound lightness back in 1996 as a primary design feature of their 35mm SLRs?
As I mentioned earlier, in many respects the Rebel G doesn’t look radically different from Canon digital SLRs, apart from not having a color LCD panel. What you do have is a mode selector, what the manual calls a “command dial,” on the upper left (from the photographer’s POV), and on the upper right, a small monochrome LCD display that’s used to convey various information about the camera’s configuration and status. Forward of the display is a “main dial” the manual calls it — a knurled plastic rotary wheel used to adjust settings; which setting is contextual based on the selected mode. Forward of that, the shutter release button, in a logical and comfortable position.
Top center, in the customary location, is a Canon-specific hot shoe with the usual large center contact, and four smaller ones, compatible with Canon’s EX Speedlight system for E-TTL flash metering and control. The camera also sports a number of dedicated buttons. They are for flash, function, focusing point, self-timer/rewind, metering/AE lock/FE lock, and exposure compensation.
The mode selection is typical Canon in many ways. There are a number of “program control” modes that force the camera’s automatic functionality to behave in certain ways, include a portrait mode that tells the camera to try and blur the background by favoring large apertures, for instance. The camera’s “creative zone” modes are what I use the most, and include Program AE (P), shutter priority (Tv), aperture priority (Av), manual (M) and depth-of-field AE (A-DEP). It’s worth noting that in addition to Program AE, there’s a “Full Auto” position represented by a rectangle, as well as a lock position on the dial (L) that’s essentially the off button of sorts.
The Rebel G also features a pop-up mini-flash, but its value is marginal. First, it’s simply not powerful enough to illuminate much of anything other than close snapshots, and even in those situations, it produces harsh results. Second, when set to the primary full auto mode, the camera wants to deploy the flash in myriad conditions where it doesn’t need to do so, forcing you to press it back down and switch to one of the other shooting modes to force it to remain off.
For flash photography, a much better idea is simply to use a compatible Canon EX Speedlight on the camera’s hot shoe if you want a truly useful flash, while retaining the camera’s TTL metering and automatic flash control capabilities. (The Canon 430EX II flash I purchased in 2009 works exceptionally well with the Rebel G, despite having been produced some 13 years after the camera was.)
It’s also a great reason to use Program AE mode, not full auto, for routine shooting — but it’s hardly the only one. Program AE unlocks the ability to use that EX Speedlight, but also to use exposure compensation, AE lock, and manual deployment of the built-in flash only when wanted — among others.
Of course, on the very front of the camera is the EF lens mount. The fact that the Rebel G can use pretty much the entirety of the EF lens ecosystem (EF-S lenses for digital cameras being the exception) means that it can be paired with lenses that are far, far better than the two that came with my particular camera outfit. While I’ve never purchased any such lenses, I’m quite confident that despite its shortcomings, the Rebel G could easily capture some truly amazing images with them.
The EOS system itself seems to have a bias toward auto-focus, and the Rebel G features a three-point auto-focus system that does a reasonably good job of making it work under most common lighting conditions. Like every other AF system I’ve used, it struggles in marginal light, and I’ve found myself resorting to manual focus far more often than I would expect, something true of even modern Canon DSLRs. That was true when I was using this camera regularly in the late 90s, as well as in more recent attempts. But in adequate light, the AF system does a remarkably good job in the vast majority of shooting situations — even if it’s not particularly speedy at doing so in the margins.
Of questionable value in most shooting conditions is the ability to select any of the three focus points individually, or leave it at the default of all three enabled. To be honest, it would be easier and faster to simply switch the lens to manual focus mode if for some reason the AF system isn’t doing what you expect, than to try and figure out which AF spot is the “right” one to use, then going through the rigamarole of setting it.
Auto-focus is one challenge, but so is the onboard metering. Back in the day, and even more recently, I find myself using AE lock fairly often, probably because my shooting style sort of defies generic, broad, wide angle reflected light metering. It’s easy to use, and works the same as it does on later Canon EOS cameras; point the camera at the light conditions you want to meter for, press and hold the AE lock button, raise the camera, then compose, focus and shoot. (You can let the button go, too, but then the AE lock clears after just four seconds.)
The Experience
Using the Canon EOS Rebel G is hardly difficult. Given the target market — consumers — it’s designed and made specifically to be easy to use, a sort of fully automatic “set it and forget it” experience that happens to offer some manual control if you really want it. Most people, of course, don’t.
But I’m not most people, so there are numerous things about this camera that I strongly dislike to the point I may never actually shoot with it again. They include:
- Usability isn’t Paramount for Canon: Label Edition
This is less a statement about the Rebel G, and more about every EOS system camera I’ve ever used, but in an effort to make their cameras universal and independent of any specific language, they’ve made them less usable by everyone. In some cases, Canon chose iconography; in some of those cases, the icons are understandable, and in many cases they’re not. The AE lock button says nothing about AE; it’s labeled by an asterisk. And despite the non-universality of English, Canon used English-language abbreviations in many cases, and not necessarily even logical ones. Which mode is shutter-priority again? Oh yes, “Tv” (for “time value”). If a Canon EOS camera is your only camera, these cryptic knobs and buttons and their various labels will no doubt make sense with time. But when I bought this camera originally, it was my only camera — and I still never remembered what the heck did what without looking at the manual, which I kept tucked in the camera bag for that very reason. - Usability isn’t Paramount for Canon: Hardware Edition
One of the things that I never liked about this camera (and still don’t) is that the controls suffer from usability issues. The command dial is partially blocked on the front of the camera, so it’s difficult to firmly grip it with your fingers, and it’s stiff and difficult to turn even if you can. The knurled main dial is equally stiff, clunky and cheap feeling. The buttons are difficult to depress, and it’s hard to know when you’ve succeeded. I’ve had the same reaction to other EOS cameras I’ve used. It seems that perhaps Canon was trying to balance the ease of moving or triggering a control, with avoiding doing so accidentally — but they didn’t get that balance right on this camera, or any EOS camera I’ve used. - Manual Control isn’t Intuitive
Canon designed EF lenses and the camera bodies they’re made to work with to be primarily automatic. You’ll find one or two rings on a typical EF lens: the focus ring, and if equipped, the zoom ring. You won’t find an aperture ring on an EF lens; if you want to control aperture, you have to do it through the camera body, which can be fiddly. And if you want to control shutter speed, same issue. I just don’t care for the user unfriendly nature of it; you have to set the command dial to the right shooting mode, then adjust the shutter speed with the main dial, or press and hold a button and move that same dial for the aperture setting. Aperture-priority or shutter-priority modes are a little easier to deal with since only one setting is being varied, but given that I’m mostly accustomed to shooting with fully manual cameras these days while using an exposure meter, I’ve become comfortable with having direct access to both aperture and shutter speed. I like it, it’s fast, it’s simple, and it’s direct; basically, it’s everything that the Rebel G experience is not. They could easily have offered automatic modes without eliminating more direct access the core exposure settings — but Canon chose not to do so when designing the EOS ecosystem and the EF lenses that go with them. Am I being a curmudgeon? Possibly, but some of the fundamentals of photography didn’t vanish when Canon made the design choice with the EOS family. - Pop-up, Pop-up, Pop-up, Pop-up Flash
I mentioned this earlier so I won’t belabor the point much further, but the incessant click of the built-in flash popping-up in all manner of lighting situations where it truly doesn’t need to was, and remains, a continuing annoyance with this camera. Yes, it’s my own fault for turning the command dial anti-clockwise from lock instead of clockwise, thereby selecting full auto, rather than Program AE — a mode where it’s not an issue. But the concept of an underpowered built-in flash was clearly meant to check a box on a feature list, rather than to do anything particularly useful in practice. - Film Loading Stinks
It’s not the loading itself that stinks; film loading is almost completely automatic. It’s how it’s automatic that I hate. When you load a new roll, the Rebel G winds the entire roll onto the take-up spool, and then shoots the roll from the end of it backward to the beginning. That means the exposure numbers on the rebate are in reverse order. On a 24 exposure roll, image 24 is actually image 1. Image 23 is image 2. And so on… If you’re a consumer back in the day, and getting a pile of prints back, who would care? But it’s not “back in the day,” and like most people shooting film, I scan my negatives. I also I log the shots with an app, and I sleeve my negatives after processing and scanning — and I don’t like dealing with every step of that in reverse. This was totally unnecessary to make the film rolls easy to load; it was totally unnecessary to make the film counter work; and it was totally unnecessary even to automate anything at all about the camera. But Canon did it this way anyhow for reasons that completely escape me — and the result is painfully annoying to use in practice. - Plastic Fantastic
I’ve already harped on this point, but if you prefer lightweight camera bodies (and lenses) made chiefly of plastic, well, you may like the Rebel G. I don’t care for either one of those things, and as a result, it’s one more thing to dislike about this camera. The body itself feels flimsy and cheap. Would you mind having it hanging from your neck all day long? Probably not, and maybe that’s a plus. But it doesn’t engender confidence, and neither do the lenses; the stock lenses that came with the Rebel G outfit back in 1996 were both made of plastic, and are extraordinarily light. While the Rebel G and the standard lenses do take decent photographs, it’s just not the sort of build quality or approach that I prefer or trust. - Plastic Fantastic: The Sticky Edition
Beyond being made of plastics, the formulation of the plastics matters — as many have discovered on various cameras from the 1980s and 90s. The simulated rubber plastic material Canon chose for the camera’s grip has become tacky with age, making the use of the camera — in a word — gross. I have tried every cleaner and reconditioning agent I know of for plastics, and it’s had a negligible effect. I’ll take the strange odor that’s endemic in many midcentury vintage cameras over the revolting tactile experience of having to touch that bit of fake rubber every time I shoot an image with the Rebel G. - Short AE Lock
I mentioned this briefly above, but if you press and release the AE lock button, the AE lock only holds for four seconds before the camera will once again meter what it’s seeing in that moment. Four seconds isn’t a lot of time to compose and focus, at least not for me, or in most situations. Thankfully, your right thumb can stay on the button while fairly easily handling other tasks in taking the shot, but for me, as often as it’s necessary to use AE lock, it seems it ought to work a little differently — namely, hold until the shutter button is pressed or the camera is turned-off.
I suspect that many readers of this review will at this point be telling themselves I have something against this camera; that there’s some sort of chip on my shoulder. Those many readers are probably right in many respects; I may well have become a bit of a camera snob, and it may not be fair to judge the Canon Rebel G in the ways I’ve chosen.
In truth, this camera is quite capable of taking acceptable, even really decent photographs — despite Canon’s choices in how it and its bundled lenses were designed and manufactured. But I think that the fact that this camera still works well today is more a testament to the manner in which I care for my material objects than anything to do with how Canon made the thing. Regardless, that brings us to the results.
The Results
Despite my vitriol directed at this 25-year-old SLR and its lenses, I’ll be the first to admit that the Canon Rebel G does indeed take some pretty decent images despite itself. Canon seemed to understand that most users of this camera are not people like me, they’re people like my mom; people who wanted to turn this camera on, point it at something, press the shutter button, and be reasonably certain that they’d get a great print back from the one hour photo lab at the drug store. People who wanted the flexibility of changing lenses, or who wanted the appearance of using a “better” camera than a point-and-shoot — without it being any more difficult to use than one. And if that’s the litmus test, then the Canon Rebel G passes perfectly.
I’d even go so far as to say that the camera would serve a more demanding photographer just as well, but at the same time, there are far better choices for some who’s serious about the film-based image making.
Following are some images produced by the camera.
