Thursday, June 25, 2009

Sony Cybershot DSC T-90 vs Canon Rebel XT with 50mm/2.8 Macro Len

Is a dSLR really necessary? Is a macro lens worth the money? Common questions on the Etsy forums (and I'm sure many other online selling venues).

As I have both a dSLR and a Point & Shoot I decided to put them head-to-head and see for myself.

I took these photos using a tripod, my
Ez-cube light tent and three lamps with high-output daylight balanced compact fluorescent bulbs.

Below are the best shots I got from both cameras during this session.

Sony Cybershot



Canon Rebel


I was happy with the results I got with the Sony, but taking the pictures was a lot more difficult.

I had to remove the camera from the tripod, hold it over the ring and angle it at really awkward angles to get the shot.

The camera seemed quite bothered by the lights, and had a bit of difficulty focusing on the metal (something I remember well from my days of shooting with my old Nikon Coolpix), whereas with my Rebel I could leave the camera on the tripod, take multiple shots and focus wherever I wanted.

I had to take a lot more shots with the Sony before I found one I was happy with, but I think the shots I'm happy with are very good.

The shots with the Sony do not have the depth and the ring doesn't pop as much. I also wasn't able to get the shot as stylized as I usually like for my product photos as I had less control over lighting and angles.


In my opinion the shots really show that a dSLR and a macro lens are worth the money if you're going to be shooting for sales.

That said, with good lighting and some creative angles you can get perfectly serviceable shots from the Sony Cybershot DSC T-90.

4 comments:

  1. Great blog post! I went from a Canon point & shoot to the Canon Rebel but I'm still learning how to use it. I do love it though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How did the grey background look with the Cybershot? I have a Nikon Coolpix P80 that works well for me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's the same background. It's actually black. The background colour is more accurate with the Sony, but the metal and stone colour is more accurate with the Rebel.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That Rebel rocks! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete