Canon had the EOS 200D budget DSLR in the market already, and frankly, it was a go-to choice over some other for its obvious reasons, starting with the ease of use and the functionality along with the appreciable capture performance. Come April 2019, the company has come up with its successor. A full upgrade named the Canon EOS 200D II. Yes, the addition of Roman II is going to differentiate the cameras by the names, but with the features added, this is quite a big upgrade and thus, the pricing isn’t going to keep the camera in the entry-level range.
The Canon EOS 200D II gets its power from the new DIGIC 8 processor, but there’s a lot more up its sleeve. Let’s talk about it in the review below.
Canon EOS 200D II Specifications
- 24.1MP APS-C CMOS Sensor
- Dual Pixel CMOS AF
- DIGIC 8 processor
- 3,975 selectable focus positions (Live View)
- EV -4 focusing limit
- Eye Detection AF (One Shot & Servo AF – Live View)
- Effective ISO: 100 – 25,600
- Drive system: Stepping Motor-driven lead screw + rack system
- LCD Monitor: 3-inch, Variangle
- Shooting modes: Scene Intelligent Auto, Special scene modes (Portrait, Smooth Skin, Group Photo, Landscape, Sports, Kids, Close-up, Food, Candlelight, Night Portrait, Handheld Night Scene, HDR Backlight Control), Creative filters (Grainy B/W, Soft focus, Fish-eye effect, Water painting effect, Toy camera effect, Miniature effect, HDR art standard, HDR art vivid, HDR art bold, HDR art embossed), Program AE, Shutter-priority AE, Aperture-priority AE, Manual exposure
- White balance: Auto (Ambience priority), Auto (White priority), Preset (Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten light, White fluorescent light, Flash), Custom White balance correction
The kit we got for review had two lenses alongside the body, and these are the things you get in the box in case you buy the two-lens kit of Canon EOS 200D II.
- Canon EOS 200D II body
- EF-S18-55 IS STM lens
- EF-S55-250 IS STM lens
- Camera strap
- Battery
- External battery charger
- SD card
To start with, this is not a camera for beginners if you have a tight budget, but the camera offers so much for someone looking for a good professional DSLR and are ready to get onto learning and getting used to it, for a good long-term DSLE camera. Not to forget, we’re talking about a camera from Canon that is capable of capturing 4K videos, if there is a need for it.
The EOS 200D II has a compact body for a DSLR, and there is a deeper grip to keep the camera easy to hold because with the smaller body, it usually becomes hard to hold on to the camera and the grip has to be bigger there. Anyone who’s used a Canon camera earlier will know about the exterior, a typical plastic body holding onto the traditional design, and even a basic lens would rock it towards the front because of the weight of the lens, as the camera is quite light in weight and it isn’t evenly distributed, obviously.
There is the 24.1MP APS-C CMOS sensor for the capturing, and frankly, for the time we have used the camera with both the kit lenses, the quality has been very satisfactory. Not getting into the technicalities about the performance and optimization of the pictures done by the DIGIC 8 processor, but we have used the Canon EOS 200D camera in the past and this seems like a huge jump in the quality, which can be attributed more to the camera than to the lenses.
Some things that we would appreciate Canon to have include them in the camera, starts with the Auto Lighting Optimizer, which does a good job of recognizing the objects and set the tone and hue based on the light conditions around, and especially in places where sunrise and sunset comes into the factor, the usual case of shadows coming into play is well controlled by the optimizer. Another software feature that gives an appreciable help to the user is the Creative Assist function that helps user set the right functionality to get the best of the results, and while it usually would need the dial to scroll through the settings and adjust them, here the Creative Assist helps in easily achieving the same.
The third software feature that we liked is the smooth skin feature, which is a personal opinion and some might not really want to use it, while taking selfies. The beautification that is seen on the smartphones would work on the skin smoothening, and that is something similar offered here.
The variangle LCD screen here is a touchscreen display and the option to angle it at your wish is the best one for vloggers. The only issue with it is that we felt it could get loosened with vigorous use, otherwise there are many uses-cases for the movable LCD screen, as you won’t have to rely on an external monitor when facing the camera to see how good the frame view is.
The optical viewfinder given in the Canon EOS 200D II helps in a good judgement as the shooter gets to see the real view through the OVF, and there was a big difference in the battery life when using the optical viewfinder when compared to using the camera with the live view on the screen. Usually, we know there would be a difference but here, it is drastic and the Optical viewfinder being used would given more than 3x the battery life comparatively. That takes us to the battery life of the EOS 200D II. About 500-700 captures on a full battery is what is possible when you have a mixture of live screen view and optical viewfinder, and for the videos, we didn’t take it through to the entire drain cycle, but find it to record at least a couple of hours of video on a single charge, that is on Full HD resolution.
Now, onto the video recording part. While there is 4K video recording possible with the Canon EOS 200D II, it is not the smoothest and the footage is at 25p at max. You’ll either have to keep the camera stable on a tripod or use one of those DSLR gimbals, as there is no stabilizer except the lens-shift one, which doesn’t give out the desired results, while with Full HD recording, we found it to be better and there was 60p option for 1080p videos when the file format was changed.
One thing that Canon has made sure that the millenials like here is the connectivity options that are included in the camera. The one-touch Wi-Fi button has to be configured for once and then it works well in helping connect and share the captured footage on social media, and those selfies won’t need a lot of editing and would be good to share directly. Apart from that, there is also Bluetooth, and the smartphone connectivity through Canon Camera Control app is excellent, though not really different from the ones offered from the other brands. The app helps manually set the shutter speed, self timer, focus, and other options while you are away from the camera and cannot reach the dials directly.
[Full resolution samples to be added soon]
Final Verdict
Overall, the Canon EOS 200D II is an excellent camera with so much offered, but is it the only good option for its price tag? Surely not. There are some amazing options available in the similar price range, and we’d rather have you take a look at some mirrorless options that offer 4K recording as well, but mind you, in this price range, you would be settling with only the body of the camera and not the two STM lenses that are given in this package that is costing around Rs. 60000. There is a trade-off, with the size and other factors when compared to the mirrorless options, but there are two lenses, connectivity, and the newer processor with software enhancements in the Canon EOS 200D II that makes it a good choice in its price range for sure.
