I’M A CANON USER MYSELF, LEARNED THE BASISCS WITH AN AE-1 AND WOULDN’T USE A DIFFERENT BRAND, SO SPEAKING ONLY FOR ME THE 550D DOES FEEL LIKE AN IMPROVEMENT OVER BOTH THE 450D AND 500D.

PLUS, THERE’S PLENTY MORE SAMPLE IMAGES YOU CAN FIND ONLINE AND – MOST IMPORTANTLY – PHOTOGRAPHS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE PERFECT OR FLAWLESS, THEY ARE A REFLECTION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S MIND, PSYCHE, THOUGHTS, ETC. SO STOP CRYING LIKE LITTLE BABIES RUNNING OUT OF THE OLD CANON BREAST MILK AND GET ON WITH THE PROGRAM, IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT BUY SOMETHING ELSE AND MOVE ON.

RESPECT.

I own a 7D and find its sensor to be excellent. I have several non-L lenses that have more than enough resolution for the sensor. The 17-55 f/2.8, in particular, produces absolutely phenomenal lenses in combination with the 7D. When I want absolute image quality, I use this combo a lot more than I use my 5D.

My reaction to the 550D announcement was that I became very, very interested in it. If the sensor performs as well as the 7D’s, this would make an excellent back-up camera at events. In fact, its much-lighter weight could make this my primary camera for a lot of work.

Canon (and Nikon and Pentax and everybody else) has long sold cameras with lenses that couldn’t get the most out of their cameras. Think about all those crappy 35-70s that were sold over the years during the film era. Just because they come with a mediocre lens doesn’t mean the rest of the camera shouldn’t be a good performer. The interchangeable lens is the whole reason for this class of camera to exist, after all.

And even with a crappy kit lens, this will still outperform any compact camera.

There is no penalty for the higher resolution of the sensor. One of the old wives tales is that smaller photosites lead to lower dynamic range, yet DXO itself shows the 7D having 2/3 stop greater DN than the original 5D. That the D90 scores better than the Canons in this department says more about their relative sensor design philosophies than about their pixel pitch.

Your followup post shows the D90 outperforming the 550D in the DXOMark sensor scale 72.6 to 65.6. DXO states that 5 points is 1/3 stop, and this is a seven point difference, so it’s less than half a stop difference between the two in that particular measurement. I truly question whether any image quality differences will be noticeable in typical sized prints.

People get so worked up sometimes, often based on what they think they know, or when just pixel-peeping. These cameras are well beyond anything we could do in the film era (ever see prints from 3200 speed 35mm film? it isn’t pretty), so really, it’s much ado about nothing as far as I’m concerned.

But I do agree 18MP does seem like a lot. If only someone would release a cheap full frame……

It’s hard NOT to be fooled by the numbers. I just hope Nikon doesn’t follow along.

You are saying, “The only way to ever get sharp images from this is to go out an buy L series lenses from Canon”.

I think you can also get sharp images by using primes stopped down. But that is not what consumers are likely to do; they like zooms. And from that point on, I agree with you – consumer zooms are no match for 18mp.

We’ve got Canon people moaning that Canon is packing pixels too tightly. Meanwhile, Nikon has been holding firm to the view that bigger pixels, not more pixels, are better, and sticking with 12mp except in their top large-sensor camera. And what happens? The Nikon-centric forums are full of anguished cries that Nikon is falling behind the pace and has GOT to come out with an 18mp consumer camera pronto, or else. (Maybe all the complainers could just switch cameras with each other…?)

Personally, I’m forced to admit that even 12mp are usually more than I need (rant from last year: http://ranger9.net/?p=46) but I’m likely off the pace as well. Just the other day a casual-snapshooter mom mentioned to me that she takes her favorite snaps of her kids to Costco, where she can get 20×30-inch (!) enlargements for US$9 each. If mega-size enlargements are becoming the norm, then I can see why casual shooters might feel they need mega-mega-pixel counts as well.