Canon EOS 600D / Rebel T3i Battery and connectivity

 

The Canon EOS 6 00D / T3i is powered by the same LP-E8 Lithium Ion battery pack introduced on its predecessor. This has an 1120mAh rating and with essentially the same internal components, it's not surprising to find Canon quoting exactly the same battery life as the 550D / T2i: 440 under CIPA conditions with 50% flash usage, or 550 without. The number of shots understandably falls considerably when composing with the screen. If you exclusively use Live View (admittedly unlikely), each charge should be good for around 180 shots with 50% flash usage, or 200 without. Switch to movie mode and you should be able to film approximately 100 minutes worth of footage per charge. Either way if you regularly compose in Live View or shoot movies, you'll find your battery depleting sooner rather than later, so we'd definitely recommend carrying a spare.

Sadly there's still only four levels on the battery life indicator, compared to the accurate percentage remaining shown by Sony's Info Lithium models. If you require longer lifespan not to mention something more to hold onto, the optional BG-E8 battery grip (same as the 550D / T2i) can take two LP-E8 packs or six AA batteries, while providing portrait controls and grip. Alternatively if you prefer mains power, there's an optional ACK-E8 adapter.

In terms of connectivity, there's now two flaps on the left side of the body, each covering two ports. The outer flap opens to reveal a socket for the optional RS-60E3 remote switch and a 3.5mm jack for external microphones; we tried the EOS 600D / T3i with both the Rode Stereo Video Microphone and VideoMic Pro with no problems.
Behind the inner flap, which is pressed right up against the screen hinge, you'll find the combined USB / TV output and a mini HDMI port which supports CEC for remote control with compatible TV sets.

Standard TV and USB cables are provided, and the latter can be used in conjunction with supplied software to remote trigger the camera, rendering the remote switch redundant - so long as you have a computer in close range of course. If you prefer wireless remote control, the optional RC-6 can trigger the shutter via infra-red.

An HDMI cable isn't supplied, but any standard model with a mini-jack at one end will work. Note while the 600D / T3i will deliver a great-looking high-resolution version of its Live View over HDMI, the output will be temporarily switched to a lower resolution (or disabled) while recording a movie. If you need to monitor the signal while filming though, the standard definition composite TV output remains active.

Like the models preceding it, the 600D / T3i unsurprisingly sticks with the SD memory card format, and as always you'll need to supply your own. There's support for large SDXC cards, and if you want to record HD movies, Canon recommends using a card rated as Class 6 or higher; we used a Lexar Professional 16GB SDHC 133x model in our tests which is rated as Class 10 and worked fine with all the movie modes. SanDisk's Extreme III cards are also rated as Class 10, so should be a great match for the 600D / T3i; note the cheaper Ultra II cards are only Class 4, so while fine for still photography on this camera, will be too slow to support the HD movie modes for longer recording times.

Now let's head-onto the Canon EOS 600D / Rebel T3i Features section where we'll detail the lenses, anti-shake, focusing, the sensor, image processing, continuous shooting, PC-based remote control, and of course the improved movie mode.