I'm Officially a Rebel...

I’m officially a Rebel, in more ways than one (not including the Sweet Home Alabama way if you’re wondering).  The way I’m referring to at the moment is related to being the proud owner of a new Canon Digital Rebel XT camera.

I haven’t gotten to the camera yet, I’m still unpacking it, but first impressions being what they are, I thought I’d relate a couple of observations...

Number one, Canon could benefit from studying Apple in terms of the packaging experience.  I appreciate that shelf space is something a manufacturer has to factor in when planning and shipping the product, but their jamming this piece of art into a typical “squeeze all the space out of the package you can” box didn’t do anything for my chi.  The Apple experience is so phenomenal that its hard for anyone to meet/beat the expectation, but others do.  Tiffanys comes to mind, as an example.

Two – can we kill some more trees?  I can appreciate that you need a printed manual for the camera – and I want one – but the hundred or so other separate documents you include seem like overkill to me.  Consolidate, maybe?

OK, how about something to actually do with the camera?

Three –  “Canon – why’d you cheese out on the battery charger?”, one might ask.  First, there’s no cord – its a “plug me into the wall only” model (they could have done an iBook kind of thing and had both available, but just having a cord to put the charger on my desk would have been nice).  Second, it only accommodates one battery – in contrast to my D30 charger.  With the added battery capacity and improvement in energy management, I’m not sure I’ll need a second battery, but it seemed cool (and was useful) to have two slots with the D30.

More when I actually get to the camera.  Right now, I have real work to do.