If you have a budding photographer in your life in need of a real camera, the Canon EOS Rebel T6 could make the perfect gift this holiday season. Canon is currently offering the camera in a two-lens bundle for just $449 through December 29. The kit, which normally sells for $749, includes both the 18-55mm and 70-300mm lenses, an upgrade over the original two-lens kit that came with the cheaper 55-250mm lens. Unlike the 55-250mm, the 70-300mm is full-frame compatible, creating an easier upgrade path down the road should the user want to opt for a full-frame camera.
Released in 2016, the Rebel T6 is an older model, but it still checks out. Its 18-megapixel APS-C sensor and three-frames-per-second burst rate fall well short of the newer Rebel T7i, one of our favorite entry-level DSLRs, but it still offers everything the beginner photographer needs to learn the ropes, including manual exposure control, RAW or JPEG files, a hot shoe for attaching external flashes or other accessories, and a decent Full HD 1080p movie mode.
The T6 also gets Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity, although it lacks the Bluetooth found on some newer models. When paired with Canon’s iOS or Android app, this wireless connectivity makes it easy to transfer images straight from your camera to your mobile device and share them directly to Instagram or other social media. For wired connections, it uses an older (and slower) USB 2.0 port, while a Mini HDMI port allows you to pipe videos and images to your TV.
Knowing that food photography plays a big role in the modern photographer’s social media life, Canon even included a dedicated food mode on the camera. This autoexposure mode optimizes the image quality for photographing food by boosting the vibrancy and giving the user a simple way to compensate for the color cast of restaurant lighting, which is often overly warm. You can read more about this feature and the camera’s performance in a real-world setting in our T6 hands-on review.
While $449 is a fantastic price for this kit, the real value of any interchangeable lens camera is its expandability. The two lenses that come bundled in the kit are decent multi-purposes lenses, but there is a world of creative optics from both Canon and third-party manufacturers like Sigma for taking your pictures further, whether you want to shoot portraits, low light, sports, macro, landscapes, or more.
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