Review of the Canon EOS450D (Digital Rebel XSi)

Just over a week ago I bought myself something I've been eyeing for a while now: the Canon Eos 450D (or the Digital Rebel XSi, depending on which part of the world you're reading from.) So far, I am smitten. My previous camera was a reliable old Pentax 35mm SLR and while I love it dearly and have gotten some fantastic shots out of it, the cost of film and developing were becoming prohibitive. Added to that was the fact that I have no access to a darkroom, so even something as simple as cropping my photos became a mission of scanning, coaxing my sulking laptop into recognizing the scanned file, rescanning, switching every part of my computer set-up on and off, and so on and so forth.

When compared to this ridiculous runaround, I have to admit that part of what finally sold me on the idea of a digital SLR is my impatience. The idea that I can press a button and look at the photo I just took on a screen, or plug my camera in and have prints in my hand within minutes rather than days was just too tempting.

Of course, now I've had a play around with the various features I have started to question how I ever lived without my (now dear to my heart) Canon. Things like automatically bracketed exposures (taking three images in quick succession with different exposures to remove the likelihood of under or over exposure in crucial shots), the ease of changing lenses, switching between ISO settings at will all make taking good pictures much easier and much more fun. Also, it's much, much lighter than my old camera. This may seem trivial, but after hiking up and down hills looking for shots for a few hours I felt the difference.

I'll leave the specification heavy reviews to the pros, and simply say that if you're a reasonably adept amateur, or even just an enthusiast with a will to learn then this camera is a fantastic investment. The great thing about Canon is that their range of cameras is so broad that you can upgrade bits and pieces of your kit as you go along, as you find you want need new lenses, accessories and so on, giving you greater flexibility.

Sure, it might seem like an expensive camera, compared to tiny litte point-and-shoots, but the quality of the photos tells the story best of all.