Canon 450D

After a lot of deliberation, I have bought the Canon 450D (aka Rebel XSi) – my first Digital SLR.

I had almost bought the entry level lower priced new SLR – the Canon 1000D but thanks to the 0% EMI option, I decided to buy the 450D instead. After all one doesn’t buy a D-SLR everyday.

While I haven’t had time to do a field test, I am quite impressed with its 3 inch LCD display and overall handling. I also found the menu and controls to be quite intuitive and I could figure out most of the standard functions without having to open the instructions manual.  A couple of test shots fired indoors, at night with standard room lighting proved to be exciting and I could see that the camera does a great job of determining both the exposure and ISO settings. Manually setting the ISO to 800 or 1600 yielded great results with acceptable “noise”, quite unlike my earlier Canon Powershot A620 which gives perceptible noise even at ISO 400. What I am already begining to miss however is the swivel LCD screen on the Powershot which is just so cool to take shots at some crazy angles.

The Canon 450D also offers a “live-view” mode which allows one to shoot while viewing the image on the LCD display without having to look through the view finder – quite like the digital compact cameras. While this took some figuring out, all shots taken by me so far in the live view mode have resulted in  camera shake, but I think this has nothing to do with the camera, I just need to get better at doing this. I had initally thought the “live view” will be a great feature to have, but given the weight and grip of a SLR, I find it more convenient to shoot while looking through the viewfinder.

The camera came with a standard 18-55 mm kit lens. While the lens itself is fine, I have already started enquiring about availability and prices of various telephoto lens options. I can see myself spending more money in the near future as my wish list already includes an external flash light, a couple of lenses and maybe a wireless remote.

All told, I am pretty excited with this new toy and I just can’t wait to go out and unleash the photographer in me. Watch this space for pics with my new camera!

Tags: Canon 450D, Digital SLR