Canon XSi Review

Say hello to my leetle friend.

Another in a long line of photographs OF cameras rather than WITH the cameras.

Ok..I've been playing with it for a few hours and comparing it to the Canon XTi. Here are a few thoughts.

12 vs 10 MP? No big deal. Live View? Not that big of a deal and it slows the function of the camera and uses up the battery faster. BUT, it does work better than I expected in that it focuses nicely although I don't understand why you have to press the * button to get it to do so instead of the Shutter button. The Live View shows you how your exposure will turn out, too.

The noise reduction DRASTICALLY reduces your continuous shooting speed. A LOT. No, seriously...I mean it. LISTEN TO ME! I'm not screwing AROUND HERE! IT DOES! AND THAT IS IMPORTANT.

The Image Stabilization is great, but that's a feature of the lenses so...doesn't count here. It was awesome on the XTi, too. There is no ISO100 when you have the highlight thing enabled. MUST EVERYTHING HAVE A PRICE??

Anyway, it's pretty sweet for the money, but not without its costs. I was looking for a second body and a second XTi body might have done the trick, because the bells and whistles are coming at a cost of performance. Fortunately you can switch them off, not like when Panasonic ruined it's FX line of Lumix point and shoots. Don't get me going, my mouth is foaming enough already.

This will be a very nice camera for people moving from point and shoots to DSLRs and that's clearly who Canon is going after with this. But then again, why anyone would buy a 40D now is beyond me.

Here is who should buy this camera: People moving from point and shoots to DSLRs and are too scared to not have live view, people with XTs, people considering 40Ds.

Here is who ought not bother with this camera: People who already have XTis and don't need/want a second body, Nikon users, People who are using the Powershot S series of point and shoots and don't need a low light camera or wider angles.