Canon EOS 500D

[zaza]

I haz it.



First impressions; it's more or less a Canon 50D stuffed into a 450D body. Which means it's smaller and lighter than the 50D and has almost the same image quality and features. And is significantly cheaper. Canon seem to have slashed the price at the moment, probably because it's quite new and they want to get some strong sales figures to convince senior management that producing it was a good idea.
Haven't done extensive picture tests yet, but you will see some coming soon. The HD video on it is awesome too, but I probably won't be uploading any of my home videos.

It came with an 18-55mm Canon lens, and they were doing a 70-300mm Tamron for half-price if you bought a camera, so I picked up one of those too.


Watch flickr for my transition from useless SLR part-timer into awesome photography god, and for the bitter rantings of an envious frog.



kthxbai

[wossname]

Awesome! Can't wait to see your results

[EntityX]

I don't haz it.

[I_Love_My_Vans]

Nikon D3X coming next week, along with a Sigma 800mm

Can't wait

[mendhak]

A Tamron is only half as good as a Nikkor - same old story, different cameras

[I_Love_My_Vans]

I lied

[wossname]

I've got a photographographic memory.

[schoolbusdriver]

Nice bit of kit. I looked at that when I decided to buy the 450D, but was put off when my son said he was going to buy a camcorder.

I've just bought a 55-250 telephoto lens, but it's done nothing but rain since it arrived. A quick test has shown I can read the text on pics of top secret documents taken from 30 to 40 feet away.

The canon's image stabiliser and continuous auto focus can produce some unexpected results. In the photo below, I was actually tracking the bird just above and left of centre. Amazingly, not only did the auto focus track it, there's almost no motion blur in the background. I was too slow to get it against the sky.

[EntityX]

A Tamron is only half as good as a Nikkor - same old story, different cameras

I'm afraid I have to disagree with this. I say a Tamron is 56.7865 % as good as a Nikkor.

[wossname]

What a bunch of camera snobs!

Photographography is all about skill, not hardware. Unfortunately, I have neither in great abundance.

[schoolbusdriver]

What a bunch of camera snobs!

Photographography is all about skill, not hardware.

I agree, and am becoming quite skilled at setting manual/auto focus and image stabiliser on/off on the camera, and hue/saturation in Paintshop Pro on the PC

Unfortunately, I have neither in great abundance.

You underestimate youself, or overestimate others. We don't take pics in studios with special lighting and big budget cameras. As non-professionals (we don't do this as a job) we take pics in the real world. I was a bit pissed off about some of my pics, then took a closer look at BBC news reporters blabbing in outdoor locations on TV, and saw the same things - my pics were showing reality. It also took me a while to figure out that some pics looked odd on my PC because I hadn't set up the monitor properly

And if you think that sounds patronising, just wait till I finish the second bottle of Polish Spirit.