Electronics / Digital Cameras / Canon Rebel Xsi

I bought the Canon Rebel XSi to catch up in the digital age after having used my film based Rebel 2000 for eight years.  After doing a lot of looking around, I found a great deal at Circuit City online that included the Rebel XSi, camera case, UV filter, 4GB SDHC card,  and an extra battery for free with the purchase of the camera.  I went to Circuit City the next day and got the camera and all of its free accessories.

I spent the rest of the day testing out the camera.  It has 12 megapixels, a 3-in screen, and came with an 18-55mm image stabilization lens.  I have another lens from my older camera without the IS feature, and I don't really notice any significant difference between the two, however, I don't do much low light photography which is where the difference is supposed to be most noticable. The camera accepts all of Canon's SLR lenses.  The pictures it takes are great and match my expectations from what I got out of my film rebel.

The feature that convinced me to buy this camera as opposed to the XTi, which I was also considering, was the new live view feature.  This allows for the Rebel to display on the screen what it's looking at like point-and-shoot digital cameras do.  It was advertised and reviewed as a great feature for macro photography.  For some reason, however, live view can't be used for the camera's built in macro setting, which was slightly dissapointing.  Fortunately, I have my macro lenses so it's not so much of a problem for me. I still prefer to use the eyepiece as opposed to live view, partially because live view drains the battery very rapidly.

 I've tested most every feature and it all works great.  I especially enjoy the picture styles which changes the settings based on what you're shooting to help get the best shot.  This includes a black and white mode which comes with built in black and white filters.  You can also download more styles from their website to import into your camera. The only feature that doesn't work is Auto Exposure Bracketing.  If you don't know what that is, it probably won't effect you.  Either way, there's a firmware update to fix the problem which should already be installed on all the XSi's being sold now.

The camera comes with all the software and cables to import and edit your photos or view them on the TV.  I've had issues getting the camera to be recognized by my computer so it can import the pictures, but this may be my computer and not the camera, I'm not entirely sure.