Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon EOS 450D Digital SLR Camera Kit (incl EF-S 18-55mm IS f/3.5-5.6 non USM Lens Kit)

Up to now I've always used point and click cameras, the smaller the better so I can just keep it in my pocket as I hate carrying large items around with me. I decided I would like to try and take photography a little more seriously so in April 2008 I decided the Canon EOS 450D was for me so ordered it through Amazon. I could have got it for about £20 cheaper but did not know the retailer so played safe. It turned up within 2 days as promised.

My first impressions when unpacking the camera was that it was surprisingly light and seemd well built (time will tell if that is correct!). It most certainly will not fit in my pocket and as it does not come with a carrying case my first additional expenditure was £30 on a case.

For a newbie to DSLR cameras there are an awful lot of buttons, switches and dials. Pressing the menu button brings up 7 menus, each with 7 or 8 sub menus and most of these have a number of sub sub menus. This left no option other than to open the instruction book....all 196 pages of it! To be fair they are small pages and cover each topic in sufficient detail to understand what they are but if you're like me, new to "serious" photography, then a number of hours on the internet finding out how and when you use each of the features will be required.

The lens that came with it seems o.k (but then who am I to judge!)in that the first pictures I took looked sharp on my P.C. but I haven't printed any out yet to see how they compare with my "point and click" camera. The image stabilising (IS) seems to work very well.

I have had the camera for about 5 weeks now and the first thing I want is a tele-photo lens as I have found the supplied lens too limited. I've borrowed a 55mm-200mm lens (see, I'm getting into the jargon after only 5 weeks) and this has made a huge difference to the type of photographs I can take and has made things much more interesting. Unfortunately, a reasonable quality lens like this seems to start at about £300 so this clearly isn't going to be the cheapest hobby!

I think the camera is brilliant. The large screen on the back is easy to see and has all of the information you need on it (and it rather cleverly goes blank when you bring it up to your face to take a photo).

The buttons are well laid out and easy to use (when you understand what they are all for!) and the software that comes with the camera is easy to understand, although a bit basic, so if you want to do anything clever with your pictures you will need some photo software as well.

The live view shooting i.e. using the LCD screen on the back rather than the view finder only works on the manual settings not the automatic settings which is a slight pain as using the view finder when you wear glasses is a little bit awkward.

In conclusion, after having the camera for 5 weeks, I am absolutely delighted with it and, as a newcomer to photography, would thoroughly recommend it

Whilst this is an excellent camera in itself - I particularly like the smooth action of the motorised mirror - it's worth mentioning certain drawbacks of going down the Canon road if you're new to digital SLR photography.

It can be quite expensive kitting out Canon cameras with lenses for the following reasons:
1. Image stabilisation is not built into the camera body. This means that to have the benefit of image stabilisation you need to buy lenses with that facility built in. This makes the lenses inherently more expensive for any given spec.
2. The 'kit' lenses available from Canon (the 18-55 and 55-250) do not have internal focus and this makes the use of polarising filters difficult with the filter thread rotating with focus.
3. Canon do not supply lens hoods with their lenses and, unless you opt for cheap far-eastern alternatives, are quite expensive to acquire.
4. The optical performance of the kit lenses doesn't do justice to the resolving capability of the excellent CMOS sensor. To really get the benefit of your investment you will need to buy the more up-market lens offerings from Canon and they really don't come cheap.

If you're on a budget you might consider investing in a system where the image stabilisation is built into the camera itself. You may find the camera slightly more expensive but the lens savings will easily offset that.

Had it for around a week and chose it over the Nikon D60 & D80. Very high detail and superb image quality with very little noise, even at ISO 800, so I leave it at auto ISO (100-800) - really. Build quality not top quality but, these days, who expects a body to last for more than a few years?

Picture quality is superb. Fantastic detail, especially with RAW. Indeed RAW really brings the most out of this camera. It's really difficult to describe how good the image quality really is. The kit lens is very good, although a little plastic but one needs to consider the market Canon is aiming this camera at.

Bottom line - a superb consumer camera - recommended. If you want high quality build, go for the 40D.

I have had a Canon 30D for about 18 months and found it to be a great camera. I had decided to up-grade to a 40D but with the new 450D having a similar speck, also with Live View and with 12.2 mega pixles compared to the 40Ds 10.2! So I decided on the 450D.
I made the right decision, this is a fantastic Camera with teriffic picture quality and makes the 30D look old and soft in comparrison. I could go on about how great his camera is only to say I am delighted with it and has much better battery life than the 30D even with using Live View. and the only down side is the 18-55 lens compromises picture quality somewhat. An up-grade to the Sigma 18-50 DC-EX will make all the difference if you want top quality pictures that this Camera can produce.
If you have a compact or an older DSLR the 450D would be a priority choice.

I have recently purchased this item and the pictures which it take are amazing, even with the lens which comes with it, I do advise however that you should also buy a different lens. but with the kit you get a fairly good lens. I managed to pick up this camera for a lot less than amazon, so shop around and you may find yourself a bargain!!But all in all, im very pleased I forked out the extra cash and brought this model!!

1 Minor annoyance, the 450D takes diffferent batteries. And it also takes SD cards, and i would advise you get a 4gb SDHC card, which is fast and you can take around 50 frames in one burst!!