The new Canon EOS 10D Digital SLR camera created a major buzz at this year's Photo Marketing Association show. Everyone expected Canon to announce a replacement for its popular Canon EOS D60 digital SLR camera, but few in the crowd expected the new camera to debut at a street price of $1,500—a full $500 less than the comparable Nikon D100.

On the outside, the 10D looks very much like its predecessors, the Canon EOS D30 and D60. But a magnesium alloy replaces the plastic skin of older versions, so the camera feels more solid, and Canon rearranged the controls, making the new model easier to use. The inside is essentially an all-new camera with much improved auto-focus and white-balance systems.

The 10D uses the same 6.5-megapixel CMOS image sensor as the D60, but the image processor, the Canon Digital Imaging Core (DIGIC), is different. Canon first used DIGIC in the PowerShot S45 and G3 point-and-shoot cameras. It handles virtually all of the 10D's internal processing, including image capture, JPEG compression, white balance, auto exposure, and memory card control. The 10D is more responsive than the D60 and produces much more accurate and consistent colors and exposures.

We spent a month using the camera, taking a wide variety of shots, including low-light night shots, big-lens nature photos, point-and-shoot travel shots, and multiflash studio pictures. Under all these conditions, the 10D produced excellent images, and a high percentage were good enough to keep.

The improved seven-point auto-focus system, which impressed us, allows the camera to focus in very dim light—a problem area for previous cameras. The 10D's auto-focus system is so much better that Canon opted not to include the infrared focus-assist lamp found on other units. When it needs additional light to focus, the camera uses a few bursts of the built-in flash. There are lots of small improvements, too, such as a lighted top-panel LCD and an automatic rotation sensor that knows whether your pictures are vertical or horizontal.

The 10D works with all Canon auto-focus lenses and most recent flashes. As with the D30 and D60, the 10D's smaller–than–35-mm image sensor means that the effective focal length of a given lens is 1.6 times the actual focal length. If you need to shoot wide-angle pictures, you may need to purchase an additional lens to use with the 10D.

Canon has established a new benchmark for low-priced digital SLRs. Sure, $1,500 still isn't cheap compared with a 35-mm SLR, but when you factor in the savings in film and processing costs—and the instant gratification a digital camera can give—the 10D makes the outlay easy to justify.