The impressive Canon EOS Digital Rebel SLR carves out a new niche in the ever-harder-to-define prosumer digital camera market. With a street price of $900 ($1,000 with an 18- to 55-mm lens), the 6.3-megapixel Digital Rebel costs about the same as the Olympus E-20N, the Minolta DiMage 7Hi, and other prosumer cameras. But the Digital Rebel uses interchangeable lenses, a major attraction for advanced amateur and hobbyist photographers, offering buyers a carefully balanced mix of features and performance without stepping on the toes of Canon's higher-priced cameras.

The Digital Rebel even manages to steal some of the thunder from Canon's own EOS-10D digital SLR. The two cameras share much of their internal electronics, including the CMOS image sensor, DIGIC image processor chip, and even the battery pack. Also, the image quality from the two is nearly identical, but the Digital Rebel sells for about $500 less.

Noticeably smaller and lighter than the EOS-10D, the Digital Rebel is light and compact. Although the unit is primarily plastic, it feels solid. The controls are simple, well marked, and easy to understand. The viewfinder is smaller than that of most digital SLRs, but the image is bright and sharp. Seven focus-point LEDs in the viewfinder glow red when the camera locks focus on the subject.

The 18- to 55-mm lens—made specifically for the Digital Rebel—is almost as interesting as the camera itself. The new lens uses a modified EOS lens mount that reaches farther into the body (and closer to the surface of the image sensor) than do other Canon lens mounts. The Digital Rebel accepts all existing Canon EOS lenses, but the new mount paves the way for a range of newer, smaller, and cheaper lenses designed specifically for the Digital Rebel.

As is the case with most other digital SLR cameras, the Rebel's image sensor is about two-thirds the size of a 35-mm film frame, so the sensor can "see" only the center part of the lens' image circle. This effectively multiplies the focal length of attached lenses by a factor of 1.6, so the 18- to 55-mm lens offers a field of view roughly equivalent to that of a 28- to 90-mm lens on a 35-mm camera. Apart from Olympus's forthcoming (and much more expensive) E-1 camera, Canon is the only SLR maker to offer this popular and flexible range of focal lengths in a single zoom lens.

Light weight and long battery life make the Digital Rebel easy to carry and use, even on all-day outings. The image quality was essentially identical to the excellent EOS-10D, with very low noise, accurate colors, and excellent color balance.

Digital SLR cameras typically produce images with less in-camera sharpening and lower contrast than point-and-shoot cameras. As a result, images from these cameras often need a little post-processing work to make them look their best. The Digital Rebel's default settings apply more sharpening and have slightly higher contrast than we're accustomed to seeing in Canon SLR cameras.

We used the 18- to 55-mm lens for most of our test shots, and we were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the images from such a lightweight, low-cost lens. The lens showed very little optical distortion and was remarkably free from chromatic aberration (also known as purple fringing), a common optical flaw in many lenses that shows up as purple outlines on high-contrast subjects.

The Digital Rebel also came up short in a few areas. To make room for the deeper lens mount, the mirror has to slide back before it can tilt up. This two-step operation makes quite a bit of noise, although we quickly got used to it. The built-in flash pops up higher than most, helping to reduce red-eye. But the pop-up flash is also fairly weak, and the camera body doesn't offer a flash adjustment feature, so you're stuck with whatever flash exposure the camera chose.

We had better results using an external flash, but the camera's light weight makes the whole package feel top-heavy and awkward. The auto-focus is nearly as fast as the EOS-10D's, but there's no way to select the focus mode or light-metering mode; the camera makes these decisions for you.

The Digital Rebel offers buyers an entrance into the world of digital SLR photography for slightly more than the cost of a high-end point-and-shoot camera. Hard-core hobbyists may find the EOS-10D's higher shooting speed, heftier feel, and advanced controls more to their liking. But the Digital Rebel's excellent image quality, light weight, and budget price tag are appealing, and we expect that dealers will have a hard time keeping Digital Rebels in stock this holiday season.