Last week I received my Canon Digital Rebel XT from Dell. It's my third digital camera in 6 years and I'll say I'm happy again to have come back to an SLR with real lenses.

For the past week I've been taking photos around my apartment and outside just to get used to it and its controls. I have shot around 700 photos.

Here are the top reasons why I chose the Digital Rebel XT:

• (almost) instant on

• real lenses (SLR)

• low shutter lag

• highly rated

• upset at Nikon's decision to lock down their RAW format


I looked through many of my old photos taken with my Kodak DC240 and Nikon 4500. I saw that many of the photos were unusable for these following reasons:

• slow focusing (missed photo)

• shutter lag (missed photo)

• slow boot up time (missed photo)

• difficult manual focusing (blurry photo)


Also there are some features of the camera which have pleasantly surprised me:

• the battery life !! (350 photos)

• speed of autofocus (fast)

• flash range (really far)

I have no regrets at all buying this camera. All of the previously mentioned issues I had with my other cameras are now a thing of the past. I feel like a have a real tool in my hands. The experience has been very very liberating.

Thanks Canon!