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It’s been a little longer than 6 months, but I wanted to take the time to write down my thoughts of the Rebel XTI and how it’s been performing. Overall, it’s a great camera with easy to use features, great resolution, sharp images and fast response time.

I’ve taken over 6,000 pictures so far and am very pleased with the camera. There are some very slight things I would like to change about it.

1. It’s almost too small. A compact camera indeed, but the body is sometimes hard to grip and hold on to. You can easily fix this with a battery grip (which I’ve mentioned before), but I would like to see a slightly bigger body on this rig. I guess that’s what the 30D is for.
2. In Manual Mode, changing both the shutter speed and aperture is a little difficult. I heard quite a bit of talk about a second dial and now I see what they’re talking about.
3. When using the flash I get the word “Busy” in the display far too often. It takes about 1-2 seconds for the flash to recover before I can use it again. This happens with a freshly charged battery as well as with the battery grip which gives me two batteries at once. I am a little disappointed with the speed since my friend’s Canon 20D fires the flash repeatedly with no problem. This makes it a little hard to track kids indoors.

The main one of consequence is the manual mode. When doing macro shots, it makes it hard to underexpose to keep from blowing out all the highlights on a white flower in high sun. I normally have to pull back, find the correct button, then dial in a different aperture.

Putting these aside, the camera is outstanding. There is plenty of shutter speed to capture fast moving subjects like the racing cars at the Porsche Club, there is a lot of versatility so I can the camera to someone else in “green mode” and get a great shot, and the burst mode is great for my son’s lacrosse games. I can follow them down the field, continually shooting and getting all the action.

This is significantly different than the Sony F828 which could only get a couple of shots in burst mode and then it was about 1 picture per second.

I don’t normally shoot at anything over ISO 200 so I can’t give any details on how those look. Most shots I take are outdoors. My indoor shots are done with the flash because they are of the kids.

It’s hard to think of this camera as entry level because of what it can do. The vast array of lenses, filters, accessories as well as outstanding pro level features puts it far and above the conventional point and shoot camera which I consider to be entry level.

My plan to get another 2 years out of this rig, build a library of lenses and filters and then move to the next level in the Canon arsenal. I figure that will be a Canon 40D or maybe even go all out and grab a 5D or whatever replaces it. I have to keep an eye on the lenses I buy so if I do go to full frame they work correctly. Another upside will be, I can get the next camera without the kit lens and save a few bucks off the price.

If you haven’t made the jump to Digital SLR this a great camera to work with. It has excellent features, a wide variety of accessories and is advanced enough for serious amateur work, but still can be dialed in for the total novice.

It’ll be interesting to see where we are at the end of the year.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Sigma announces Electronic Flash EF-530 DG Super
• Sigma 1.4x Teleconverter
• First Look: Sony Alpha 200
• Camera Test: Canon EOS 1D Mark III
• Digital camera battery life boosted news
• What I’ve learned after two years
• Rebel XTI vs. Canon 40D
• Sigma 18-200mm OS lens
• Canon Announces EOS 40D, 1Ds Mark III
• Pentax’s white SLR for Imperial stormtroopers