Its image quality is superb, (better then 350D)
It screen size is good.
Easy understandable handling of controls.

The problem I came across is that its battery time is not good. My old 350D have a excellent battery timing even in stand by mode battery would not drain as quickly and would not require to charge more frequantly. But 500D battery would drain quickly on stand by.

The lens which comes with the camera according to me is lacks the stength to go along with the potentials offers by the camera.

Other weaknesses as described by the other's I will also agree with them .

I have used it for almost 3 months now. I have upgraded myself from EOS 350D. I am not a expert to give out detail review. But I can comment on few of the things.

Customer Service

Have not used.

Similar Products Used:

350D

High iso quality
light weight
3 in LCD
Croppablity

3.4 burst rate
1/4000 top shutter speed

I brought this camera, cause I needed a light hi quality unit for travel, I have not been disappointed with this unit. The ability to crop is an added bonus, the quality and user friendly nature of this camera is first rate. I love the clean hi iso quality, I would compare to the results that I get from my old 20D. Overall a very nice camera that can give professional results.

Customer Service

Not used

Similar Products Used:

Canon 20D
Nikon D200
Nikon D100
Nikon D2H

Image Quality. Very hard to fault. However, the larger amount of pixels means that optical problems such as chromatic aberrations appear larger. Basically, it will show you your lens' faults much more.

Screen. It is simply superb. Having stepped up from 230k screens, the screen on my 500D blows them out of the water. Magnificent.

Video Quality (go to weaknesses for rest of video). The quality of the video is excellent.

Lack of Video Controls. Can't select aperture, ISO or frame-rates (a choice between a few frame-rates would have been welcome).

Sound Quality in video. Can't use an external mic. Built in mono microphone not good enough and picks up wind more than anything you actually want it to.

AF in Video. Contrast detect Autofocus is awful. Too slow for most applications.

Noise. As a more dense sensor than most of the DSLR market, noise was always going to be an issue. However, 3200 ISO is very usable. Anything over that should be disregarded.

I'm Advanced Amateur, not an Expert as I have indicated, I am not trying to mislead anyone. Also, I live in the UK, so the prices I list are in GBP. Expert has connotations of the technological side, whereas being a professional indicates that you partake in photography for money.

This is my first Digital SLR. I have used other people's DSLRs before (mostly Canons, but a few Nikons as well).

The first thing you'll notice when you see this camera is it's small size. I don't have the largest hands in the world, but I could not comfortably fit my entire right hand onto the grip, which in turn, made the camera feel insecure in my hand. The camera is also relatively light (partly due to it's engineering plastic construction I expect), but doesn't feel as cheap as say, the XS/1000D. The texture is also quite nice, but is quite superficial, and I doubt many people would buy a camera based on it's texture alone.

On powering it up, you notice it's screen. Having used a 230k pixel screen on all previously used digital cameras, this was a very nice step up. It's relatively bright and very sharp. However, it appears to be quite saturated and unable to display pinks/reds correctly (I have a hard time seeing texture in red/pink flowers for instance, even with the a -1/3rd exposure compensation). This didn't seem like much of a problem on the other cameras I used, which Is why I'm mentioning it. The colours do come out correctly on my monitor however. I also had a little bit of light leakage on the right side of the screen, which was only noticeable with a black background on the screen, but I expect (read: hope) this is a single product defect.

I think that as a camera in the entry level sector, it has been subjected to the normal marketing rituals of pulling out meaningless figures. For instance, it's marketed as having 12,800 ISO, which it does. What I should mention is that 12,800 is usable for images that you intend to print very small or just upload to the Internet. For large size prints, 3,200 ISO is the highest you would want to go, and the image quality at this setting is very respectable. Interestingly, the box that the T1i/500D comes in only states 3,200 ISO, which would seemingly suggest that Canon do not think that 12,800 ISO is good enough to mention. Either way, 3200 ISO is probably the highest you will want to go to.

The video/movie mode is probably the biggest draw for most people over the 450D. Is it worth it? In two words: not really. You need to discredit the 20fps 1080p movie recording, because if you're recording something rather than taking an image of it, it will be moving, and 20fps is too jerky for this. So, that leaves two options. 720p or 640x480 at 30fps each. The ability to change lenses is definitely a strong point, and the ability to autofocus during filming may be of some benefit (though, Contrast detect AF isn't fast) over Nikons, but, in fairness, the Nikons allow you to select aperture, which for me, is much more useful. If you want video, you'd buy a camcorder. The 4gb limit on files is rather annoying, but if you're shooting that much with uncompressed files, you're probably a film-maker and would have cameras much more suited to video than this. In short, Video probably isn't a good reason to upgrade. But, having a dedicated mode instead of the 5DmkII's system is a bonus.

The image quality with the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-f/5.6 IS kit lens is rather surprising. i had heard awful things about the quality of kit lenses in general, so I was rather surprised to see very sharp images (especially when set to 35mm at around f/5.6) without any in-camera sharpening or noise-reduction. Noise is very prevalent on this sensor. Cramming so many pixels onto a sensor this size on a camera made on 'the cheap' probably wasn't the best idea, but, pixel density is nowhere near as ridiculous as the situation with Digital compacts (unsurprisingly). The amount of noise visible has actually been reduced from the 50D (In my opinion anyway), which is always a good thing.

As a camera made for entry level users, it's quite hard to fault. It does what it says it does, and largely, it does it well. But, as an experienced user, I'm reviewing it on my expectations.

Customer Service

Not applicable.

Similar Products Used:

400D, 450D, 1DmkIII, Nikon D60, Nikon D5000, Canon 50D and Canon 40D.