THe digital rebel, or 300d in the UK, is one of the best for the price. There's also a russian firmware hack that addresses some of the limitations which were put in there to stop it competing with the more expensive 10d.

You have to be aware, however, that to really get the best from it, you'll need to familirise yourself with some post-processing techniques like levels and sharpening (that said, you can up the on-camera sharpening and get pretty decent, sharp pics, but for best results it's better to have no onboard sharpening and sharpen in Photoshop or the like).

I've been trawling a few photo forums since I got my new camera and the Canon Digital rebel gets very high regard for price v features.

Why is it better to sharpen in photoshop rather than on the camera?

Ape, no idea myself, I'm saving my pennies up to buy one (and maybe the price will drop a bit in the meantime!), but you can download a demo here (right click, save as, 1MB .mov file).

It's from a very comprehensive review here.

People, do yourself a favor and reconsider the 300D.

It was a nice, affordable piece of digital SLR when it first came out, and kudos to Canon for breaking the previously high price marks.

However, Nikon has already released the D70 at almost the same price.

And I haven't seen a single report or comparison where it didn't blow the Canon out of the water.

Check here for a detailed comparison:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond70/page20.asp

By all accounts I've read the Nikon has FASTER shutter speed than the Canon, it powers on faster than the Canon, it has almost all the features of the way more expensive D100 (compared to the castration the 300D had to endure downwards from the D10)...

Nikon got a REAL AF Assist light (so you dont have to open the flash slide like with the Canon), and you can change manually between Continous and Single AF - which as far as I read is not possiple on the Canon.

The LCD got higher resolution, too. And instead of a bit cheap silver looking plastic it's all black with rubber coating.

Seriously, I loved the 300D when it came out and would have sold my grandmother to get one - but now Nikon takes the lead.

Going by that comparison chart the Nikon looks a bit better and I have always liked Nikon gear. But a couple of things I don't like about both the Nikon and Canon slr's; they use Lithium batteries as opposed to rechargable NiHM's, niether has a Tiff mode, and the price is on the high side considering the prices shown are for the body only. But I would be willing to pay those prices to get what I really want. The Lithium battery deal really bugs me though.

Yea, I was recently searching for a pair of binoculars and I saw that Canon has binocs with this image stabilization. But the price of their binocs with IS was way too high for me. I ended up getting a pair of Nikon Travelites which are so light (carbon fibre body) that you can hold them very steady compared to the bigger bulky binocs. I read the review of the Canon PSIS and it looks like a nice camera to own but it's only 3.2mp. My Olympus is 2.1mp so I would have to at least double that to feel I was really gaining something over my Olympus C2020Z. It's too bad we can't just send in our older cameras to the shop and have the CCD replaced with one with more MP's.

If for nothing else I'd pick the Nikon over the Canon for it's speed alone.

It can handle more continous shoots in the buffer at higher frames per second, it powers on faster, and I've heard that shutter delay is almost non exsistant, which is MY prime criterium for taking Aircraft shoots.

The unrestricted software, and the "black body" are just icing on the cake.

I would be very surprised, though, if there are Digital SLRs with conventional NiMH packs around...are there?

Didn't you buy a Fuji recently RSColonel, how's that one doing?

Too well to be replaced but the last month I had a serious eye on the Nikon. I've been following that thing since it was first showcased a few months ago, and every review since then tells me it really is the 300D Killer Nikon wanted to build.

It's still a lot of cash, though. Wouldn't I have spent the 500 bucks for the Fuji I would already have gotten the D70, but the S5000 is still too new and in pristine condition to warrant a replacement.

I actually got to try a D70 out in the shop, and it's the speed that I miss with mine. There's a lot of joy to be had with the smaller sub-SLR cameras, but they simple are not fast enough for planes.

In realistic terms, for the amount I use my cam, I suppose the Nikon would be overkill. But whenever that damn shutter stutters up, I start plannig again...

Be careful with the D70 at the moment, it may be getting rave reviews from many, but it has some serious technical problems that Nikon are slowly beginning to acknowledge: Short-back focusing and skewed colour saturation at high shutter speeds are the two key areas of interest.

The focusing problem can only be fixed by recalibration of the body (and they are going back to Nikon in droves for this), the colour tinting on the left and right of the frame should be solved through firmware, but there's no news on the horizon as to when that's going to happen.

Still, it beats the 300D, and I am a die-hard Canon user, so that's some compliment!