An excellent entry level Canon EOS camera

Last year, after getting interested in photography, I paid $150 used for an EOS 350D in excellent, as new condition.  Last May, my daughter and I went to our family farm near Humansville, and she fell so much in love with the camera I gave it to her.

This camera cost a thousand dollars in 2005, and the buyer got their money's worth.  It shoots beautiful, vivid photos in JPEG on default settings.  It's fast, it's easy to learn, and every EOS Canon lens you buy for your Rebel XT will fit the next Canon EOS camera body you buy.

My daughter actually uses her camera to make a little money, shooting at rodeos.  The photos look great printed out to 8x10. She takes it with her everywhere, and has made some stunning photos with it.

But the proof is in the photos.  These were our first attempt at using the camera.

-Yet the best part of the day for me, was using my Canon SX 160 IS to take photos of her learning to use the Rebel XT.

She went out and used to take pictures of a rodeo queen, not long after.

Five stars for an oldie but a goodie, the Rebel XT.

For as little as they cost, they are one of the best JPEG cameras Canon ever made.

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Humansville is a town in the Missouri Ozarks

Canon EOS 300D was my first (in a long serie of two) DSLR and I liked it very much, too bad it got stolen. the 350D has 8MP, more than enough for me and I only missed the live view for impossible camera positions that the 350D still don't have...

The last picture is nice as it is, I would have taken it with larger aperture, it should go up to f/5.6, and got the background a little out of focus. Do not hesitate to take multiple pictures at different apertures if not sure of the result.

The only picture I will criticise the frame is the one you say you took ;-), I would have find better to either cut the horse closer to it's head (cut just in front or behind the front legs) or not cut at all...

CQui wrote:

Canon EOS 300D was my first (in a long serie of two) DSLR and I liked it very much, too bad it got stolen. the 350D has 8MP, more than enough for me and I only missed the live view for impossible camera positions that the 350D still don't have...

The last picture is nice as it is, I would have taken it with larger aperture, it should go up to f/5.6, and got the background a little out of focus. Do not hesitate to take multiple pictures at different apertures if not sure of the result.

The only picture I will criticise the frame is the one you say you took ;-), I would have find better to either cut the horse closer to it's head (cut just in front or behind the front legs) or not cut at all...

Now, I understand how I could have made all the shots better. I'd only been shooting "good" cameras for only a few months, and I guessed that 1/1250 shutter speed would "freeze" action. It did, but I was at least one stop above what I needed, and 1/500 would have worked as well and allowed a lower ISO and/or a larger aperture.

I also had only just found the "continuous" drive on the 350D, and didn't realize the camera only focused the first shot of the series. Today I'd have pressed each one, but then I might have missed the good shot of my daughter right in front of the camera.

I was too lazy to crop the photos. There are over one thousand shots the two of us made that day between us, using the 350, the Oly PL1, the SX160IS, and even a little micro Nikon SO1.

After that day, my daughter mainly used the 350D and I've mainly used the PL1. I've used my wife's D3000 whenever I felt the need for a DSLR.

In all those shots, I can see that until after we got across the first creek and into the open field, my daughter was humoring the old man with his cameras. But after she made a run towards me and saw the photos in the camera, she asked to borrow the 350D and she's loved photography ever since.

People are funny, about money. We'd had a brand new D3000 sitting in a drawer and never used for at least five or six years, because we were so proud of it.

But when I found that $150 350D and the $100 PL1 and the $50 SX160IS, we used them like they were hammers and had the most fun doing it.

I think the camera companies are missing out on addicting new people to photography because they don't make and sell cheap PASM dialed AA battery powered point and shoots like the Canon SX160IS any more. It was a $20 Canon SX150IS that started my photography addiction, because that's the first cheap camera I ever owned that had the PASM dial on top, and was just barely fast enough to capture action, and had every essential setting on it that was listed in the photography books. I dropped it and knocked the lens cover off, and bought an SX160IS less than a month later, but by then I was already hooked on photography. The SX150IS still works, but it's wounded.

That led to the Canon Rebel XT, and then to the Pen PL1, and after that I've just bought more MFT cameras and lenses.

To get hooked on photography, you need a real camera with adjustable manual settings.