Canon EOS 450D Review

The Canon EOS 450D is the fourth model in the best selling digital SLR series of all time, and as with many recent DSLR launches (with the exception of Nikon, who have raised their game considerably), it refines a winning blueprint, rather than reinventing the wheel. There are a smattering of improvements that help keep the 450D up with the ever-increasing competition, but unlike the 350D which pretty much had the field to itself, this new model is no longer the sole leader of the pack. Live View is a great addition on paper, but don't expect a point-and-shoot experience as the contrast AF mode is infuriatingly slow, and the Quick AF mode is of most interest to macro and studio photographers. I much preferred the quicker, more seamless Live View mode of the Sony A350 (review coming soon...). The new EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS kit lens is actually more beneficial than Live View, providing much needed image stabilisation, although obviously Canon's system is still lens-dependent and therefore more restrictive than that of Sony, Pentax or Olympus (which instantly work with any lens). The 12 megapixel sensor, 3 inch LCD screen, spot metering mode and use of SD cards are all very welcome additions, but they don't add up to a radically new camera.

Image quality is on a par with the EOS 400D, with noise-free images up to ISO 800 and a very usable fastest speed of 1600, so usable that I don't understand why the EOS 450D doesn't also offer ISO 3200. Chromatic aberrations are kept to a minimum and colours are accurate thanks to the new 14-bit processing - the only minor negative is the soft JPEG images, which may put off users more suited to sharper point and shoot cameras. Performance is also excellent, with no shutter-lag to speak of and fast processing times even when shooting in RAW mode. The 3.5fps continuous shooting mode is a little faster than the EOS 450D's predecessor, although in RAW mode the total number of possible consecutive shots has dropped from 10 to 6. Finally the EOS 450D is slightly more expensive than the EOS 400D was at launch, and the older model is still being offered as a budget option, so if you don't need the enhancements offered by the 450D, it's definitely worth considering a camera that is after all only 18 months old.

Mark Goldstein

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