Hmm take your point, I never use my camera with live view / video so I guess that’s why I don’t use it.

Pretty much all DSLRs are great cameras and anything you buy will be out of date in a few months as the rate at which they bring out new models is quite incredible. I’d just pick one you like the feel of and use that, rather than worrying about whether it’s the best or not.

From PP’s run down of the specs, I would get the 60d, I reckon.

Although saying that, I won’t actually be going anywhere near a Canon body with all the Nikon bits I have…

If you go for the 60D you can use Magic Lantern (hacked firmware) which gives you so many extra features that aren’t normally available. It’s not out for the 650D and doesn’t even seem to be on the road map. It’s mostly video orientated though so might not be useful to you. I love it though. 🙂

http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wiki

The pivot screen so important
For what? Seems completely pointless to me

If you want to take a macro shot of a flower on the floor say, you don’t have to lie on the floor to stick your eye up against the viewfinder.

If you are setting up some product photo you don’t have to keep going around the back of the camera to look through the viewfinder, you can have the screen facing the front so you can see what you are doing in it (if it flips out all the way like mine does)

If you are in a crowd you can hold the camera above your head and see what you are taking pics of

You can get a picture of everyone in a room (family christmas etc) by holding it up high in the corner of the room, and you can still frame the shot

If you want to take a photo at arm’s length for any reason – say a nice flower that’s a little awkward to get to, you can still see the screen to frame the shot

It gives you a lot of possibilities actually.

As much as I would never use the LCD regularly, I do wish I had a foldable one on my 5DII, mainly for the reasons molgrips gives above. Also, I do find the screen very useful for checking the focus in liveview on tripod shots – as good as the viewfinder is in the 5D, it would really benefit from a split-prism

From PP’s run down of the specs, I would get the 60d, I reckon.

Really? Why? Honest question. 🙂

@zokes – that’s one of the main things I really miss from my old film Nikon – a split prism viewfinder. So, so good.

it would really benefit from a split-prism

Holy cow.. I used to use a manual focus film camera (never used an AF one in fact) and I can’t understand why they don’t have them in DSLRs. If it gets a bit dark you’re basically screwed. Really annoys me.

You can get aftermarket ones that you have to fit yourself into the cam (google focusing screens), but guess what – not for my cam! At least, not from the well known manufacturers. There’s a cheap Chinese job that will apparently work and someone online has tried it with good results.

Bit nervous about hacking my camera but I have so much trouble with my Sigma 30mm f1.4 focusing in low light, which is what I bought it for, that I might give it a try.

PeterPoddy – Member
From PP’s run down of the specs, I would get the 60d, I reckon.

Really? Why? Honest question.

I find the extra screen on my D80 really useful, which the 60D has.
Bigger buffer (just because)
Shutter Speed (shooting with a 1.8, easily takes you to high shutter speeds in relatively bright light. Nice to have some headroom.
Higher flash sync speed – again nice to have some headroom.

I think on another post as well you mention that the 650d has a touchscreen. I reckon it’s completely pointless on a camera, unless you really have made the camera so small that you can’t fit any buttons on (or put such a big screen on). The screen gets smeary, you can’t change settings by touch (button press & twizzle of command dial while not even looking away from viewfinder), it seems like technology for the sake of it (wrong application of a technology, perhaps) and I’ve never found it to be an advantage on any camera that I have used it on. The only thing I can think it would be good for is swiping through pics when reviewing them, but this doesn’t seem like reason enough to add it.

Also – 2 command dials on the 60D, although not sure about the buttons running along the top in front of the second display; doesn’t look very ergonomic.

Grip looks a bit small on the 650D

Oh, swivel screen on the 60D

Apart from that, 😉

On some compacts you can touch the thing you want to focus on and it’ll focus on that and track it as it moves too, which is quite nice. Also you can have a bigger screen cos you don’t need as much space for buttons.

But on an SLR – not sure. I guess it would be easier to just touch stuff on a busy screen rather than click across all the options, depends on how the UI is organised. Think of it as buttons that can change shape and position depending on what you’re doing.