in the market for a digital slr, and am looking at canon primarily as i have access to canon lenses already.

wondered is anyone has experience or views on the 450D, particularly how it compares to the cheaper 1000d or more expensive 40d?

also can anyone recommend any on-line dealers?

warehouse express is usually a good place for dSLRs, but check ‘camerapricebuster.co.uk’ for the cheapest.

‘Ow do. 450D owner here. Extremely pleased with it. It’s a good camera, capable of excellent results in the right hands (ie. not mine). Better spec’d than the 1000D for not much more money (has spot metering and more focus points, as well as a couple of extra megapixies I think). The 40D is the bigger brother, offering better build and higher max. frames per second shooting rate. However, it is physically quite a bit bigger, which put me off ‘cos I wanted something on the smaller side for lugging up mountains in a rucksac. Most of the stuff here is taken with a 450D

Why not get a 400d. A lot cheaper, and i would guess hardly any difference in terms of spec?

there will not be much difference in the final image quality (except high ISO performance). It is just the features on the camera that you pay for as Dudie said.

I’ve got a 40D and I paid the extra for the build quality (metal frame etc) and the 6.5 fps rate.

400D takes very nice pictures but is missing some features such as spot metering IIRC. depends how serious you’re going to get about photography or if you just want a good camera for biking/hiking.