Canon EOS 450D review

On the other hand, it lacks common perks Sony, Pentax and Olympus include in their cameras, such as in-body mechanical stabilisation and a wireless flash controller in the body, a feature that we occasionally find quite useful. The inclusion of an image-stabilising kit lens doesn't quite compensate, since additional optically stabilised lenses tend to cost more in the long run. The 450D's sensitivity range also tops out at ISO 1,600, when others routinely reach as high as ISO 3,200, and a spot meter that uses a whopping 4 per cent of the viewfinder -- that's even larger than the 3.8 per cent we complained about for the EOS 40D.

Though it offers a Live View shooting mode with contrast-detection AF, Live View's usefulness is limited without support from an articulating LCD. Furthermore, all the manufacturers seem to incorrectly think the equivalent of Canon's Picture Styles, custom contrast, sharpness saturation and colour tone, are more important in this market segment than the ability to save groups of custom exposure, white balance, metering, drive mode settings and so on.

Performance
Overall, in our tests the 450D just edges past its competitors for shooting speed. It goes from power-to-photo in a hair more than 0.2 seconds. At 0.5 seconds in good conditions, the 450D's JPEG shooting lag is a little longer than the rest; its 1.2-second duration in dim conditions, while not very zippy, is about average for its class.

Once focused, shot-to-shot time typically takes about 0.4 seconds for RAW or JPEG, and adding flash recycling time bumps it to only 0.7 seconds, which is very good for any class. It's also the fastest burst shooter among entry-level dSLRs, snapping 3.4 frames per second, for more than 60 JPEGs in testing. The buffer maxes out at six RAW frames, however, so you'll have to move to another class of camera if you take shooting your children's football matches really seriously.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Time to first shot

Raw shot-to-shot time

Shutter lag (dim light)

Shutter lag (typical)

Sony Alpha DSLR-A200

0.5

0.6

1.2

0.3

Canon EOS 400D (EF-S 18-55mm Lens, black)

0.3

0.6

1.1

0.4

Nikon D60 (with 18mm-55mm lens)

0.4

0.5

0.7

0.4

Olympus Evolt E-510 (dual lens kit)

1.3

0.8

1.3

0.4

Pentax K100D

1.2

0.5

1.3

0.4

Canon EOS 450D (with 18-55mm lens, black)

0.2

0.4

1.2

0.5