Eos 400D - Digital Rebel XTi

How professional are you? What are your needs?
Very few of us need to make a living from photography and only enjoy it as a hobbyist. Even so any half-skilled operator could take stunning 'professional' standard photo's with this model camera.

Specification wise the more expensive cameras in the Canon range do offer more options that may be critical in some rare situations you encounter and that's why you are asked to pay a great deal more for them but as a hobbyist do you really need the extra specifications of the more expensive models?
The 400SD and now the new, even better 450D cameras are regarded as the 'entry level' DSLR's from Canon. They would though, without a shadow of a doubt be more than suitable for the vast majority of amateur photographers. Unless you are particularly gifted and you could be fairly certain you would be able to utilize the extra features of the more expensive models you would be wasting your money buying one. The main reasons I would consider for not buying this model is that the cases of camera's of the more expensive models are more robust and sturdy. The shutter speed burst of around 3 frames per second is only half that of high end models. That might be critical to some but not need be so to others.
The mount takes all Canon DSLR series lenses and any photographer worth their salt would tell you that the choice of lens is far more important than choice of camera.
I can't think of any particular negative elements of this camera unit other than I've mentioned.
The positives far outweigh them.
The camera unit is sold in black or silver. I would recommend the black body as it is not so obvious for wildlife photography.

I've been using this camera for over a year now, is a good camera, perfect for my needs. The only thing I mis is spot metering.

This is one of the slrs i use and its exellent for birding being a cropped frame i love going out and using this kit its fab i reccomend it to anyone who wants to do bird/wildlife photography.