Hi Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on the Canon EOS 450D please?
I ask as I've seen what seems to be a pretty good deal on one (749CHF, plus and 80CHF rebate from Canon) at Foto Marlin (the camera shop at Bankverein‎) in Basel in a kit with an 18-55mm IS lens.
I'm thinking of getting it as there's several things about my current camera (Fujifilm Finepix S7000) that are starting to drive me up the wall.

• Slow Start Time - it takes 3-4 seconds to get from switching on to taking a photo. As an example of how frustrating this can get, while out with the camera recently I saw a red squirral sat perfectly still chewing on something. It would have been a great photo, execpt by the time the camera had booted the squirral had got fed up waiting and run off!

• Long Shutter Lag - about 2 seconds typically with AF. I can get round this sometimes by pre-focusing, but when shooting anything that's not static this becomes problematic (have a go with the parrots at the zoo!)

• Slow Shooting Rate - Typically I can get 1-2 shoots off before it stops dead. Then it's a several second wait for it to 'reload'. Again, fine if what your shooting isn't moving...

• Inprecise Manual Focus - when using manual focus, the focus/zoom ring can be quite difficult. If you make more than the very tinyest movement you end up zooming instead of focusing. In the end, it takes long to manual focus than the shutter lag imposed by AF.

• Eats Batteries - I have two sets of rechargeables for it, but if left switched on (to get round the long start time, for instance) it'll just suck'm dry all too quickly

• RAW Mode - It will shoot in RAW, however Fuji don't provide a codec for Windows so the only way to view them is though their software. and all it can do is convert them to JPEG... which kinda defeats the purpose! It's mostly a problem when browsing - I'm quite happy using Windows Explorer, but without a codec all the RAWs show up a nice, meaningless white squares...

• Doesn't Cope Well in Poor Light - And by poor I mean anything other than good, strong sunlight! Even in when taking a photo in a shaded area or indoors it can require shutter times so long (even at F2.8) that you need a tripod. Bumping the ISO up to 400 get's minimal improvement, and punching it up to 800 (it's max) drops the resolution down to 3M and results in loads of noise - while still not getting much improvement!

Can anyone advise on how the Canon compares to this please?

Thanks in advance for any help,
Chris