Canon EOS 500D

The color output seemed a bit more on the vivid side even on neutral color settings, which would make the images seem more cheery. Though everyone has a personal opinion on this, as a reviewer I'm looking out for natural colors, so that I can manually decide how saturated I want my colors to be.

Night performance at higher ISO settings was quite impressive. Even images shot at ISO 1600 were usable enough for print. The test image below is shot at ISO 400, on long exposure of 4 seconds.

Camera speed is pretty much at par with its predecessor with the start up time being around 1 second and the continuous shooting speed being at 3.4 frames per second.

As I mentioned before, shooting a video can end up being a major task, but if done right, the video quality is by far the best in its price range. The 1920x1080 resolution video is crisp and clear, and looks great on an HDTV. That said, the sound capture seemed limited to subjects at close range.

Conclusion
Even with all the nuances, the Canon EOS 500D is one of the best deals available in the consumer DSLR segment. The great live view, full HD video recording, 15 megapixel image resolution and a range of other excellent features makes this a great camera to own. At its MRP of Rs. 52,995 (street price closer to 49,999), I’d say it’s worth every rupee.

So, referring to my first question of does it warrant an upgrade over the EOS 450D? Well, I won’t say that it’s a necessary upgrade, but if you do upgrade to the 500D, there’s no way you’d regret it.