I have always been a fan of photography as a leisurely activity and from using my friend's Canon DSLR, I knew I had to upgrade from a point and shoot to a DSLR.

Whilst the price point is more expensive then a regular camera, I truly believe in most cases you pay for what you get.

The thing that drew me to this model over earlier and significantly cheaper models is the back screen. It flips out and you can turn it around. This is helpful when taking photos at low angles, if you can't bend down. Or if like me, you need to take self portraits - you can actually see what you're doing!

For me, image quality on this is second to none. Obviously there's a few other Canons with much better quality picture but for the price point I thing this is brilliant value. If a picture isn't quite right I can open it in Photoshop, crop it and still have the image looking crystal clear. The large photo sizes allow me to be able to do this.

If you're a first time DSLR user it might be worth getting a cheap manual for it, to help show you the best settings for different photo settings etc. Whilst the manual included tells you how the camera works it doesn't really help with lighting/positioning. I managed to pick this up quite quickly by just photographing things using different settings and seeing which came out best.

It carries all the same features previous Canon DSLR's have except for the camera screen flipping out. This also causes for a small move around of the buttons on the back but nothing too drastic, everything is in a mostly similar area as to before.

The build is sturdy and feels nice to hold. The body is made of plastic which is somewhat disappointing for the price point but the quality of photos more than makes up for it.

This is one of my most expensive purchases and one I honestly cannot do without. I really would recommend.