Canon EOS 350D

But back on the bright side, you do get a raft of new settings and menu features that were artificially unavailable on the 300D. Top of the list is the set of Custom functions. There are nine of these, allowing you to tweak parameters including exposure-level increments, set the flash metering mode between evaluative and average, and set mirror lock-up. This last function is for situations, particularly macro shots, when it's desirable to eliminate absolutely all camera shake.

A particular trademark of Canon's digital SLRs is their noise performance, and the 350D carries the baton well. It's perfectly usable at ISO800, a sensitivity setting at which most digitals would give you horribly noise-ridden results. You can push it up to ISO1600 too, at which point noise-reduction techniques kick in a little too far and produce some appreciable softness (but still very low noise).

The variable flash power E-TTL II flash exposure system gives incredible results - it's almost impossible to fool the system and flash shots never have that clipped, washed-out look, even when you're taking hastily composed photos from only a few feet away. If you're used to seeing flash shots from cheap compact cameras, the results from the 350D are amazing. The pop-up flash unit itself sits slightly higher above the lens than the 300D's, more or less eliminating the possibility of red-eye. It also doubles as a focus-assist lamp for low-light focusing.

But set against this is the competence of the auto white balance, which we found distinctly lacking. Taking some shots in a park, in a pretty standard situation - bright blue sky, grass and trees - the EOS floundered around and produced results with a distinct blueish cast to them. This basic lack of accuracy does rather make the inclusion of a special white-balance shift menu - complete with graphical representation of colour shift on two axes and the ability to bracket white balance - seem a bit pointless. And of course you can sidestep the problem in three other ways: select one of the white balance presets, set it yourself while pointing the camera at a neutral-coloured object, or shoot in RAW mode (allowing you to set the balance when you're converting the RAW file with the software supplied with the 350D). Not a major problem then, but still behind even Canon's own consumer-level cameras.

It's ever so slightly annoying that the 350D isn't a clear step forward in every way: the white balance problems and flawed method of changing ISO, exposure and focus settings in particular need work. But with its vastly improved burst mode, amateur sports photographers finally have a sub-£1,000 digital SLR they can call worthy of the job. Image quality really isn't significantly better than the 300D, but with all the new features and customisable settings on offer, plus the reduction in size, the 350D is, overall, a markedly superior camera to the 300D and takes its place on the A List as our camera of choice.

Author: David Fearon