Verified answer

I own one and it has served me very well for the past year and a half. I do shoot a lot of college sports and photojournalism style stuff and am doing some weddings occasionally, and I have to say I am ready for an upgrade mostly because I need to be able to shoot above ISO 800 and I need faster fps and faster AF for college hockey. But it really is a great DSLR to start out with, and I have used it in just about every condition I have come across so far from spending all day on the mountain to concerts and sports and weddings. A good little camera which is nice and light to carry around. I believe the ratio for DSLR's are 2:3.

It is a great beginner DSLR. All of the functions an amateur photographer starting out will need and then some. You can't go wrong with the camera.

Unlike point and shoot cameras SLR's use a 3:2 aspect ratio. This is the ratio that matches up with 4x6 prints. Meaning you can print at 4x6 with no cropping. You can not change the aspect ratio. It is what it is. Also I feel I should tell you a couple of other things.

1. It does not have live view. You need to compose your shots through the viewfinder. Some of the newer DSLR's have live view but on the most part this is a gimmick. You can't expect to hold a few pounds of camera out at arms length and expect not to have blurry shots.

2. The lens it comes with would be the equivalent of about a 3x zoom on a point and shoot. If you want more reach you will need to buy a telephoto lens.

Yes, its a great camera. Heres are review for more info:

http://the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-4...

Like all SLRs, the XTi takes pictures with a 3:2 aspect ratio. You can always crop it down to 16:9, though.

To Cat Lover:

While the XTi does go up to ISO 1600, I (and probably andre) really try not to use it at that level, due to noise levels being higher than I want. Go to this page and scroll down a little, to see what I mean:

http://the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-4...

Using the 1600 noise comparison pics on this page and you can see that the newer cameras handle noise much better:

http://the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-R...

I think Andre better read his manual a little more thoroughly, because the ISO goes to 1600!

This is a great camera. It has been out a little over 2 years and is a popular and reliable camera. You woudn't be disappointed if you got this camera.

I don't own one but here is the page for them at Canon. Not sure which model you have but they are all there.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=P...

I have the PowerShot SD850 IS and it does widescreen like yours, a sweet feature indeed.