PhotographyBLOG reader Sean McCormick is one of the first people in the world to own a shiny new Canon EOS 300D, and to mark the occasion he has allowed me to publish his initial impressions…

“My 300D just arrived and I let the battery charge halfway before starting to play with it. Here are my first impressions in no particular order:

1. It feels “good” to hold. The grip is just the right size and I love that they thought out a place to put your thumb on the back. The camera itself feels very rugged, despite the carping I’ve read about the plastic body.

2. The controls are all very easy for me to access. I think I could get used to manipulating them without having to look at them, as I do with my DiMAGE 7. I was able to figure out 90% of them without having to refer to the manual, including the menu system.

3. The LCD display on this thing is top notch, and fairly visible in bright light.

4. The metering at default settings in this camera is *very good*. I played around with some high contrast situations and the camera’s chosen setting were practically identical to what I came up with taking an incident reading on my Sekonic L-508 exposure meter. The camera does tend to overexpose slightly and I’ll dial it down to compensate when using the built-in meter.

5. Picture quality at 800 ISO and 1600 ISO is bloody amazing, at least for those of us who have spent the last two years using a Minolta DiMAGE 7. The idea of a digital camera that turns out high quality images above 200 ISO just boggles my mind.

6. The autofocus on this thing is *fast*. Keep in mind that I’m used to a Minolta Maxxum 7000 and a Minolta DiMAGE 7. Those of you with Nikon F4s may hate it.

7. The diopter is useless for near sighted people. Guess I’m going to have to get contacts.

8. The basic kit includes the camera body, 18-55 mm lens, battery and charger, cheapie camera strap, manuals, video/USB cables, and software. The camera doesn’t come with a case, which is disappointing. The strap has already been thrown into my “cheap crap that I’ll never look at again” drawer.

That’s it so far. I’ll have some sample images up next week. So far I’m pretty blown away by the quality of camera and lens I’ve gotten for the money I paid.”