I’m going to start this article out the wrong way round and say I have chosen the Canon 500D. Let me explain!So you have always loved photography but never had the kit, you have the eye and want but have never got around to getting your first ‘proper’ camera. It’s as simple as getting an entry level Digital SLR isn’t it? Not always! I was the same as you. I had been into art and photographer for a long while but never had a decent camera to fulfill my ambition.The closest I had come was playing with my Dad’s old Canon SLR which was great fun but because of wasting film, I’d never really learned much from it. I thought getting one of my own was just too expensive so had a variety of point and shoot cameras. However recently everything changed. I’d saved up enough money and was going to plump for my own Digital SLR.There are a lot of cameras on the market and from various makers. If you speak to most people they’ll tell you that the best makes are either Canon or Nikon. Probably because they have been in the game the longest and invested the most in their Digital lines. In the end I went with Canon, partly because I liked the look of them and their features more than Nikon and partly because some of my Dad’s old lenses would work with it. When looking for your first Digital SLR the most important thing you can do is go into an actual shop and play with it. It may be the best camera with the most features at the cheapest price but if it feels strange in your hand, you won’t enjoy using it. The Canon 500D is an entry level camera, this means it’s designed to get help budding photographers get into photography and help them along the way.It also means it’ll have a lot of semi-automatic features to help you get started also. It has a lot of features and quite impressively Image Stabilization to help you keep your shots from shake. My favorite feature f the 500D is that you can control all it’s plethora of features with just one hand, making changing settings very easy whilst setting up your shot and on the fly. It has a very nifty click wheel for this. The other benefits this camera has over the competitors is that it can take shots up to very high ISO’s meaning you’ll be able to get great exposure even in dim light. It can also take full HD video, even though it can be a bit jerky. Best to stick to 720p and get a higher frame rate in my opinion. Other features this camera has are a hot shoe for external flashes, an SD card slot for memory and a very grippy grip which helps with the feel of the camera in your hand. As entry level DSLR’s go, you’d be hard pressed to find something better. In terms of where it fits into the Canon range of entry level cameras it’s only slightly more expensive than the 450D but for that you get more megapixels and HD video. It’s also not worth forking out more for the 55D as all this has is slightly better HD video.There are some great online deals at the moment but remember to get your hands on it in a shop first to try it out. If you do plump for the Canon 500D, make sure you get one with the EF-S 18-55mm kit lens. After that, if you want to start playing around with bigger Canon Lenses, I’d highly recommend the EF-S 55-250mm IS Canon Lens.Happy Snapping!