To be fair, there is a great deal of difference between this and the 550d, but I went for it for the articulated screen.
This has proved useful for taking shots of small children as you can place the camera down at their height and compose the shot without laying on the floor. Rather than looking through the view finder you can switch to’live view’ where the photo you take will be shown on the lcd panel. This is also good for taking photos of flowers in meadows etc, you can get some quite fresh looking viewpoints.
I wanted to really step up the quality of my photos I didn’t get the kit lens, but instead started off with the Canon 50mm 1.8 II lens. This lens is notorious for taking very high quality photos for little money. I also got a Trascend 16GB class 10 memory card which can handle photos and video capture very quickly.
I took the camera down to family and friends and took plenty of photos inside and out. Well the photos the camera / lens combination took were outstanding, much better than I have taken before. The sharpness and detail is really amazing when you zoom in to look at the detail. The photos look professional quality, whereas I am an amateur, so very pleased. Shots inside the house, which was not well lit but looks brilliant even without using the inbuilt flash.
The 50mm lens is really a bargain, but is probably best used as a portrait lens, as on this body it is more like an 80mm. This means you can’t really get group shots in a confined space. I have just ordered the 15-85mm EFS lens which will cater for wide angle and mild telephoto, and be a good general walkaround lens. But I will keep the 50mm, as it’s low light performance is brilliant.
I had a quick go at videoing with the 50mm lens, but the result wasn’t great, because it is a bit of a telephoto, the results were jerky handheld - but I’ve no doubt with some practice/tripod and a different lens the results will be great(especially one with inbuilt image stabilisation like the 15-85). But my gut feeling is this isn’t going to be as convenient to use as a mini camcorder - but I don’t mind I bought it for the photos.
In terms of weight, this is a very light camera to walk around with and fairly small. With the 50mm lens on it was quite inconspicuous and I carried it around on my neck all day without any neck-ache problems.
I think that the 600D is capable of taking very good photos, but at a fraction of the cost. However, it isn’t built like a tank or weatherproof etc, so will need to be looked after.