I LOVE this camera. It's easy to use and has plenty of features to keep the serious photographer occupied.

Shooters familiar with the earlier EOS series will find that the camera has retained many of its easy-to-use features, like the top-mounted main dial and rear jog dial that control the shutter and aperture settings respectively.

Its 10.1 megapixels may not be the highest in this round up but it has powerful features. It offers Live View or the ability to compose images and shoot from the large 3-inch LCD monitor instead of the small optical viewfinder.

It also has an in-lens image stabiliser as opposed to in-body stabilisers such as those found on the Olympus E3 and Sony Alpha 700. Lens-base stabilisers are great if you frequently work with longer and heavier telephoto lenses. On the flip side, lenses with built-in image stabilisers are usually more expensive.

The 40D uses an improved DIGIC III imaging processor that offers rapid image processing while maintaining excellent detail and colour reproduction.

Images produced are the most balanced in terms of colour, clarity and detail.

For example, a test image of a small waterfall shows clearly the balanced exposure between the sun-lit pebbles and shaded areas of the waterfall.

For more demanding shooters, the camera's Picture Style function is a godsend. Picture Style allows photographers to choose the right setting to get the right colour tone, contrast and saturation.

Choosing the landscape picture style for instance accentuates the greens in grass and blues in the sky or sea.