Canon goes out of its way to advertise the fact that the EOS 50D is by no means a replacement for the 40D - rather it is “built on the success of the 40D model.” Since the 40D is still on the market and inevitably falling in price as the months go by, is there any incentive to splash out the cash on a newer model that, at a glance, looks pretty similar?

The good news is that there's a fair few significant enhanced features on the 50D in comparison to the 40D; not just a few added megapixels or ‘creative filters', but real, workable improvements that will make a difference to your shots.

Load up the Canon EOS 50D with its 17-85mm, f/4-5.6 IS USM kit lens and it has a good, solid feel about it. The weight is distributed evenly and feels balanced in the hand (with this modest lens, at least). Turning the camera on, however, is annoyingly difficult thanks to a poorly designed power switch. Positioned at the bottom right of the rear camera body it's a thin, uncomfortable lever that needs to be “pinched” before turning. Fine if you have miniature fingers but awkward for most. As well as a turn dial for general operation there's also a joystick control that's uncomfortable to operate and a little temperamental too.

Get the latest Dell Coupons and other computer coupons at CheapStingyBargains.com.

The Canon EOS 50D is designed to bridge the gap between serious amateurs and professionals, so the first thing you notice when looking at the top of the camera body is that the shooting dial contains an array of preset shooting modes - a fully Auto mode as well as manual options. There's also a new ‘CA' Creative Full Auto mode that acts like a spruced up Automatic. With this set on the shooting dial you can tweak adjustments whilst still having your hand held by the camera in Auto mode.

Essentially this presents you with options to adjust depth of field or shutter speeds in no-nonsense plain speak, i.e. ‘Background: Blurred - Sharp' and ‘Exposure: Darker - Brighter'. This feature embodies the reasoning behind the 50D; giving encouragement to those who know very little about SLR settings but who want to know more.

It's a nice feature but we can't help thinking it a little odd for a camera that costs over £1,000 with a kit lens. This leads us to beg the question: who is this camera really aimed at? Surely those with the willingness to spend this much on an SLR would know at least the basics of exposure settings by now, or they could save a fair penny and bag themselves a 450D instead?

Marketing confusion aside there are some serious improvements that have been made to the Canon EOS 50D's innards compared with the 40D. The sensor has been completely replaced and is now a 15.1-megapixel CMOS APS-C size image sensor that's been tweaked to reduce noise and expand sensitivity.

With ‘H1' and ‘H2' settings it's now possible to push the ISO from 100 to 3200 through to extendable 6400 and a whopping great big 12800. Of course, H2 is as noisy as looking at the world through a pair of glasses made of sand, but if you are absolutely desperate to capture a shot and don't have the luxury of flash then these added extras are most welcome.

Whilst in Auto shoot mode or any of the scene modes you don't have the option of adjusting ISO manually. However, there's an improvement in the range since the Canon 40D. Previously offering Auto ISO, 100 to 800 it's now capable of ISO 100 to 1600.

Noise Reduction has also changed slightly too. Rather than just being able to turn this feature ‘On' or ‘Off' it's now possible to apply this setting in four different stages - ‘Standard', ‘Low', ‘Strong' and ‘Disabled'. The ‘Strong' setting, like all these gimmicks, tends to ‘over-smooth' noisy shots so it's probably preferable to fix this problem in your image-editing software once the images are off the camera.

There are quite a few features that are put in place to help avoid excessive image editing work. A new Auto Lighting Optimizer setting is capable of adjusting the brightness of subjects and dark images so that they appear brighter. This is especially useful if you are shooting a subject against a bright background, like a window, and is similar to the Active D-Lighting/D-Lighting feature found on similar range Nikon cameras.

The ‘Live View' function has been enhanced to incorporate ‘Quick Mode AF', ‘Live Mode AF' and ‘Face Detection Live Mode AF'. Working well, the Face Detection mode is capable of detecting up to 35 faces.

All shots are pleasant to preview thanks to a slightly larger monitor than the 40D at a measurement of 3.0-inches. As this is positioned bottom left of the camera and the majority of camera controls are top right you do find, unfortunately, that when adjusting menu settings your thumb often covers the screen. With a resolution of 920,000 pixels, though, it's clear, crisp and vibrant. If you want to view your shots on something even bigger you can also output to HD TV.

The Canon EOS 50D is a trusty model with an excellent number of enhanced shooting features compared to the 40D. With such important emphasis placed on auto shooting modes and dumbed-down shutter and aperture tweaks, though, it's bizarre that this camera model is targeted towards a rather high-end market. Unless you are one to pine after the latest gadgets and must have the most up to date camera features, if you're a modest enthusiast photographer you could save yourself considerable money by opting for the 450D instead.