Hallo,
I left Friday morning for a weekend in the Sierra Nevada foothills with a bunch of friends. We stay at a friend's property there, a historic Gold Rush era hotel by one of the old mines. It's always an occasion to do a lot of photography for me, and this year the DSLR contingent was up to three. I brought the DS, my buddy Jack brought his new 20D, and Marc brought his 350XT.
Marc and I spent a bit of time walking and shooting. He just obtained the 350XT recently and didn't have the manual with him, only had the Canon kit lens. He handed me his camera on several occasions to fool with. Overall, the feel of the 350XT is far far nicer than the previous 300D, and it is only marginally larger in size compared to the DS. It's very fast on focus and responsiveness, as expected. Without the manual, I can't comment on all the features (I used it pretty simplistically in Av mode and found the aperture and exposure compensation controls just fine). For someone who owns a lot of Canon lenses and wants a more compact body, it's certainly an option.
Remember, however, that the good Canon lenses themselves are pretty bulky. I had the FA28-105, A50/1.4, and the DA14 along with the DS plus 5G of storage, spare set of batteries, tripod adapter plate, remote release and level, plus a small spiral bound notebook, all of which fit into the Billingham L2 shoulder bag without any problems; I know that I can't fit a similar Canon kit in that bag as the lenses are too large.
Switching back and forth between the XT and DS bodies, and discounting the fact that I know the DS body's controls and features so well, I found the DS to work better in my hands ... forefinger and thumb control all exposure settings without taking the camera from my eye in any mode, DoF preview is right there, and the focusing screen is a little better for manual focus work.
All that said, if the XT had been out when I bought the DS, I might not have gone for the DS as I have the Canon lenses. But it wasn't. I bought the DS, and I'm satisfied with it and with the Pentax lenses even in direct comparison.
Godfrey
