Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased the T5i with the 18-135mm lens kit. I LOVE the camera, but wasn't completely satisfied with the lens for my purposes. If you are on a budget the kit lens is capable of giving you great close up and wide angle/zoomed out shots, and for most people I can see this being a good starter lens (especially if you already know that the range is appropriate for your uses - such as full landscape shots, brightly lit settings, groups of people indoors etc.) For my personal choice in subject matter (including wildlife and some low light photography) I can't recommend buying kit lenses due to the zoom range limitations and higher f stop than some other affordable lenses. I ended up returning my kit and bought the body only and two separate low cost lenses to meet my needs (a fixed focal length lens with low light capabilities such as the 28 or 50mm f/1.8, and a good zoom like the "EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS II") until I was able to invest in a longer zoom range L series lens. (I upgraded my zoom to the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS for bird and animal photography once I could justify the $1,500 expense, but for most people the $299 Canon 55-250mm is a great starting point especially for zoom situations such as outdoor people shots, animals in a park or a trip to the zoo.) First about the camera itself: The touch screen is high quality and responsive, I ended up using it more often than I thought. It makes picture review a breeze after pressing the play arrow button. If you've ever used an I Phone/similar touch screen where you can make a pinching motion to to zoom in and out of photos, slide your finger left and right to flip through photos, it's the same familiar technology. Very solid camera construction, heavy weight (with the lens attached it's very heavy to carry around in your hand, especially for anyone used to a smaller point and shoot - you WILL want to use the neck strap that comes with this.) I found it to be user friendly with many dial modes that allow you to get started quickly. The only thing I did not immediately figure out how to do is take video, as I expected it to be a mode on the dial and not in the main on/off switch area unlike previous versions of this camera and my other point and shoots. Anything you can't figure out, the extensive user guide book that comes with it should provide answers. It displays a description of each mode on the screen as you rotate the dial. You will want to buy a screen protector and a "lenspen", this will get small smudges and lint on it really fast. The flash disperses light extremely well compared to any camera I've used before. I was able to take pictures of my cats from a few feet away, didn't get the laser eye effect and could see every single piece of hair and little details of their noses as if they were in outdoor light. There is only one mode that doesn't use flash when the camera detects that it is dark, so if you're taking pictures of animals outside be aware that even in sunlight its possible that your flash with pop up with a loud snap sound scaring your animal away unless you have it on the NO FLASH setting. Battery life and memory cards: I got a 64gb SDXC card which in retrospect was overkill, each photo at the highest quality 18 mega pixels is about 7 to 9mb each, and after taking a thousand pictures in .jpg mode I was still about 2% full on my memory card space. This would likely be a good size for a week long vacation, but I transfer my images to my computer daily. ***Most importantly*** I recommend a high speed memory card (such as the "Sandisk Extreme Pro" 32 or 64gb cardsSanDisk Extreme Pro 32 GB SDHC Class 10 UHS-1 Flash Memory Card 95MB/s SDSDXPA-032G-AFFP) with the 95mb/sec transfer speed. This is very important because it affects your shot to shot speed, especially in burst mode shooting where you are taking continuous photos of moving objects. I noticed a huge difference in how many shots I could take in a row before the camera paused to write the files to the memory card before continuing shooting from the initial card I purchased (30mb/sec standard sdxc card would take several seconds to pause after 6 to 10 pictures or releasing the shutter, vs the 95mb/sec card I got afterwards that keeps shooting so fast that I typically stop taking photos before it even slows down.) If you're going to be photographing birds, children or sports I think it is the most important thing to invest in with this camera. If you're going to be shooting in RAW format for professional use the files are much larger (about 25mb each) so you'll need a larger memory card, and it will also slow down your continuous shooting speed, but for most casual photographers this file format is not necessary. Battery life is AMAZING when you do NOT use the live view touch screen or take video. I took pictures constantly, many in continuous shooting mode of birds outside, not too many with flash, for over 3 hours and still had a mostly full charge. What I didn't like from my initial experience: This might seem like a no brainer for the experienced, but I was not expecting the camera to NOT allow me to take bad pictures. I thought I had a lemon when I repeatedly attempted to push down the shutter button to find it unresponsive. What really happened was, when you have the lens set to auto focus, you have to be the minimum focus distance away from your subject. Get too close and your camera will just act like you didn't press anything. Really I think that it should give you some sort of message on the screen to let you know that it's still alive and it just needs you to back up. It took me a while to find the little camera screen icon button that activates the "live view" (so you can see images on the screen as you take them.) I was disappointed to find that it makes the camera audibly work much harder with focusing. The booklet also warns that the camera can overheat and shut down if you use this mode too long, and I don't doubt that it adds quite a bit of wear and tear on your camera. It also drains your battery much faster, so I would suggest that you use the viewfinder only. Image quality: I have quickly learned that this camera is capable of AMAZING shots, but it can look bad depending on the lens and lighting. I can't stress that enough, this camera can give you great detail, but LIGHT is your best friend for non-tripod shots, and all lenses are not created equal. With most lower cost zoom lenses you will see noise in your low light photos when you view them full size. You might think that the more expensive the lens, the better, but due to the cost of making a quality zoom (a range of millimeters such as the ones in the kits) vs the lower cost of manufacturing a fixed mm lens, you can actually find a really great lens for about $100! That would be the "EF 50mm f/1.8 II Fixed Focal Lens" which is commonly referred to by photographer's as the "nifty fifty". Check it out here on Amazon to see quite a few breathtaking photos taken with that lens. Its also very compact, lightweight, and basically makes your DSLR as close to a point and shoot for every day photography as you can get. Two starter lenses gave me great results, the "EFS 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II" (great for outdoors, anything from landscape and ducks/squirrels/birds in nearby trees, to close up flower pictures from standing 4ft focus distance away) and the "EF 50mm f/1.8 II Fixed Focal Lens" (which is great for outdoor people pictures, portraits, landscapes, flowers, is lightweight, low cost and provides beautiful bokeh and image quality, but has no zoom for wildlife.) If you're NOT shooting animals from 20+ feet away, don't often find yourself using the zoom because you can't reach a subject, and are interested in the low light capabilities of a lower f stop, the 50mm fixed lens is likely all you need to get started. If you feel the need to be more "zoomed out" AND require the lower f stop for stars/night photos/low light situations, there is also a 28mm f/1.8 lens but it runs about $450. If you're not sure what your photography style is yet, or know that you will need the wide angle ability for full landscape shots, then the kit lens may be the right starting point for you. I wasn't sure when I bought my kit if 135mm was enough reach for me, and since it wasn't, I was happy that I bought it from a no-hassle-returns store after I had a chance to try it out. The type of camera user that I am: I take a lot of outdoor pictures including close up flowers to far away birds, animals and partial landscape pictures. I'm asking a lot from a single lens as far as range goes. Within days I found myself wishing for more zoom capabilities, coming from a point and shoot with 10x optical zoom I was actually a little surprised at the limited zoom distance on the 135mm. I bought the "EFS 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II" lens and found that, for my purposes, it completely replaces my 18-135mm kit lens. As long as you can stand at least 4 feet away from your subject you can take the same quality close up shots with the 250mm lens, I got some really beautiful flower macros with this lens (clearly showing pollen on tiny half inch flowers.) The only bad thing I could say about the 55-250mm is that the upgrade from the 18-135mm wasn't as significant as I'd hoped as far as view distance. The few feet of visual distance you gain is worth it however, since it makes all the difference for not startling that chipmunk or bird. I found that I was able to take somewhat decent photos within 100 feet (with some noise when using automatic ISO settings and less sharpness than you might get with certain L series lenses,) GREAT photos when I was able to be within 20-30 feet, and PERFECT pictures when I was within 10 to 20 feet of my subject. *For any beginners out there, a note about lens mm and f stops: the higher the mm number the more "zoomed in" you are to a subject. So if you have a lens at starts off at 55m you are already more zoomed in on the subject than if you had a lens that starts off at 18mm. I can see that this could be an issue if you are taking full body pictures of people in a room that you can't back up very far. For outdoor photography I found it unnecessary to have the lower range, as you can simply back up a couple feet to get a shot. In fact, I found the image quality of the 18-135mm lens very comparable to the 55-250mm for close up shots (such as flowers) I only had to change where I stood to get the picture. This was about 4 feet away with the 55-250 lens, and when holding the camera to my eye pointing downward I found that the top half of my shoe filled the entire picture. When looking into other lenses to purchase be sure to get one with IS (Image Stabilization) which I highly recommend making a priority UNLESS you are using a tripod. The "F" number in the title of lenses tells you how much light a lens can take in. The lower the number, the easier it is for a lens to do well in lower light settings. The low numbers (such as f/2.8 and lower) are usually referred to as "fast" lenses. It enables the camera to focus faster, have shallow depth of field (often resulting in beautiful bokeh- background blur patterns) and have higher shutter speeds. Many people will find the kit lenses acceptable for their uses even at f/5.6, so unless you know you will need a lower f number frequently, if the kit lens zoom range is good for you it may be a good place to start. *************EDIT 05/04/2013************* After a few weeks of using the camera, I've come to enjoy it even more. The burst mode has been very good with capturing birds in flight, with only a few occasions of freezing for a second (upon releasing the shutter after a series of shots) to write files before resuming shutter response. The battery life continues to amaze me after spending many hours continuously shooting (very frequently using the burst sports mode taking rapid fire shots) without running low on power. I also tested out the "Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens" to extend my 250mm's range when I saw it on sale for about $470, but found that the image quality of its 75-250mm range was not as nice as my 55-250mm lens. For some reason when using automatic settings on my camera the amount of soft images I had using this 70-300mm lens were significantly more frequent than my 55-250mm lens. In addition to that negative it was not well suited for flower photography or much of anything close up, which I only mention because the versatility of that 55-250 lens is great. Perhaps I had a not so great copy, as my methods as a photographer didn't change between swapping out my 55-250 with the 70-300 lens, but my image quality certainly decreased. As far as bird watching goes, the 300mm range did increase my view distance and is better than being limited to the 250mm, however for the price I decided to return it to save up for the L series 100-400mm. ***YAY AWESOME LENS*** My "100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS" lens is giving me the shots I've always wanted to take, beautiful birds in flight and wildlife from 100 to 200 feet away in wonderful detail. Hummingbirds frozen in time, wood ducks with individual feathers visible at 200 feet. The push/pull zoom takes getting used to and it is very heavy weight. It's not super low-light friendly, but in most daylight situations the photographs turn out great. Those are the only "negatives" to this lens, but at the same time the weight is due to it being sturdy/quality built. This is an older model from Canon designed around 1998, but still sells well today simply because it's still one of the best out there in this price and zoom range. The "Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II" with the 2x extender lens may have also been an option to get to the 400mm mark, however that combo was twice the price and I didn't want to take any image quality losses using a zoom extender. It is however widely regarded as one of the best lenses that Canon makes, so if 70-200mm works for your subject matter I highly recommend checking out the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II if the $2,199 price tag is within your budget. It's definitely on my wish list. If you have had a good experience with a certain lens, I would love to hear from you about it. Thank you :)