I bought this camera as gift for my wife, only to fall in love with it myself. :-) Self pat, “good move“ -- she approved the budget. Actually, she's pretty good with the lenses herself. Let me just say this camera kicks ass! I decided to go with the 8 megapixel camera versus Nikon D70 which is 6 megapixel SLR.
Instead of boring you with lots of details, for full review go to http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_eos350d.asp.
The hardest thing for me was deciding which camera body to purchase. Initially I wanted to go with Canon EOS 20D body, (http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=139&modelid=10464), however after reading the review above and not noticing hardly any difference in image quality. So, I decided to save some cash and purchase the 350D and upgrade my lenses to EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM
(http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=149&modelid=10511).
My current setup:
EOS 350D Body (Digital Rebel XT), EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM, and SpeedLite 430EX Flash (http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=141&modelid=11923)
The only disappointing thing is, there's no way to get the camera driver to work with Windows 2003 server operating system, if you want to hookup your camera to your computer you must use Windows XP. I guess transferring my pics via memory card reader will have to do instead.