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"  When the Canon Digital Rebel debuted in 2003, its price tag marked a watershed moment for digital SLR cameras. For $999, you could purchase the camera&amp;#039;s body and lens\u2014the first time an SLR clocked in at under a grand, and a symbolic moment for the crossover of SLRs from the pouches of pros to hobbyists. In the years since, several other manufacturers have come out with sub-$1000 SLRs, but the Rebel (in all of its subsequent upgrades) remains the most iconic of the bunch.  Amateur photographers weened on the simplicity of point-and-shoots are turning themselves into an increasingly larger share of the SLR market. And when they graduate to the SLR big leagues, they&amp;#039;re reluctant to give up some of the niceties of point-and-shoots. Chief amongst these is the ability to use the camera&amp;#039;s onboard LCD screen to frame the shots in real time. Until very recently, no SLR was capable of performing this feat. In recent years, however, cameras for a number of manufacturers (including Olympus and Sony) have managed to pull it off. Canon, which essentially defined consumer-grade SLRs, had somewhat surprisingly shied away from it left out frame-on-the-go with its entry-level Rebel line\u2014until now. Still, all indications are that Canon built its Live View into the just-released, 12.2-megapixel EOS Rebel XSi ($899 for the body and lens kit) with a bit of reluctance. A whole chapter of the XSi&amp;#039;s instruction manual is dedicated to Live View. A good portion of that, however, seems to be aimed at discouraging people from actually using the brand-new functionality. It&amp;#039;s almost as if Canon is philosophically opposed to the feature, and was forced to include it to appease point-and-shoot converts. If you follow the instruction manual&amp;#039;s advice, you&amp;#039;ll only activate Live View when the camera is mounted on a tripod, taking still-life shots. Canon warns that you&amp;#039;ll likely get blurry pix by holding the XSi at a distance with Live View turned on\u2014you know, like you would with a digital point-and-shoot. The feature won&amp;#039;t even work in a bunch of camera settings. In fact, Live View isn&amp;#039;t even flipped on as a default setting\u2014you have to tinker around a bit to enable it. And the camera categorically forbids you from using it in any of the automatic settings. (That&amp;#039;s somewhat ironic, considering that the skilled photographers using manual settings are the least likely to want a live preview.) While it&amp;#039;s great that Canon finally included the point-and-frame feature on an SLR the Rebel, you get the distinct sense that they aren&amp;#039;t happy about it. Perhaps Canon thinks that Live View will result in less-than-stellar shots, and users will blame the camera (and the company) for their own subpar shooting. It&amp;#039;s almost as if Canon is attempting to limit the feature&amp;#039;s usage to such a degree that they can point to its underuse as a justification to remove it entirely from future cameras. Of course, this would be a mistake, and one that would likely leave the often-innovative Canon nipping at the heels of their imitators. \u2014Seth Porges   RELATED STORIES \u2022 TEST DRIVE: New Low-Light Nikon vs. Kodak  \u2022 PLUS: Top 5 Tips (and Cameras) for Taking Better Pix  \u2022 HOW IT WORKS: Digital Camera Face Recognition   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a2802/4258940/>