what do you think

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  • 08-10-2005, 01:17 PM
    terryger
    what do you think
    got a 2od a while back with a 75-300 is and am having the time of my life with it.

    so much so my wife is interested in joining me. we also thought of getting a shorter lens though i take very few "up close" and have a 5 mp kodak that is splendid for that purpsoe anyway and will take a lot of abuse(outdoor brush and water) with little consequnce if something does get damaged.

    we check out the canon 28-135 is lens at $600 which i think would be a good investment in the future but here is the rub.

    for $900 i can get the rebel xt with a standard 17-55 lens, tripod, bag..balh blah kit which, by all acccounts, is an alright beginner lens for here closeups.

    we could then get the 28-135 at a later time.

    i also have a chioce of a couple of what seem to be pretty good used 10d with or body only or plenty of accesories and different tamrac lenses for $7-900 depending on the accs.

    my wife thinks we shoud just get the new rebel as we would not have to worry about who did what with it before we did. i lean that way too, but a friend told me the 10d was a more solid camera than the xt.

    i think that point, though true, is negligible.

    what say you? thanx!
  • 08-10-2005, 03:39 PM
    Peter_AUS
    Re: what do you think
    Go with what the wife thinks as she is the one who will mostly be using it. I have the 10D, got it new after it had been out a while and low and behold the 20D came out within 3 months, my typical luck, but still my most used camera.

    I have the 28-135 IS lens and it is my most used lens, on camera 99% of the time. I have the 75-300 IS lens, not on camera 99.9% of the time, just don't like the lens at all.

    Kit lenses are fine to learn with, but once you start using a much better lens like the 28-135 IS lens you will wonder why you ever started with the cheaper lenses, certainly I thought that.

    I have a 50mm f/1.8 lens as well, and that is a great low light lens, although you have to remember it doesn't zoom, so after using primarily zoom lenses, took a bit to get used to it.

    Something in the range of 17mm-40mm f/4 L lens would be a very good option as a general purpose, good quality nice optics, every day lens (no not cheap), but certainly will give much better images than the kit lenses do.

    I would suggest taking images with the different lenses on the Rebel and on your 20D and then same images with kit lenses and look at the difference the prints are, looking at the screen or monitor sometimes can give you false impressions of quality as well. You need to look at the edges of the image not just the centres as well, to see the light fall off towards the edges of the lenses and also at different apertures to see the differences in quality.

    After all, the image is the most important thing. And you can often only get that quality, by using quality lenses.

    I wish I knew a lot more that I know now before spending some of the $$$$'s that I have on some of the equipment I have purchased. Secondhand resale here in Australia is terrible so often keeping gear is a better idea than selling it and quite heavy losses. Never know when you might need the back up of a lens or flash etc.

    Have fun with your decision.