misc. egg pics from Canon Rebel XTi

I had considered getting the newest XSi body but I couldn't justify the price difference of $300 just to get a little more resolution and not many other benefits. 10+ megapixel is plenty for my needs and some of the reviews I read actually preferred the XTi to the newer model. That's the thing about electronics: you only have the latest and greatest for a short time...

Interesting article Stike, thanks for sharing.

I agree with some of his points, although megapixel count does matter quite a bit under certain circumstances. For me it makes a huge difference when I need to significantly crop a photo or zoom far in while still having a lot of fine detail in the final image. It also matters when I shoot a photo with a less than ideal lens, such as the shrimp picture that you see above which was shot with a 35-80 EF lens that has an quivalent 56-128 zoom range when used on my XTi body. I took the shrimp pic from about 6' away and just cropped it to make the closeup photo yet I was still able to get a photo that looked like macro photograpy and both photos are still clear and sharp. If I tried this with my old 2 megapixel camera, the standard image wouldn't have been nearly as sharp when viewed full screen on a decent monitor, and the extreme closeup would have been blurred and grainy.

So if you are going to print 4x6 photos or look at the full unedited photos from a distance then megapixel count will not be as important, however it matters a great deal when you do enlargements, cropping, and are shooting with less than ideal lenses. There is a reason that the professional photographers all use the high-end digital SLRs, and some purists still won't use anything but standard film. Just my $0.02 worth.

Thanks for the note Gene. The painted egg turned out better than I planned. It looks great in my table and has held up well.

Since you are a pro then maybe you can help me with lens selection for mt XTi. I currently have Canon EF lenses, one 35-80 and one 75-300, both autofocus models which work pretty well. On the XTi these lenses have an effective range of 56-128 and 120-480 which is great for outdoor work but I lost the 35-50 range for indoor shots. Ideally I want a lens for indoor and macro use that can also zoom out to at least 80 but I am willing to give up zoom for good indoor, macro, and low light results. Occasionally I could use a small fisheye effect but this is less important.

So I looked at the EF-S lenses but they are pretty pricey right now, especially for something with a decent zoom range and IS and/or USM. Is there an alternative to replacing my EF with EF-S? I looked into the screw-on filters which provide a wide angle or macro effect but they seem to get poor reviews. Maybe you know of a good single lens in the 28-60 range with IS or USM?

Good info Gene, thanks!

I like the idea of getting the EF-S 17-55mm IS lens but $500 is a bit steep considering that I picked up the XTi body with a few small accessories and shipping included for only $535. Also, this would be a great indoor lens but not very useful outdoors so I would have to switch lenses too often which is not only a hassle but it increases the risk of getting dirt in the body and/or damaging the lenses.

I guess my ideal lens would be an EF-S 17-80 or at least 28-80 with IS and USM for under $400. I would give up the USM if needed but like the idea of IS since I typically shoot in low light when indoors. I even looked at some non-Canon lenses but there don't seem to be many good choices out there right now. Perhaps the market will open up and prices will come down in a bit.

Canon needs to remember that most people who spend $500 for a body aren't going to be comfortable spending a few thousand on lenses. If you are going to spend thousands then you might as well get the whole hog... :S