Vince M

My first Digital SLR!

VERY excited as I opened up the box last night. I was surprised at how small it was. I expected a much bulker and heavier unit. Somehow, I expected a 12 meg camera with a 18 to 55 mm zoom lense to be more massive than my old 5 meg HP. Was a little worried about the light camera's stability, but it has an image stablizing feature in the lens, so, I look forward to trying it out.

Got it for a decent price from Amazon, but I offer a caution to others. Amazon has a feature that tells you "People who bought this product also purchased ..." and then a list of other things. On the page I viewed, among these other items was a UV filter. I knew this was a good idea to get one as this filter also provides scratch protection for the lens, so I added it to my shopping cart. But when it came, the filter was for a 55 mm lens and my Cannon came with a 58 mm.

The filter didn't fit.

It didn't cost much so it's no biggie, but, since I read a LOT of questions on Yahoo Answers about first time buyers of equipment, I offer this caveat. Read ALL the specs about products and accessories and make sure the pieces are compatible. I also ordered an extra battery pack and noticed that there are several that LOOK like the one for my Cannon, but are NOT the same.

My question: Anyone have any REAL LIFE experience on battery life? Cannon says around 600 shots without flash and about 500 with flash. Is this reasonably accurate? The reason I ask is that on a serious expedition in the field, I MIGHT shoot several hundred frames in a single day. I'm hoping two fully charged batteries will be enough, but I don't want to be caught short.

Thanks, all.

My first Digital SLR!

VERY excited as I opened up the box last night. I was surprised at how small it was. I expected a much bulker and heavier unit. Somehow, I expected a 12 meg camera with a 18 to 55 mm zoom lense to be more massive than my old 5 meg HP. Was a little worried about the light camera's stability, but it has an image stablizing feature in the lens, so, I look forward to trying it out.

Got it for a decent price from Amazon, but I offer a caution to others. Amazon has a feature that tells you "People who bought this product also purchased ..." and then a list of other things. On the page I viewed, among these other items was a UV filter. I knew this was a good idea to get one as this filter also provides scratch protection for the lens, so I added it to my shopping cart. But when it came, the filter was for a 55 mm lens and my Cannon came with a 58 mm.

The filter didn't fit.

It didn't cost much so it's no biggie, but, since I read a LOT of questions on Yahoo Answers about first time buyers of equipment, I offer this caveat. Read ALL the specs about products and accessories and make sure the pieces are compatible. I also ordered an extra battery pack and noticed that there are several that LOOK like the one for my Cannon, but are NOT the same.

My question: Anyone have any REAL LIFE experience on battery life? Cannon says around 600 shots without flash and about 500 with flash. Is this reasonably accurate? The reason I ask is that on a serious expedition in the field, I MIGHT shoot several hundred frames in a single day. I'm hoping two fully charged batteries will be enough, but I don't want to be caught short.

Thanks, all.

I have finally made the plunge to a digital SLR. I've ordered my Cannon Rebel XSI with an 18 to 55 mm zoom lens. In my ancient past, when I shot film, I had a good selection of lenses. And I had a pretty good idea of the degree of magnification for the range of focal lengths. For example, I knew what my 100 to 200 mm zoom lens was capable of. But now, as I researched the specs on digital cameras, a whole new set of parameters had to be learned. On my point and shoot digital, I understood that 3X, 5X, 10X optical zoom could be pretty meaningless as what was 5X to one manufacturer was something else to another. But, when it comes to DSLRs, the standards seem to apply across the board, but that doesn't help me understand what to actually expect in performance.

My question is: Can someone copy a table, or please provide a link to one, showing a comparison of film camera lens focal lengths to those of digital camera lenses? Even if not a complete table, one that might show me what today's equivilant is to the old 50 mm 100 mm, 200 mm, 500 mm lenses would be helpful.

Thanks.

Cannon EOS Rebel Xsi. 12.2 megapixel.

This model seems to have the performance and features I need, and fits in my price range. Namely, it has fully manual options, interchangeable lenses, shoots in RAW format and is, of course, a DSLR.

I'd like to hear from other users, especially. What I'm not getting from the published user reviews are notes about shutter lag, battery life, Does it have plugs for a remote flash and a reciever for a shutter cable, and if the lenses can recieve various filters, such as a polarizing one.

Any other advice, pro and con would be appreciated, as well as suggestions for alternate products. My applications are VERY general, and include some limited studio shooting, a LOT of outdoor work, including motor vehicles, watercraft and aircraft, nature photog, including as much wildlife as I can get access to, land and seascapes. Not so much for action photos, except wildlife. Some of this is as an adjunct to my graphic design work, but most commercial grade photography is farmed out to professionals. Some published work, but very little that requires more than eight megs or so in final form. What I want is to upgrade enough to retain more of what I have to farm out and keep it in house, and, to avoid the expense of a camera body upgrade for several years. I don't mind upgrading lenses, but not the camera itself.

Thank you, friends.

Vince M.

When I started on Yahoo Answers, I promised that when I finally created my own avatar, that it would knock your socks off. Did I manage to, at least, loosen your garters?

When I started on Yahoo Answers, I promised that when I finally created my own avatar, that it would knock your socks off. Did I manage to, at least, loosen your garters?

withing a 24 hour period without answering a single question?

Funny how some folks, like myself, are not ashamed to let my answers speak for themselves, instead of "hiding" them behind a "private" screen. C'mon, Mikey, give it up. You are not fooling anyone.