Canon Rebel XT

[fantasmic_boy122]

My mom is thinking of buying our family a Canon Rebel XT. She is considering buying the Rebel with 18-55 MM lenses. Is this lense good enough? Or should we just buy the body of the camera. Also what lenses do u recomend to buy. My mom is just about clueless right now. Also if you have a personal review on the Rebel could you plz post...

Thanks...
--->FB122<---

[Disneyland Fan]

A friend of mine has a Rebel and swears by it. Not sure what lens they have/use though, but I like the features it has and love the pictures it takes!

~DF~

[xfkirsten]

I've got a Rebel, and I'm absolutely thrilled with it. The 18-55mm that comes with the kit is pretty decent for the price you pay - I'd reccommend it. It's a good, basic lens.

As far as lenses go, that really sort of depends on what you're planning to use it for.

I bought a telephoto zoom lens to go with mine. I'm working with a Sigma 70-300mm lens. It's okay, although you get a bit of a halo effect sometimes when you're zoomed all the way in - that's pretty typical of the lower-cost, wide-range lenses. If you've got the budget, spring for a telephoto lens with Image Stabilization (IS) - that'll neutralize some of the camera shake that gets magnified when you're zoomed in pretty far, and thus your photos will be sharper. Virtually all of my Fantasmic shots are done with my 70-300, and most of the time during that show, it's zoomed in all the way. If you are using any sort of telephoto lens, I'd also highly reccommend a tripod. As I mentioned before, the more you zoom in, the more that camera shake affects the sharpness of your photo (and the harder it is to keep the subject where you want it in the photo!). Using a tripod will help reduce that problem by stabilizing the camera.

For dark shots, Canon makes an 50mm f/1.8 lens that sells on B&H for about $70. Combined with the 1600 ISO, it has made for some great shots in darker rides (http://xfkirsten.smugmug.com/gallery/707286/2/30867064)!

Again, I'd say first consider what you really want to do in particular with your camera (general shots, nature, portrait, whatever) and use that as a basis for choosing the lenses that best suit your needs and your budget.

Personally, I'm in love with my XT - it was a lot of scrimping and saving last year to get it, but it was money that was VERY well spent. The 1600 ISO is awesome for shooting night shots. Obviously, the higher up in ISO you go, the grainier the picture is, but even the 1600 setting on the XT has surprisingly little grain. The grain on my old Canon PowerShot A70 was worse at 400 than the XT is at 1600! And the virtual lack of a shutter lag is perfect for getting a shot at a precise moment. For example, on the small bursts they shoot off the castle during the Frontierland segment of Remember, if my finger is on the shutter and I'm absolutely ready, if I hit the button as soon as I see the effect start to go off, I can get a shot of it (http://xfkirsten.smugmug.com/gallery/1349031/9/63661104). That's how non-existant the shutter lag is! :smile:

[fantasmic_boy122]

thanks for your input u guys and gals..

[andrewilley]

I can't really add too much to what Kirsten has already said. Basically, the Digital Rebel XT is an excellent camera. I've had mine for just over a month now; I bought it for a trip to WDW, as I just wasn't happy with the results I was getting from my Minolta Dimage A1. I had previously used a Canon EOS-5 35mm (film) camera, so some of my existing accessories and lenses matched the Rebel too, and I couldn't be happier with my choice - so much so that I shot over 3,000 pics in two weeks at WDW! Just the instant start-up time and shutter response is such a welcome change from previous digital experiences.

Lens-wise, I opted for Canon's 17-85 IS USM lens rather than the standard 18-55 (I already had a 75-300 zoom). Two reasons: first, it gives a better zoom ratio with just the one lens (easier for general snapshot pics) and second the Image Stabiliser option cuts down on camera shake when shooting in lower light conditions. But it's quite a lot more expensive, and slightly bigger and heavier, than the 18-55 so do bear those two factors in mind. You can always get more lenses later anyway, that's the whole joy of SLR photography. Oh, if you do get an IS lens, make sure you turn the IS mode off if you're using a tripod or in a moving vehicle. IS helps against normal hand-held camera shake but doesn't work so well with no shake at all or with very excessive camera movement.

I already had the 50mm 1.8 lens that Kirsten mentioned with my old EOS-5 camera, and yes it does come in very handy alongside the Rebel XT's brilliant high-ISO performance to allow you to shoot inside rides (http://www.visionsfantastic.com/forum/gallery/files/12677-GMRWizardofOzIMG_1028scaled.jpg)without a flash. Very small and light to carry around too. The camera's performance even up to 1600 ISO, or when using very long exposures (http://www.visionsfantastic.com/forum/gallery/files/12677-EpcotItalyIMG_1673scaled.jpg), is amazing - far less grain than you'd get using 1600 ISO film for example.

What else? Get a filter, partly for lens protection. Maybe a UV, or a circular polariser is a useful one for enhancing outdoor photos. Get a remote release control for any tripod-mounted shots (Canon's RC-1 is neat, infrared, and clips onto the shoulder strap neatly). A spare battery is a good idea, you don't want to run out of power at the vital moment. And a nice big memory card for the same reason. I found 1GB was about OK for a day at WDW (280 or so high quality pics), but if you're shooting in RAW mode then I'd carry around at least twice that much. Of course you could always go the other way, and shoot low resolution with high JPEG compression on a smaller card, but then why spend the money on a decent camera in the first place?

I know you will be very happy with the Digital Rebel XT - have fun!

Andre

[fantasmic_boy122]

thanks for that review Andre

[DaddyB]

I hate and love the kit lens. The zoom level is very useful, but the lens itself feels SO cheap it's disgusting.

The canon rebel is a great beginner digital SLR.

STRONGLY suggest picking up a camera course at a school or through a camera shop. I also strongly suggest finding somewhere to get a copy of Photoshop and take a beginner course on it as well.

My wife thinks snapping a few dozen shots and getting the prints is easy, because that's all she does with them... shoot, upload to sam's club, and pick up the prints later that day. But what she gets is fine snapshots.

There's A LOT more to that camera!