Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Photography advice

I paid a nice chunk of change for my dSLR (Canon 20D - big brother to the XT), but the lenses are definitely the expensive part. Right now I have about $1700 in lenses, but there are a couple lenses on my wishlist that are over $1k each....so yeah, top quality lenses are expensive. But oooohhh so nice to use.

Though there is definitely a lot to be said for getting a nice lens with a nice big max aperture (2.8 or lower), I should mention that the Canon Rebel XT has very good noise characteristics, and even at 1600 the picture is definitely usable (and with a little noise reduction can even be enlarged fairly well). I shot a friend's wedding almost entirely at ISO 1600 (indoors, fairly low light with a rented Canon 24-70 f/2.8L lens - what an amazing lens!) and the results were actually surprisingly good (shameless link ).

ISO 800 is even better (in terms of noise), so you may be able to get away with the zoom Mark suggested and never straying below ISO 800. But in many cases even ISO 800 at f/4 or f/5.6 will only give you shutter speeds around 1/60 indoors, which should be enough to get a decently sharp shot with a little motion blur, but only if you've got steady hands and are shooting at the short end of the zoom. if you're shooting at the long end of that zoom, then it's going to take statue-like steadiness to get sharp shots - or you'll have to shoot from a tripod.

I would actually highly recommend the 85mm f/1.8 - I have it myself and it is really a fantastic lens - one of the best deals out there for Canon in terms of image quality for the buck. It's very sharp, focuses quickly and silently, and the f/1.8 is just fantastic for low light shooting. For the price it really can't be beat, and if you can get moderately close to the pool you should be able to get enough reach to not have to crop away too much of the shot. The effective focal range would actually be about 136mm and assuming you're not in a huge aquatic center that should get you fairly close (the XT's sensor is smaller than a regular 35mm frame, so the field of view we get on the picture is about 1.6x the focal length of the lens).

Adam, those shots you linked to are beautiful. Their quality has much more to do with your skill and creativity than with the equipment. I have always liked your work very much.

Warmest thanks for the ongoing tutelage and recommendations. You have greatly helped and inspired me.

Wow, those really are some great photos, Adam! I have much to learn.

I was especially impressed by the picture of the bride backlit by the glass door behind her. Did you use a seperate flash to fill in the shadows? Those shots are always tough for me to get right.

Keep up the great work!

Oh yeah, without flash she would've been almost a complete silhouette. I used flash (usually bounced) on nearly every indoor shot, actually.

First, thank you again to all of you who took the time to help.

Here's my story. I learned, analyzed and agonized. I shopped. I repeated the process ad infinitum. I consulted with and exasperated my wife. She ultimately said some version of "just buy the damn thing". Astutely, she pointed out that if she was not fully aware of my innate obsession on details, she might conclude that my behaviour constituted a strategy to that end. I honestly had never thought about it that way before. An epiphany in conjunction with an electronics purchase process.

Anyway, Canon started a rebate program on 4/1 - $100 on the Rebel XT plus $10-50 on some lenses. That was enough to get me. So, I ordered up (from B&H) the 350D, 50mm f/1.8, and the Canon 75-300 f/4.0-5.6 with a hood. I know that zoom is NOT going to get me the performance I need indoors, but long course (outdoor) season is approaching, and using it will be a good learning experience to help me figure out which prime(s) to get. And it will still be a fine lens for outdoor stuff, or until I can justify the expense of 70-200mm f/2.8. I concluded that this package with the extra pixels and future purchase of fast primes was probably the best approach for me. Smaller bites.

Unfortunately, I think that the next thing will be to look for a new camera for the missus. I'd be surprised if she became enthused about this level of complexity and form factor. Our current Canon is only 2MP, and hideously thicker than a deck of cards. She's enamored of some Casio 7MP tiny thing at the moment. Form over function for her.

It's been an excellent learning experience. I'll let you know about my future exploits. Again, particularly to Adam, Mark, Frank, Ken and other friends - thank you very much for your gracious tutelage.

Congratulations Tom!
Sounds like a very nice setup and a good step-by-step approach to the lenses. I have a 50mm f/1.4 as part of my Nikon kit and really like it for low light and night photography. I’m now lusting after the recently released but still-hard-to-get Nikon D200 as my first DSLR.

Have fun! We look forward to seeing pictures.

I was at office depot the other day and they had a couple cannon dSLR cameras. I was surprised how crisp and quickly the cameras focused.

I was like, woah, how did it do that. I still am confused of how it does that. My $400 ish Kodak camera, almost as good as a non SLR can get with an integrated lens system, takes forever to focus right, or doesnt to it right.

Be happy with your purchase Tom! Don't let your axioms get jealous of the new "family" member. :-P

Hey, congrats! Oh, I wouldn't count on your wife not being interested in the dSLR, though...

Congrats on the purchase, Tom! The XT should serve you quite well. Don't be afraid to look at third party lenses when you decide to upgrade/expand your collection. Sigma, Tamron and Tokina all have quality offerings, often at significant discounts to their Canon counterparts (the Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 might interest you further down the line). But I'll let you recover from this purchase before aiming your wallet towards other things.

Be sure to share your pics!

I feel like the last all-Canon hold out...