After months of agonizing and bugging everybody I know and those I don’t know (thanks Dave and Stuoopidgirl), I finally bought the Canon 30D. I realize that I probably spent $600 over the cost of the D70S on minute features that I will never need or use but I think it was a good choice for me because now I won’t be thinking, “I wish I spent a little more.”

Now the big adventure begins because I’ve never owned or used an SLR. The kit came with a 18-55 lens, whatever the hell that means I am going to do a combination of automotive photos and nature shots so when I get some extra $$$$ I will probably need to find a good all around lens or lenses to compliment or replace the one it came with. But everybody tells me the one that it came with is a good starting point to learn. They had a 75-300, which they told me would work well for zooming in on nature shots (critters) but I didn’t get it because I want to read up a little more. Any lens suggestions for an absolutly ignorant newbe?

 

Welcome to the D-SLR Money Pit!

Shoot with the 18-55 for a bit, then decide if you want to go wider or longer in focal length based on what you're actually shooting.

My strong suspicion is you'll want to go longer. Your Canon options are:

• 70-300 F4.5-F/5.6 IS (image stabalization) $550
• 70-300 F4.5-F/5.6 IS (image stabalization) and DO (diffraction optics)$1200 - smaller size, supposedly better optics
• 70-200 F4L $580
• 70-200 F4L IS - announced recently, but no pricing at retailers yet that I've seen.
• 70-200 F/2.8L $1100
• 70-200 F/2.8L IS $1700

The L series lenses have better glass.

The smaller the F-stop number, the bigger the aperture, and the more light you have available, which means you can shoot in lower light conditions hand held.

If it were me, I'd get either the 70-200 F4L, 70-200 F4L IS, or the 70-200 F/2.8L IS depending on the budget you have.

I have the Nikon 70-200 F/2.8 VR (VR is Nikon's equivalent of IS), and don't regret for a second spending the money on it.

The added benefit of getting an F/2.8 lens is that you can throw a 1.4x or a 2.0x teleconverter on the lens, get a much longer effective focal length, and still have autofocus work.

 

Congratulations!
While I'll second Dave B's suggestions about the zoom lenses, I'm typically using a 28-70mm (18-47mm equiv for your DSLR) lens for 80% of my nature photos. The remainder of the time I'm using a 20mm prime so I can get an even wider angle shot. Use the kit lens for a while and discover it's limitations for you before adding more glass.

One strong suggestion I'd make is to add a circular polarizer to your camera bag. It really helps your nature photos look better by making the colors more vivid, removing or reducing bright spots, and changing reflection's strength. I never leave home without it.

 

They are talking about about $1200 for the 70-200 F4 IS. A bit high I say..

 

Congratulations Rick!
Hope to see you making good use of it at the Belmont Shore car show in a few weeks.

-Juan

 

Earlier in the month I picked up a 30D with a 17-85 f4.0-56 IS lens. So far, it's been a lot of fun. I am certain that I will fall into the SLR Money Pit as I did with my (sidelined, sadly) Canon A1 35mm.

I'm probably going to treat myself to a 70-300 telezoom lens as an xmas present. I also want to get the 28mm f1.8 lens to be the DSLR equvalent of my trusty old 50mm f1.4 FD lens I used most of the time on the A1 (it works out to be about 45mm with the 1.6x CCD mag factor).

Welcome to the club!

 

Thanks guys, I am very excited about this. I am going to take a few classes at the local college so I don't have to bug you guys about the basics.

 

Nice Rick!!! Stoked for you dude.

The biggest suggestion that helped me the most when I first got my Digital Rebel was to read the manual and familiarize yourself with all the camera's features. Then, once you start learning the uses of aperture and focal length and all that, you know what to alter on your camera to get there.

 

Excellent. I'm jealous. Best thing too is learn one small feature at a time and just play around and experiment till you have it figured out, then move on to the next one. No need to be intimidated by an SLR because they still take great shots in full auto mode.

 

Let me know if you find one that with a digital workflow. Most of the ones I've seen are film based.