I just got this new camera, a Canon Digital Rebel XT– going back to being a newbie learning a whole new interface. 8 MegaPixel SLR, wahoo!
I’ve been saving up my spare change and with some help from sideline consulting, I bought a new digital camera, this Canon Digital Rebel XT.
My previous 2 personal digital cameras and ones bought at work were all Olympus brands (I became enamored of their lenses with my first portable 35 mm Stylus used for many years), and had grown weary of the lag time and data writing lag of my Olympus 4040 (like the Elk cross the road in Colorado, but the time the 4040 was ready, I ended up with a photo of my rear view mirror), though it has logged unknown thousands of images.
The reports on the Canon so far live up to it in action, all of 2 days and maybe 12 photos. It is very lightweight, and at first I was wary of how light the lense felt in my hand compared to the hulking weight of my old Nikorrmat, but wow is the Rebel fast! Not just in start up, just about everything. Not just “fast” but FAST.
Not sure if I’ll be shooting all at the high end res (around 3400 x 2400 pixels) which seems like overkill for family photos, though with a 1 Gb CF card, I can fit nearly 300 in. (The image above is not very big since it was uploaded over the 24 Kbs dial-up here at our cabin). No it is just fun to be looking through the lens, and thinking about finding the old polarizing filter I;ve not used in eons, and having access to full manual shooting (not sure yet why).
Of course the hurdle is learning a completely new camera interface, menus, and controls, but all in time.
I am hoping to get one of these for work as well for shooting on the job, so you can expect my flickr metadata to be Canon for a long while.
My shutter finger is getting itchy…
What did you pay for the SLR if you don’t mind me asking. I have been looking for one for my fiance and this one will let her use all of her old lenses.
I had no Canon lenses, so I bought the package with body and basic lens for about $950. I ordered mine form Costco online since it helps with our year end rebate. It arrived something like 3 days after ordering. You might check prices via Froogle:
http://www.google.com/froogle?q=canon+digital+rebel+xt
or some of the links from good camera sites like Steve’s Digicams (I always check his reviews first):
http://www.steves-digicams.com/
Note that the camera does not come at all with a CF card, so make sure you order one of those. I’m also looking at getting a back up battery ince it uses the Canon rechargable and I cannot get away anymore with a pouch of back up AAs.
just noticed your Technorati tag on this page is spelled incorrectly…so it doesn’t work