Have a Happy New Year.

So With my experience I decided to stick with Canon. I headed off to Cnet and Canon’s official website to see what’s currently being offered. I looked at the various models, checking reviews and prices on Amazon. I have pretty much narrowed down my search to the Canon Digital Rebel XSi 12.2 MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens.

So after finding a SLR camera you need to find what lenses you want. About the only thing I knew about lenses was that I wanted to get a telephoto so I could take some bird and wildlife photos. A very helpful site has been Photo Notes’ Beginners FAQ Before reading that guide I only thought about zoom as the almost useless 4x, 10x numbers that point and shoot commercials talk about. Apparently what’s important is the focal length.

So after learning more about the type of lens I want, the searching began. The two best review sites that I found are The Digital Picture and Photozone’s Lens Reviews. I also searched through a myriad of different photography forums deliberating over which telephoto to get. I have been amazed to see how current the information is. It seems most google links to forums seem to be old forgotten topics. But most that I looked at were written in either April, May or June. This largely has to do with the fact that one of the lens I was looking at is a brand new lens, but I still find it interesting. So the two telephoto lenses that I have been looking at are the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Lens and the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens I still don’t know which one I want. I’m leaning towards the more expensive 70-300mm IS right now to get the extra reach for bird pictures. But at $250 dollars more for an extra 50mm is a hard decision.

So that leaves me on the last step: Trying to rationalize spending that much money. Unless someone wants to give me a free $2000 Amazon gift certificate. Too bad photography is so expensive. But it has been fascinating to learn about it anyway. For instance bokeh is the artful blurring of the background in a shot. Which expensive lens are good at. And I had a good laugh looking at insanely expensive lenses like the EF 1200mm f/5.6 L USM which weighs 36 pounds and goes for $120,000 used.