I have a digital rebel xt... I have been shooting now for about 6 months.. More and more people are wanting me take pics of babyshowers, personal pics stuff like that... nothing professional yet b/c I am not that good yet. lol... anyway... I am wanting to know what camera I should upgrade to at Christmas time.. I have been looking at the 5D a bunch.... If I were to start shooting wedding and things like that.. is the 5D good enough or do I need to bite the bullet and save for like a mark 2. Can someone tell me the how much better the 5D is than my rebel I have now? Sorry about all the newbie questions I just know that I am going to take this photography thing to the next level I just would like some advice to help make good decisions. Also I have been looking at the EF lenses... the 70-200 f/2.8 with image stabilization... I have heard nothing but good comments from some people.. Saying it is great for weddings, portraits things like that.. I currently have the stock 18-55 canon lens that comes with the rebel and the ultrasonic 70-300 f/4.5 lens.. I seem to be running into clarity issues and things like that..

any advice would be helpful..... for those of you who shoot wedding what is your setup..

thanks ....TODD

Well, I hope someone with wedding experience will answer your questions there. But I do think you ought to be able to get some good results with your XT. That kit lens is not one of the better ones out there, so you might first try upgrading that.

The Tamron 17-50 f2.8 makes a nice upgrade wide to normal lens for a about $440:
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showp...uct/355/cat/23

(And, on edit, I shouldn't leave out the Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4.5, for $340):
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showp...uct/349/cat/31

Or, if the wide angle is less important, the Tokina 28-70 f2.8 for about
$250:
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showp...uct/244/cat/33

Or, for $340, the Tamron 28-75 f2.8:
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showp...duct/49/cat/23

Or, the wider range of the Tamron 28-105 f2.8 might be more useful for your purposes, for $520, though with some trade off in quality with the larger zoom:

http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showp...uct/236/cat/23

And if you really doubt how much difference the lens makes, just try the very inexpensive Canon EF 50mm f1.8 prime for only $75, and you will see what your camera is capable of:
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showp...uct/150/cat/10

Your current lenses really aren't that sharp, because one is an inexpensive kit zoom, and the other is covering a wide zoom range all the way to 300mm. A 70-200 would typically be sharper than a 70-300. I imagine the 200mm max zoom would be sufficient for wedding purposes, and most of your portraits would be taken in the 70-100mm range. But I'll leave it to the wedding photographers to suggest an appropriate zoom range.

Todd,

If you're going to do event work - I will first urge you to avoid wedding work for quite a while yet - you still have a lot of work and practice to do first.

For parties, showers, etc - you need a couple things:

1. Good external flash and flash bracket. This should be your first step before buying more lenses.

Buy that and learn to use it with the kit lens.

2. Then you can look at upgrading your lens to something with a little better opical quality (something in the 17-85mm range would work nicely - hmmm, Canon makes one of those).

For these types of events, you can and should use flash. You're not going to do much portrait work yet so don't worry about it. You need to learn the ins and outs of flash work before you get to the portrait type shots you'll eventually need for portrait type work.

As for upgrading your camera - that's rubbish. You're a LONG, LONG, LONG way away from realizing the benefits a 5d can offer much less a 1-series. It is by no meansa knock on you at all. It's a knock on those people who don't know what they're talking about suggesting that the camera body is the critical link in the chain. In fact given the Canon line-up it's the last link in the chain.

First link is experienced photographer. Next link is the right accessories (lenses, flash, bracket, tripod). Only after you have all that are you going to realize the benefits a 5d or 1 series can provide. If you upgrade your camera now, IMO, you're simply wasting your money.

Even if you are wanting to do portrait work - investment in the right accessories has a much better ROI than investment in a new camera body (in this case you'll still want flash & bracket, a good portrait lens and a tripod and bracket). If you want to be serious about it you need to get lighting accessories - strobes, softboxes, light meters, etc. ALl of this is more important than a new camera body.

You're also trying to jump into some very difficult arenas. I suggest you pick your poison - portrait work or event work and learn one first. They're a bit different. Then when you're comfortable with both you can start into taking INFORMAL wedding shots - i.e. just shooting for private use - under no circumstances should you consider being the official photographer until you've got a number of weddings under your belt in an unofficial capacity and have learned enough - and trust me on this - when you shoot some weddings in an unofficial capacity you will learn very quickly there is A LOT to learn. It's an extremely difficult thing to do.

So, my advice - slow down, pick a discipline you want to work on next and spend some time on that before tackling the other. Believe me you'll have plenty of time and money to invest to tackle just one of the two (event or portrait) without trying to learn both at once.

I completely agree with JohnG

If you like your Rebel XT, stick to it. It's a very good camrea, apart from being on the small side (according to me).

A 5D or Mark II would be a waste of money that can be well spent on glass (with a red L ) ...

Unless you are going to make a living from your photographs (and even then), I wouldn't go higher than the 30D level...

So listen to the Canon guys on here and ask about good lenses, and then with a good flash you're well on your way.



...buying a 5D...man...I wish I had a wallet that would let me say that... :lol:

TDN