Buying a new camera - what do you guys think?

[FishyBiz]

Hi guys/gals
I currently have a sony cybershot (point and shoot) that I am over using to take pics of my tank. Im a newbi at photography but have a strong interest. I want to buy the Cannon Digital Rebel XTi with a 100mm macro lens.
My question is do I realy need the XTi or should i just get the XT? And what online place has the best prices?

Thanks!

 

[gregr]

Hi-
I just took a look at the two cameras side by side on dpreview.com and there are a couple of significant differences that jump off the page. The first and most obvious difference is the XTi has two more megapixels. I know most people think more is better but I'm not so sure- I'd really like to see images from each camera on my monitor to tell if Canon didn't pack too many pixels in too small a space. The only reason you'd need more megapixels is if you plan on printing huge prints. 8mp is plenty big enough for 16x20 prints fyi.
Two other significant differences in favor of the XTi- one is the lcd-- it's much bigger and theoretically sharper than the XT (230,000 pixels at 2.5" versus 115,000 pixels at 1.8" on the XT). The XTi is much faster as well- 3.0 fps, 27 JPEG or 10 RAW frames versus 2.8 fps, 14 JPEG or 4 RAW frames with the XT. There are quite a few changes aside from those mentioned, some of which you'll find useful and some you may not notice, but it is a fairly significant upgrade in my opinion-- I'd just want to see if the images aren't noisy at 400 [and higher] iso's before I got the Xti.
As far as cheap places to buy-- make sure you check the vendor out at www.resellerratings.com before you buy- there are some pretty shady stores out there.
Greg

 

[mfisher2112]

Be careful with online vendors for electronics, especially cameras. Make sure they guarantee that it is USA waranteed. Many are selling imports of the same models for lower prices, but they are not warranteed in the US.

 

[FishyBiz]

Greg
Thanks for the post! It was realy helpfull!

 

[PL-Reef]

greg-
If you'd like to check out some side by side comparisons (sp?) check out photography-on-the.net and just do a search, there were a few threads of comparisons both un-cropped and cropped to help people choice between the two.

 

[gregr]

Thanks- I'll go check it out