new to this, how much should i pay?

[coral acquisition]

hi i want to get a dslr and dont know anything about it. a friend knows someone that's selling this

canon rebel xti with battery grip with 28-135 canon lens.
he said just to offer a price. what do u think is reasonable?

 

[dendronepthya]

dpreview.com says the street price of that camera without lens is about $600.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Canon/canon_eos400d.asp

I figure if you can get it and the lens for $600 it would be a pretty good deal. If you are a total novice to the world of DSLR's, I would recommend spending as little as possible up front on the body. It is going to take some time to learn all the various aspects of shooting with manual settings and in that time you'll figure out what features are and are not important to you. At that time, you can make an educated decision on what camera to upgrade to.

Another thing to consider is you should be spending more on the lenses than the camera body. The 28-135 lens is very "ok" but many photographers upgrade out of it to a 24-105L, 28-70L, or EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS.

 

[coral acquisition]

thanks