I just bought a Canon Rebel XTI, which lens should I purchase first any and advice on photo software?

Answer 1

Depends on you bought the camera.
Case 1> without lenses. Then you would like a wide angular, a telephoto that goes from 30 or 40mm to 20 or 300mm, and if you like small things looking big, have the zoom lenses include a macro specification.

Let me suggest, for example, a Sigma 18-50mm f3.5-5.6 wich for $400 or so will give you ample space to take groups, landscapes, etc, and a Sigma 100-300mm f/4.5-6.7, wich has a less than $170 pricetag for long takes.

If you have more money, buy the Canon EF 17-85mm 4-5.6 , wich is a less than $500 beauty, and a anon EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM Zoom Lens wich is $50 more.

What you got is a beautiful 10 mpix camera, so blow up your images a lot.. they look beautiful!

If you are into really action takes, then you should opt for a speedy lenses *more aperture( wich are E X PE N S I V E but the richiest ones. Example, the Canon EF 70-200mm 2.8L IS USM Lens for..... / Only $1,699.99 /

What you should understant is, tele zooms are very good at avoiding you walking too much and having backgrounds closer at 1st subjects... if you are kind of forgetting things or shooting in dusty environments as motocross races, you better use a single lens because dead weight and leaving you spare lens on the field will mean lots of money to the trash!

Answer 2

It really does depend on what you want to shoot and whether or not you want a zoom lens or a prime (fixed focal length) lens.

Here's what I have in my bag (They're all Canon lenses):

18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (kit lens): Pretty decent general purpose lens. I only use this when shooting landscapes (and even then, it's sometimes not wide enough) or if I need a wide angle indoors (and I usually have to use flash as it's not that fast)

35mm f/2.0: Fantastic lens that's on my camera the majority of the time. Very sharp lens. I use this for taking pictures indoors without flash. The only downside is that it's not a USM lens so the focus motor is a little buzzy.

50mm f/1.8: First lens I bought (besides the kit lens). Very cheap and relatively sharp. It can be a little long indoors, but it got me used to working with a prime lens and also with a shallow DOF.

85mm f/1.8: One of canon's best portrait lenses in my opinion. Razor sharp, fast focusing, beautiful bokeh. Good for when you need a slightly long lens in low light conditions (on the rebel it's equivalent to 135mm)

70-200 f/4.0 L: My only other zoom lens, and it's wonderful. I use this to take pictures outdoors--it's great for capturing my kids at play. I used to always have the 85mm on when I was shooting outside, but now that I have this, the 70-200 is always on. There have been times where I've needed a little bit faster of a shutter speed. I've contemplated splurging for the 2.8 IS model. They've also just recently released a version of mine with IS.

Like I've mentioned, it's only rare cases where I've been needing another lens. I've gone the prime lens route because I try to avoid using flash and so I wanted some fast lenses. The fast canon L zooms would've been more convenient, but they're very expensive and my primes offer comparable sharpness and they're faster to boot. The biggest downsides to a setup like mine is the number of lenses you have to cart around and swap between.

Good luck! Hope this helps a bit!

Oh, and about photo editing software--I'd take a look at photoshop elements. It's kind of a scaled down version of Photoshop CS (and significantly scaled down in price). Elements should fit the needs of the majority of folks out there, unless you're looking to get into some more complicated stuff. Photoshop CS is an awesome program and is widely used by professional photogs. Scott Kelby has some photoshop elements books out there that are target to the digital photographer.

A lot of folks use Paint Shop Pro as well.

Answer 3

The "widely used" lens should be the Canon 18 - 55mm. i might want to recommend paying for the digicam with this lens. It retains your unique funding down and can provide a photo taking equipment of quite spectacular at the same time as used correct. The 18 - fifty 5 mm lens provide you with a zoom variety from sensible wide attitude to somewhat over 2x telephoto which sounds to me like it would want to come close to to taking various the photo varieties you want to shoot. The seventy 5 - 300mm lens is an truly good photo taker (i'm man or woman who has one and loves it), yet on your digicam might want to provide you with the equivalent of about 3X to 13X magnification. In different words, no wide attitude end in any respect and a magnification variety that international require you to apply a tripod for each of the images you took utilizing it. do not confuse lenses to artwork like they could on a 35mm movie digicam. The XTi is extra like a !/2 body 35mm digicam so any lens you get will be a million.5+ cases extra magnification than it would want to be utilizing widely used 35mm. start up with the mandatory "equipment" lens and upload yet another lens later once you've a particular want to fill.

Answer 4

No photographer should be without a good prime lens: They are nothing short of amazing, and for what they are, they’re complete bargains as well. In your case, a 50mm f/1.8 lens would be a great place to start. It's a fabulous lens, and you can learn a lot about photography. it's also the cheapest lens Canon sell, but it's also one of the sharpest!

Answer 5

When I was first looking I found this FAQ to be very helpful - http://photonotes.org/articles/beginner-faq/lenses.html