I currently have a rebel xti, i just got, i am a novice to photography, and so i have a few questions regard-?

Question

ing the zoom lenses. Right away i saw that you cannot zoom very well the the lense it comes with so i went and bought a canon 75-300 zoom lense. i went to the zoo this weekend and was a little frustrated with the fact that for alot of pictures( people pictues within 10-15 feet) i had to back way up to focus or had to keep changing the lenses. In a crowed zoo it was a hassle. To me it would have been much easier with a point and shoot. My sister had a canon powershot s3is with a 12x optical zoom and i thought, that would be much easier. so my question is, dont most photographers carry around more than one camera, and is there a zoom lense that you dont have to keep taking off for closer pictures. If i buy a point and shoot it will cost me around 400.00 more or less, maybe the price of a zoom lense that you can use close up and faraway. i know that alot of the lenses cost thousands of dollars, but i would leave those to the pros. thank you everybody!!

if you were to buy a back up point and shoot which one would you buy?

Answer 1

If you don't want to switch lenses all the time, you could consider the following options:
* Canon 28-200mm zoom. This lens doesn't provide wide angle covereage after the 1.6 crop factor on a Rebel XTi, so it's probably not your best option.
* Canon 17-85mm zoom. This is a fantastic walk round lens - a real upgrade in terms of image quality - but it costs $500. It doesn't have the reach to consider it an all-in-one lens, but it should do just fine for about 80% of your shots.
* Sigma 18-125mm zoom. $280. Lots of zoom reach but only average image quality.
* Sigma / Tamron 18-200mm. Both aprox. $385. Tons of zoom reach, but again, average image quality.
* Tamron 18-250mm. $500. The extra price is for the insane zoom range here - not for better image quality.
With any of these mega-zoom lenses you could sell both of your current zooms. These are prety much all your options. There is no such thing as a professional quality mega-zoom lens. Professional lenses have 3x zoom, tops. An 18-200mm lens is 200/18= 11x zoom. Very convenient, to be sure, but you pay for that in terms of image quality and low light sensitivity. Only you can decide if the trade-off is worth it.
As for a point & shoot for backup, I'd go with a super compact 3x zoom Canon or Panasonic, or possibly a slightly bulkier Fuji for its great high ISO performance. I believe a backup should be tiny - that's WHY it's the back up. If you're going to lug around something the size of a Canon S3, you might as well bring the XTi.

Answer 2

Yea they do, but usually for different films or different lenses.

A 45-135 might have done you better than the 75-300

There's a magification factor on the digitals, so that 75-300 is more like a 100 to 450

And yes, you do have to back off from people.

But I'm surprised it was that far.

At the 75 setting you should be able to get to within like 6 feet.

Look for a decent 45-135 EF compatible lens, even a Sigma or Tamaron

There are good posiblities with dual cameras.

The 12x range on a S3 or Sony HC3 or Kodak 712 are nice and you probably won't notice much difference in the pictures as a whole.

But there is a lot of technical differences. Your XTI is a 36 bit color system and the S3 is a 24 bit system. The lens on the XTI is world apart from the lense on the S3.

And with the XTI you can saw in RAW format and get a major detail difference.

You will be able to count the spins on a porcupine with an XTI image

Also remember the XTI uses a CF card and the S3 an SD card, or is the XTI now SD...

Answer 3

I wouldnt go back ;). Most pros carry around more than one camera, one for wide and one for telephoto. Its not practical for a lens to have a super wide and a telephoto lens for an SLR, at the moment. Your either going to get one or the other. Zoom or imagine quality. If imagine quality is not a huge factor in your life than the Tamron 18-200mm is a great lens, but poor imagine quality and slow autofocus. Just keep that in mind. More zoom you have the worst (generally) the lens is. Or you can save up for a luxary lens to suit your needs =), thats what I did and it was a great investment.

Answer 4

i have a sort of similar question and no one wants to answer mine either! :(