Questions about Canon Rebel XSi, or dSLR in general.

[Bitter Jeweler]

Hi Mishele!

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum David.

I think you would be very pleased with something like the XSi...it's a great little camera. Especially with your SLR background.

Yes, it can be looked at as unfortunate that Canon DSLR cameras do not have in-body stabilization...but that's OK. Stabilization isn't everything...although it does help in some situations. It's main advantage is shooting hand held in lower light situation...especially when the subjects aren't moving. IS combats camera shake, which can cause overall blurriness, especially when the shutter speed drops below the reciprocal of the focal length. For example; normally you might get blur if you were shooting with a 100mm lens and a shutter speed of 1/60...but not with a shutter speed of 1/125. IS can give you two or three extra stops of 'hand-hold-ability'. So you could shoot at 1/15 and still get sharp shots. That's pretty useful, especially in low light. However, moving subject will still be blurry at 1/15...so IS isn't nearly as useful for shooting people or anything that moves. For that, you need faster shutter speeds and that can be done with faster lenses and high ISO.

One great thing about digital, is that you can change the ISO when needed. The trade off is digital noise, but these newer cameras are getting better and better at controlling the noise. With the XSi, you could probably shoot at ISO 1600 and get perfectly good images, provided you don't underexpose them too much.

What is your position on digital editing and workflow? Knowing your way around an image editing program can really make a big difference with digital photography. This might be an area where some books and/or web research can really pay dividends for you.

Anyway, welcome to the forum, I'm sure you will like it around here.

 

[Josh66]

The biggest thing that concerns me is the lack of in body image stabilization. I understand image stabilization is in the lense. Which will make lenses more expensive.
[...]
So should I really be concerned with this? How important is this feature?

I was also curious if my old AE1 lenses could be used with the Rebel. Sure, sure, point and laugh at the new guy. Are there adapters? Am I truly doing to much wishful thinking? (or stupid :meh Regardless, will I have to buy lenses with image stabilization, or can I still get great shots without it?

First, I believe that there is an adapter to use the old Canon lenses with the new bodies. I'll let people more knowledgeable in that area comment on that though. (No experience with the older Canon lenses.)

I wouldn't worry about the lack of in-body IS (image stabilization) too much. If you find that you really need IS, get the appropiate lenses. It is quite easy to do without it though. In most cases a tripod would be a fine substitute. Plus, as high ISO performance gets better with each new body, I think you won't really need it as much as you used to.

Looking at your flickr page, I think you'll really want a varity of lenses...
It looks like you would appreciate the focal lengths of the kit lens (18-55mm), but you may want to look into a higher quality lens that covers that range. You'll probably want a nice telephoto too (70-200, maybe).

Some fast primes are always nice to have around too.



Low light-

Not sure about the XSi (I have an XT (350D)), but with a tripod and/or fast lenses low light shooting shouldn't be too much of a problem. Certainly better than what you're using now.

 

[henryp]

I was also curious if my old AE1 lenses could be used with the Rebel. Sure, sure, point and laugh at the new guy. Are there adapters? Am I truly doing to much wishful thinking? (or stupid :meh Regardless, will I have to buy lenses with image stabilization, or can I still get great shots without it?

There are FD lens to EOS body adapters. Here are two:

• Hama Lens Mount Adapter - Canon FD Lens on Canon EOS Bodies and
• Bower Lens Adapter - FD (Manual Focus) System to Canon EOS (Auto Focus) Series Cameras

I know a couple of people who own the (more expensive) Hama and like it. I know nothing about the Bower other than it exists. Both include a single element which preserves infinity focus but also makes the adapter a 1.25 teleconverter at a cost of about one f/stop. Neither includes any lens-body communication so your focus and exposure settings are full manual.

BTW, having looked at your flickr page I don't see anything which would make me say you need image stabilization to survive.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Thanks for all the input.
I bought the camera today. :mrgreen:
I also got dSLR's for dummies, to refresh my memory and bring me back up to speed. I am still interested in more suggested reading or internet resources (besides here, which I will be pouring over too).

Good to hear about the IS. It sounds like the same rule for film, low light/ still shots, use a tripod. A friend was just insistant on the need for IS, and I was skeptical.

Big Mike, I own Photoshop 8 (I think it's 8?), but have used it mostly for graphics and have only recently explored what more of the tools do for photo editing.

henryp, thanks for the links and confirmation. It will save me a quite few bucks for the time being, while I sort out my needs.

I am so excited :mrgreen:
The store clerk said I looked like a kid at christmas :lmao: