Ever since returning from the Yellowstone trip I have been considering getting more into photography. To be specific, I have been looking into investing in a digital SLR camera. I have a Canon Powershot A530 and have been really impressed with its quality. This particular camera (while on, with lens extended) had a high speed encounter with a stationary object. The lens barrel got pushed off the track and looked quite unusable. But with some considerable force the lens barrel was pulled out to its proper position. And I haven’t had a problem with it since other then sometimes the protective lens shutters do not not open all the way. But that’s a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Or the guy at the camera store who told me it was quite broken and would cost less too buy a new one then to fix it.
I have also been very impressed with Canon’s menu interface. The majority of the Yellowstone photos were taken with a Fujifilm Finepix s5700, which takes some pretty good pictures. But the menus are quite a mess. If you want to change a setting you have to go long lists of options. Apparently organizing options in categories didn’t come to their minds.

So With my experience I decided to stick with Canon. I headed off to Cnet and Canon’s official website to see what’s currently being offered. I looked at the various models, checking reviews and prices on Amazon. I have pretty much narrowed down my search to the Canon Digital Rebel XSi 12.2 MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens.

So after finding a SLR camera you need to find what lenses you want. About the only thing I knew about lenses was that I wanted to get a telephoto so I could take some bird and wildlife photos. A very helpful site has been Photo Notes’ Beginners FAQ Before reading that guide I only thought about zoom as the almost useless 4x, 10x numbers that point and shoot commercials talk about. Apparently what’s important is the focal length.

So after learning more about the type of lens I want, the searching began. The two best review sites that I found are The Digital Picture and Photozone’s Lens Reviews. I also searched through a myriad of different photography forums deliberating over which telephoto to get. I have been amazed to see how current the information is. It seems most google links to forums seem to be old forgotten topics. But most that I looked at were written in either April, May or June. This largely has to do with the fact that one of the lens I was looking at is a brand new lens, but I still find it interesting. So the two telephoto lenses that I have been looking at are the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Lens and the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens I still don’t know which one I want. I’m leaning towards the more expensive 70-300mm IS right now to get the extra reach for bird pictures. But at $250 dollars more for an extra 50mm is a hard decision.

So that leaves me on the last step: Trying to rationalize spending that much money. Unless someone wants to give me a free $2000 Amazon gift certificate. Too bad photography is so expensive. But it has been fascinating to learn about it anyway. For instance bokeh is the artful blurring of the background in a shot. Which expensive lens are good at. And I had a good laugh looking at insanely expensive lenses like the EF 1200mm f/5.6 L USM which weighs 36 pounds and goes for $120,000 used.