Canon Rebel XT Stuff

Mr. Penn had a post last week about stuff for his Nikon camera. As a Canon owner I felt duty bound to cover the same material, since Canon has yet to do any blogger outreach…

I ordered the camera body only and passed up the kit lens for a Sigma 17-70 lens that I love. I then added a Canon 70-300 lens (the cheaper one, not the L-series) which is fun at sporting events but I may have to jump up to the L because the cheaper lens doesn’t capture as much in low light.

I have 6 tips from things I’ve personally tested:

1. I tried the eyepeice extender and didn’t like it, it makes the image in the viewfinder smaller and that bothered me.
2. I always use a lens hood, with it there are fewer problems with stray light
3. I use batteries by Sterling that have a lot more juice than the stock Canon ones
4. I always use a UV filter, on Chris’ post there were some comments about not needing one because you can replicate these effects in photoshop. That’s not the point – the idea is that if disaster strikes and something hits the lens (or it hits the ground), you break a $15 filter, not your $500 lens.
5. I use a Gary Fong flash attachment on my speedlight. I have a small square diffuser that’s good but things just seem to be more even with the Fong Dong.

Canon has some great tutorials online, you can check them out here.

Next on the list is a 10-22 wide angle…

You can see some samples on my Flickr account.