After buying a new digital camera every year for the last five years, I finally settle on the Canon Rebel XT. Would this become the ultimate camera I own?

My first response is: it's too big. I've used a couple of film SLR cameras before. They were great in the good old days. But then I was spoiled by the compactness of the many digital cameras I owned. Now suddenly I go back to a full size SLR, it does take some time to get used to and certainly limits my freedom quite a bit.

But what did I sell off my freedom for? Speed. What is speed? Speed is the speed of the shutter. The speed to focus. The precision of the focus.

To prove my point of speed, here's one of the first photos I took.

So I took a picture of a sea gull, big deal. Compare with the vulture I took with my Canon S1 (only US$400), there's really not much of difference...

But after spending close to two grand, I've to justify my purchase a little bit. So I would say the main difference is the action. The first picture has action, the action of hope. The second picture is static, the bird is only a decoration.

So I spent two grand so I can take some action photos, photos with hope and meaning (OK, so that's how I comfort myself).

Come back later, I'll add more smaples to this page (like night photos, problems and tips etc).