| If your primary subject is gonna be cars, you don't really need a D-SLR. The primary benefit to a DSLR: - being able to manually change every setting on the camera on the fly. Things such as shutter speed, ISO, aperture, etc. Very handy when the camera can't get it right on it's own. - better in low light situations, they produce much less image grain than point and shoot cameras due to their larger sensor. -You can change the direction of the flash, meaning you can attach a flash and point it to the ceiling for soft light, or you can even control flashes or strobes that are not on the camera. This keeps you from always pointing the flash directly at the subject and getting harsh shadows behind their head and that deer in headlights look. - The lens is gonna make the biggest difference, however lenses have different zoom ranges and "light" ability. Some lenses are good in low light, some are not...you have to be careful with that. I suggest reading up on f-stops and aperture. That way you can look at a lens and tell if it's gonna be good in low light or not. The lower the "f" number the better it is in low light...again read up on aperture/f-stops. The Rebel XT, XTI, or the Nikon D series will be fine whichever you choose, although the D40 is different in that it only has manual focus. The differences in both systems is very small, you can't go wrong with either as long as you get a good lens. I shoot Canon, the lenses that I would recommend would be the Tamron 28-75mm f2.8, it's a medium zoom lens that is very sharp and gives excellent color. The only drawback is that it's slow to focus in low light situations. Canon's equivalent to this lens is about $1000 I believe, the Tamron is $375. If you wanna do portrait work, the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens is $75.00 and it's tack sharp. The 18-55mm that comes with most Canon Rebels is referred to as the kit lens and is not that good, you won't be happy with it. Better to buy a body by itself. Sorry, I cannot recommend any lenses for Nikon...but there are plenty of sites that test/review lenses. Also, keh.com in Atlanta has great prices on used SLR's. If you need any further help and have questions, feel free to email me at todd280@gmail.com
Todd Baugh
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