First thing... I want a new lense... i am selling my kit lense and I only have the 75-300mm ef lense... (i believe this is a great lense to use behind the boat) however i want an awesome lense to do portraits and personal work that will allow me to do a little closer wakeboard work as well... such as contests ect.. i have heard that the 50mm ef lense is GREAT for portraits and offers the perfect balance. any thoughts? <BR> <BR>second.... does anyone know if this site is legit? <BR> <BR>thanks!<a href="http://www.bestpricecameras.com/search.asp?string=canon+eos&amp;x=0&amp;y=0" target="_blank">http://www.bestpricecameras.com/search.asp?string=canon+eos&amp;x=0&amp;y=0</a>

btw i will hopefully have the canon eos 40d within a week or two

ha...well you certainly picked a winner! That online company's rating over the past 6 months is 0.18 out of 10. I'd DEFINITELY stay away from them. <a href="http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Price_Cameras_6" target="_blank">http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Price_Cameras_6</a> <BR> <BR>B&amp;H has the 40D priced at $1100 for the body only, so if you see any prices drastically lower than that it's probably (read: definitely!) a scam. Steer very clear of the $600 special!

that sucks... haha

The following will all work for portraits: 35 f2, 50 f1.8, 50 f1.4, 85 f1.8, 100 f2.8 Macro and the Tamron 90 f2.8 macro. <BR> <BR>The 50 f1.8 is a no brainer as it's under a $100. I also own the 35 f2 which is a bit sharper then the 2 50's and the Tamron which has excellent BG blur (bokeh) because of it's 9 blade aperture. the Canon 100 macro is also considered a very good portrait lens. As far as zooms go the Canon 17-55, Tamron 17-50 both are considered very good. <BR> <BR>You won't get a 40D for $600 without paying too much for something else (lens, warranty etc) I've heard of people getting pretty amazing prices from Dell when that have special sales in conjunction with coupons but other then that realistically you're looking at prices in the B&amp;H range as Scott pointed out. There are currently quite a few coming up for sale on the Fred Miranda buy &amp; sell forum as well.

im not too impressed with the 17-55... i feel it is still a little slow at zooming when it comes to wakeboarding... know of any fast zoom lenses?

im sorry i mean fast focus..

run, do not walk, away from bestpricecameras......I got away before they charged my cc but I'll never deal with them again.

if you only have a tele zoom lens right now i would defintly get another zoom lens. try to have a full focal length. so if you have the 75-300 get something that does like 18-75 or somewhere in that range. i would buy the 50 1.8 also. it is an awesome lens, but if you dont feel like spending a lot of money on buying a bunch of prime lenses to fill the focal range a wide to short tele zoom will be the most versatile for you. just having one prime will frustrate you because there will no doubt be some times when you want to change your range a little.

Slow compared to what? The 75-300 is probably slower then any of the lens I mentioned above (if that's what you're comparing them to) but if the fastest AF is what you're looking for then you need to look at the 24-105L and any of the 70-200L's. They all have USM and AF is as good as it gets. Before someone asks why I didn't mention the 24-70L, it's not known for it's blazing AF.

are you speaking of the 24-105L that costs 997 dollars?

That's the one, fast AF will cost you. I also remember the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 being decent in the AF dept. excellent IQ as well.

awesome... do you know if the 70-200mm l/4 lense is better or worse than the 2.8? as far as AF goes

I have owned both and they are both very good. Type of body may have more to do with AF speed then any minor difference between the f2.8 and f4. I think the IS is faster on the f4 version however.