Be thankful you aren't in Houston. If you think your house is hot in NJ, try placing it without AC in Houston. Yuck. I am in Philly, and have my windows open and it is nice and comfortable - cool breeze blowing in.

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... still haven't heard anything from them. :(

I was about 12 hours too late to find this deal:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1205537955102

Canon 180/3.5L for $209!!!

I turned the AC on because the fans weren't getting it done. It's a little better now, but I'm still wide awake because I hardly slept last night and came home from golfing this afternoon and took a 3-hour nap.

Was that the Best Buy equivalent of a mistake fare? (Not into macro, but that's the lowest number I've ever seen sttached to any lens with an L in the name.)

Saw the 40D w/18-55IS at Costco today for $1600-something.

Yeah, now the people on a.net, er I mean dpreview.com, are wondering if BB will honor the sale. People did have their credit card charged and received order (but not shipping) confirmation.

As for the 40D, it should be cheaper than that. The body now goes for just under $1,000 from various vendors. That 18-55IS is worth about $250, though it's sold out everywhere if you want to buy that lens alone. When the 40D first came out, it was $1,499 with the 28-135IS, which is a much more expensive lens than the 18-55IS.

B&H has the 40D body-only at 1139, but down to 939 with the Canon summer sale. I didn't get a good look at the rest of the price tag when I walked past it in Costco, so I didn't see if any extras came with it.

What kind of distance can you shoot from with those lenses
Im looking into possibly purchasing a camera and lens before my trip to MLE in july.

Macro lenses are meant for close-in work. If you want a good camera and lens setup for MLE, we certainly have a resident selection of photo gurus in The Box. Me, rkkwan, sbm12 among others. What is your budget and your preference for weight and type of shots you like to take (landscapes, etc.)??

There is a very strong argument out there for the standard lens size (18-55mm) by a lot of the purists out there.

Better lenses have a time and place but I am one who thinks less is more and I like the shots I get with my standard 18-55mm lens. Then again, I'm still using a Canon AE-1 ;)

One minor clarification - macro lenses can generally do both close-up (macro) work as well as "normal" photos at their focal length. Although not technically accurate, the best explanation I can give is that it reduces the minimum distance to the subject, so you can be 12" away, filling the frame with an object and getting it big in the frame. A non-Macro lens might have a 36" minimum distance.

For MLE I would suspect that macro is probably not a huge need unless you're going after lots of tight flower shots (like this or this). Otherwise you could probably get by with a non-macro lens just fine.

True re: clarification. I don't do macro (and quite honestly have very little interest in it) so I don't know it as well as my telephoto-type preferences. If I was doing MLE, I would definitely do a DSLR with a medium zoom, like a 28-135. Maybe add an 18-55 to that mix and you're good unless you want to peek into balconies.

Im looking to shoot action shots ( surfing ), and some landscapes, nothing really close up .
I want something that is relatively easy to use , as my gf will be the one taking most of the pics since im the surfer ( I told her she could come on the trip as long as shes the photog)
Budget : trying to be under 1500 or less is possible for a decent set up with accessories ( memory card , battery, mem card reader )
My knowledge of high end cameras, is what I hear from you guys.

You then need a long enough lens to get you on the board from the beach, since your budget won't get you anything waterproof that will also shoot fast enough to freeze motion. You could buy a Canon 30D or 40D and rent a high-end lens for the trip too.

18-55mm is a good standard lens for most every day shooting. If you do a lot of plane spotting then maybe the 135mm is a better choice because you can get in tight for the runway shots.

I am with ALCO on this, I really want a fisheye lens for cool interior shots (which I think is the bee's knees so to speak).

That being said, according to J.Edward I have moved out of chapter 11, so I am concerned about having the requisite funds to eat to say nothing of buying $1000 SLRs.