SoSpectacular

Experiment with different modes for different times of day, close up is for close-up shots of objects

For that price range expect to look at the "advanced" point-and-shoot cameras. They're usually in between point-and-shoots and DSLRs with manual settings, a smaller sensor and a lens you won't be able to change. For night/low light shots all you need is a slow shutter speed. I don't know if advanced point-and-shoots let you play around with aperture settings.

This is the bag I currently carry my camera around in. Daniel, you've seen me with the damn thing but you could use a good bag for that camera All my lenses, their hoods, other equipment go in there and it's a small bag, only ran me 40 bucks though.

Of course, I tend to keep the IS off during the day time when I take pictures, all other times, it goes on

Image Stabilized lenses are a must if you're going to be using slower shutter speeds, ultrasonic motors are only for focusing, their upsides are quick and silent focusing but their downside is they also bring the cost of the lens up significantly

f/2.8 is more than acceptable for low light, f/3.5 does fine enough in a subway station with a slow shutter and 400-800 ISO, shutter speeds of 1/10-1/60 are possible depending on lighting conditions.

Yep, that's why I've been a bit hesitant about getting that 50mm lens

Yeah, especially with the T1i's 1.6x crop factor, that's gonna be a hefty 160mm... Waaaaaaaay too much zoom for indoors!

I'm sure Nikon built their lenses strong enough at the time to withstand that. B)

How I want that 17-55mm f/2.8 for my Rebel... Lol but it's like over 1000 bucks, I need to find another job for it, I'd replace my 18-55mm in a heartbeat!

Prime lenses are fixed at a certain focal length but the trade off is the wide apertures you get with them, 50mm at f/1.8 is fine but you'll need to keep at a distance, or find a prime lenses with a shorter focal length if possible.

Back in the olden days when digital sensors were born most of you were using the good old film cameras, SLR cameras were mostly mechanical into the late 1900s when they started adding more electronic parts (such as Canon's new EF mount in 1987) and eventually going digital by the mid/late 1990s. Back then you really needed to know your stuff when it came to photography (film types, manual focusing, all the stuff DSLRs mostly do today), otherwise you got a camera (like the one my dad had back in the day) that does it all automatically for you and you simply sent the roll of film to get developed at the end of the day. I feel adding in video modes does/might bring up prices, and I'd rather use my memory card space for photos (especially when you shoot in the highest quality) that taking up half the card with short videos totaling over 2-4 gigabytes. I mean look at some of these cameras, 1080p video, 24 fps framerates, that's pretty insane. Oh, and SLRs are pretty much any camera with the so-called "reflex mirror" which allows you to get a real-time, live preview of whatever the lens itself is seeing when you peer through the viewfinder. Although it won't help much when you adjust certain settings, there's always Live View to fully preview your current setup

I'm a Canon user here and my camera is the Rebel XSI. I use two lenses at the current moment, the EF-S 18-55mm and the EF-S 55-250mm Remember that it's the person BEHIND the camera and not the camera itself... Shot with the "kit" 18-55mm lens Shot with the 55-250mm zoom lens

I suggest you stick with Nikon's 55-200mm lens, I too use Canon's EF-S 55-250mm lens for long range shots. A word of advice- Remember that your camera isn't a full-frame, it's an APS-C (or whatever Nikon uses) and so the crop factor comes into play, for your sensor it's probably a 1.6x crop factor. You multiply that number by both the wide and telephoto ends to get the actual focal lengths for the lens, a 55-250 is actually 88-400mm on an APS-C, 70-300mm would be a bit much for you with that camera, and as others have said, most third party lens makers don't really know the ins and outs of every camera maker's lens mounts and special contact surfaces so they wind up having to reverse-engineer these cameras to find a way to make their lenses fit and work as correctly as possible.

Marklin's trains are WAAAAAAAAY more detailed than that

My current desktop. Simply plain.

Oh, and another thing, bottlenecked traffic due to construction, FML

Nothing beats watching the George Carlin-narrated episodes. May he rest in peace, the show started sucking after he'd left...

For me, it all began with the RTS... Growing up along 188th Street in Fresh Meadows and the smell of sulfur diesel coming from the PBL-RTSs on Jamaica Avenue every time my mom took me down to that market at the 165th Street terminal as a child, listening to the air starters go off, nothing but RTSs, Orion Vs and Flxibles from MSBA! Goodtimes!!

You're welcome Jon, larger sensors allow for higher ISO settings and noise won't be so much a problem!

Oh yeah, I actually tried to snap it a little earlier but that pulled out pretty quick lol

The T1i is only a slight step up from the XSi, at 15.1 MP (up from 12.2) and the addition of a video mode. Otherwise it's still very much the same APS-C CMOS sensor and the same 1.6x focal length multiplier, keep in mind that 18-55mm is about 28-88mm on an APS-C camera while 55-250mm is basically 88-400mm. For underground shots you'll want to use an ISO setting of 800-1600 and depending on your ISO the maximum shutter speed you'll get at 800 is 1/60 without worrying about darkening and you can't take any pictures of moving trains but the lighting will appear nice and soft like so: That was taken at ISO 800 with a 1/60 shutter speed. The train is moving so it came out a little fuzzy. If you crank it up to ISO 1600 you can go as high as 1/125 shutter speed without losing light but some things may appear brighter and sharper like so: You'll notice this in the and the florescent lights- That picture was taken at a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second with the aperture at f/3.5 (better light intake), which means I shot this at the wide end of my 18-55mm (18mm), you'll want to avoid zooming as much as possible as the lens becomes slower at longer focal ranges (especially 55mm on the 18-55, the maximum aperture is f/5.6) and your pictures are easier to blur and appear darker unless you lower the shutter speed to compensate. As for sports photography, you'll obviously want to make heavy use of your 55-250mm. Since sports fields are usually brightly lit (or daytime games) you won't have to worry about using higher shutter speeds to capture precious moments. I'd say 1/250 and up is best for sporting events depending on lighting and the pace of the game.

Missing the last Limited-Stop bus of the morning of a certain route by one minute... SMFH

Yes, I am very aware of that fact, as long as it SAVES them movey, they can do whatever the hell they want, heh.

I stand by my opinion that SLRs shouldn't be used for video purposes, they were made for picture taking in mind, HD camcorders are dropping in price as of late and stuff and those offer better frame rates and all that!