Hello!!! New here and new to photography. I have a question for everybody. I have a Canon XTi and I want to start shooting action shots ie: my dogs retrieving and ducks and geese flying. Most shot will be within 50 yards and possibly some low light condition such as early morning. Which lenses would you recommend?

Hi

Sounds like the Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS would suit you down to the ground. Costs about $600 and a review can be found here

It will have plenty of reach for you, and the IS is a great feature which will really help your keeper ratio. Sure, it is a little slow (i.e. doesn't let in much light) but you can compensate for that by cranking up the ISO in low light condition. Also it is a little bit soft at the long end, but not too bad.

You could of course get a better lens which also fits your requirements, like the Canon 100-400 f4/5.5L IS and you will get better image quality (but not more speed). But at this stage I wouldn't recommend that. Firstly, a better lens will cost you more (a lot more). Second, it will be bigger and heavier (much heavier) and will not balance well with a tiny little thing like a Rebel XTi. Thirdly, these big lenses simply scream "look at me, I'm a pro" which you may not want at this stage.

Hope this helps. Best of luck with your learning. Enjoy.

Ed

Awesome!!! Thanks for that info. I'm glad to see I was on the right path. Those were the 2 lenes that I was looking at!!! And now I will pobably go with the 300 since you made the point about the weight, size and balance.

You're welcome.

One further and more general piece of advice about equipment: unless you are some mega-rich dude with a strong back, go easy on buying kit, at least at the early stages. Never buy rubbish (like most of the kit lenses that are sold by Canon and Nikon), but don't overdo it by splashing out on all the top of the range fast L lenses early on in your photographic career.

Canon make a very decent range of excellent of mid-price lenses. For example I have a 50mm f/1.4, and a 24-105 f/4L IS. Now I could make myself several thousand $$ poorer by replacing these with the 50mm f1.2L and the 24-70 f/2.8L. They are for sure slightly better lenses, but mine are good enough for me and I have better things to spend $3000 on.

The golden rule is to only buy a piece of equipment such as a lens when you really need it (like you wanting to take long range photos of your dogs and birds, or finding the image quality of an existing lens intolerably bad). Establish your needs by going out and taking photos with your existing kit, and discover through experience what it can and can't do. Don't buy something because you feel you ought to have it, but can't define in one clear sentence why you need it.

If you follow this advice, you will save wasting money, you will get the most out of the equipment you do buy, and you will probably enjoy yourself more.

Ed

Thanks for that GREAT advise!!! I will surely heed it!!! I do not have deep pockets!!! All I want to do is to take as good of photos as I can. I want to take photos that I will proud to put on my wall or in my dogs portfolios to show clients.