<p style="margin-right: 6pt;"]<span style="font-family: Verdana; color: black; font-size: 9pt;"]All, thanks for the quick responses and informative posts.<o></o>
<p style="margin-right: 6pt;"]<span style="font-family: Verdana; color: black; font-size: 9pt;"]So far, I think the biggest "take-away" I have learned from your comments is that maybe I need to reconsider the T2i body and see if I can budget for a lower end professional dSLR that has weather resistance. After that, then maybe I can be assured that my intended use in the great outdoors will be less worrisome for camera protection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] Maybe I should be looking for a full frame dSLR, comments?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] Please make your recommendations for a Canon body that you think might fit my needs better than the T2i.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] (I can feel the $$$ falling out of my wallet already).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] <o></o>
<p style="margin-right: 6pt;"]<span style="font-family: Verdana; color: black; font-size: 9pt;"]In reading your posts, it raises more questions that I should have thought of when considering the move to dSLR.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] But first, a bit more explanation of where I came from photo-historically.<o></o>
<p style="margin-right: 6pt;"]<span style="font-family: Verdana; color: black; font-size: 9pt;"]For me, photography is just a gratifying hobby of getting the best composition into the camera that I can within my budget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] I am not a professional photographer, nor do I plan to go that direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] For me, it is just fun to do and to try new effects and compositions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] I just want to capture the image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] I never was into dark room work, it wasn&rsquo;t enjoyable, although I now enjoy doing the photoshop thing.<o></o>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Verdana; color: black; font-size: 9pt;"]With my past film SLR (Olympus OM-1) my primary lens was a 50mm f1.4 zuiko (great lens). But my walk around was an Asanuma 35-105mm f3.5-5.0.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] I really liked that lens a lot. When I broke that lens I bought a Vivitar 28-200mm f3.5-5.6.For long shots I had an Asnuma 100-300mm f5 but it wasn&rsquo;t really all that great of a lens (all shots had to be on a tripod, cable release, mirror flipped up, and very bright sunny day). None of my Olympus stuff was weather resistant and I used it boating, hiking, hunting, and even in some caves, so maybe weather resistant is not all that necessary for me. I don't know how the electronic gearcompares to the old mechanical cameras for weather. Any comments on the weather resistance would be helpful. <o></o>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Verdana; color: black; font-size: 9pt;"]The wide range on my Asanuma and Vivitar were about all the wider I wanted to go because of image distortion (dishing) on the top &amp; bottom borders of the image. I figured with the Canon 24-105mm I could still get 38 @ 1.6 cropwidth, shoot two photos end-to-end, then stitch them together if I want to make a panorama. I think I would rather do that than deal with the image distortion of a wider angle. I don't know of a way to effectively stitch photos with the distortion or with vignetted edges without significant photoshop work (and then, results are still sketchy).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] I assume wide angle lenses still distort the images at top &amp; bottom, but maybe the new dSLR lenses take that out somehow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"] Please enlighten me if I&rsquo;m wrong about that but the Tamron lens comparator showed distortion in the 10, 17, &amp; 18mm ranges at the curb in the bottom of the photo.<o></o>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Verdana; color: black; font-size: 9pt;"]Sorry to sound like such a newbie, but that is what I am in the dSLR world.<o></o>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"]<span style="font-family: Verdana; color: black; font-size: 9pt;"]Ken<o></o>