Quote Originally Posted by donnman


Nice shots - That is exactly what Im looking to get especially the second shot. It appears he was clear across the field from you, not to mention dark out. Now, was that taken with or without a flash? The first shot is great in that I will be able to capture the facial expressions as well.


So, Im guessing that you think the IS is well worth the extra money? Im still not sure about it, especially if I use a monopod. I think Im leaning towards the non IS which will allow me some extra money to invest in a 2nd lens such as the 100mm I mentioned earlier.


Im so conflicted...lol, I dont want to buy the non-IS and then wish I had bought the IS. What to do, what to do????
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Keep in mind that Dallasphotog's second shot is at ISO 6400, a setting that's not (directly) possible on your Rebel XS. At your maximum of ISO 1600, that same push of the shutter button would take the shot at f/2.8 instead of f/5.6, making the foreground and background out of focus further. Most lenses aren't as good optically when they're shot with aperture wide open, so some optical gremlins might show up at f/2.8 (this particular lens is rather good wide open, but it's not a match for the "white primes"). Shooting at f/2.8 may also mean that focus errors become more apparent in more of your shots. If you wanted f/5.6 in this particular shot, you'd need to slow down to 1/200th of a second from 1/800th of a second, and IS would now be essential for a good shot (or a monopod).


Looking at the shot, I can guess that it's taken without flash, as the near and far field surfaces wouldn't be as evenly lit with flash as they appear.


Unless you have a dedicated job doing monopod and tripod shooting (and never take the camera out of the bag any other time), IS is a feature you're going to want. I shot a dinner two weeks ago with my 70-200/2.8IS, and although two remote flashes helped to minimize action blur, IS was a necessity to avoid background blur. Most of my shots were at ISO 3200 (the native limits of my camera), and f/2.8 (as much light as the lens will allow through), and about 1/30th to 1/60th of a second. This would have been well out of handhold range, so IS turned a &lt;10% keeper rate into about 90% (before you factor in my horrendous timing with speaking people...).


As a testimonial, the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens is a fairly wide angle lens. Wide angle lenses don't normally "need" IS, because the shorter focal lengths allow for slower shutter speeds in the rule of thumb for handholding, but this lens is well-regarded as the defacto wedding zoom for EF-S cameras. That's likely in big part to the IS functionality. If people love it in a wide-angle, they'll really love it in a telephoto.