1) I have the same camera and lens. I'd suggest that you check into the "styles" that the 30D offers. You can set saturation, sharpness, contrast, and tint. Try their presets, especially landscape (more saturated), faithful, and portrait. You may find just what you need. In addition, the Canon site has more preset styles that you can load into the 30D and you can make up your own.


As for blown-out (whitewashed) highlights, that may be inevitable. The camera has only so much dynamic range (shadow to highlight ratio). You can try underexposing a bit using exposure compensation, but that will reduce detail in shadows. Only you can tell if that will work.


Also, try shooting in RAW + JPEG for a bit. (It will work well unless you typically do a lot of burst-shooting. It will fill up the CF card a lot faster!) Then, use Digital Photo Professional to work on the RAW files. That will allow you to experiment with styles, exposure, white balance, tone curves, etc., without destroying the original image and without any loss of information, as would occur if you process JPEGs.


2) Bryan's contact info is on his site, though a bit buried. Go to the "Home" page link above and look in the panel with the list of reviews, etc. Find "Help" in the right column. There is a link on that page to his contact information, including an email address.


3) I wondered the same thing. The kicker for me, though, is that the 18-135mm lens does not have USM (ultrasonic motor) and, thus, may not focus as quickly as the 28-135mm does. I recently bought a used 28-135mm, even though I already cover that range (several times, actually). My problem was that, at some horse shows, I'm close enough so that the low end of my 70-200mm lenses (I have both the f/4L IS and f/2.8L IS) is too long, but I need more reach than the 17-85mm IS lens affords. Things happen way too fast for me to switch lenses. I considered the Canon 18-200mm and similar lenses from Tokina or Sigma, but, again, the micromotor vs USM was bothersome. Bryan's review of the 28-135mm helped, as did a review by Ken Rockwell, known as a bit of an iconoclast.


There was also the point that, someday, I may get a 5D. Before I got the 28-135mm, I had no good mid-range zoom lens that would work with a full-frame camera. I have the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS & 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS, both EF-S lenses and a cheap Sigma 28-80mm that I got in 2000 with my Rebel 2000 35mm camera. Once, I also considered the 24-70mm f/2.8L zoom, but it is a lot more expensive (average over $1,000 even used--I paid $255 for the 28-135mm), about twice as heavy (2.1 lbs vs 1.1 lbs), has less reach by a factor of almost 2, and lacks IS. The extra 1-2 stops would be useful, of course, but the main use I have for fast lenses is at indoor horse shows, where I'd be using a 1.6x camera, anyway. (The 5D is way too slow--<4 fps vs 6+ fps for the 40D & 50D, and shutter lag and viewfinder blackout are both longer.)