Purchasing 7D - please help with lenses!!!!

[HDNitehawk]

One thing though - when you say you're about to buy your first DSLR, my recommendation would be to take it easy with the big investments. Maybe the 18-135 kit would be a good start, and when you have learned what you're missing with that lens the answer to your questions may be answered "automatically". E.g. when you have built a library of lots of photos you can easily see what focal lengths you prefer.

I would almost agree with that advice, had I not bought the 50D (before the 7D existed), and within 5 months decided that was not the way to go and bought a 5D II. I ended up with a 50D kit that cost about $1,500 bucks that ended up being a backup camera for a while till I gave it to my brother. Overall I ended up with about $4,000 in miss steps, some of which are still sitting in my safe and need to be sold.