Squidy,

Welcome, I would rate myself as a nearly blind enthusiast (just kidding... no really I have 20/20 vision) , that once worked in a high end camera store that had the absolute best at hand.... in 1978. What the 650 can do (I have the 600) just keeps me giggling and smiling w/ how far the photographic world has come. I bought my 600 about a year ago.

The 650d is an amazing piece of technology. The lenses in the kit are plenty enough for "take good shots." The software that comes bundled w/ the camera and updates available at canon website is likely "enough" for "want to learn and take good shots." I think the user "Fast Glass" says it really well, "amateurs worry about equipment, pros worry about getting paid, masters worry about light - I (we) just take pictures" or words to that effect.

You comment about learning is spot on - There are plenty of dials, buttons and settings enough to worry about, add in all the tweaks you can do in DPP, and taking good pictures, if not amazing pictures are well within the grasp of your current set up. My opinion - The single best way to learn is to take pictures, fiddle with a setting and take the picture again, have some organization to it - i.e. practice. A single digital picture is effectively free, it is not likely you will burn out the shutter on the 650d anytime soon. Learning what light does, what to expect, how to manage it is really important - i.e. exposure.

Focus, the posts here are great tips on macro and close focusing. Even though the camera/lens/software is amazing, focus is still one of those "got to haves" in the picture. Only the smallest tweaks in focus (some say none) can be made in the software.

In DPP is a setting that will correct many of the distortions caused by each specific canon lens (it is in the "tool palette" "lens" tab that is either under the "view" menu heading or its own button when in an edit window) - I know of no lens that is perfect. You can play around with an awful lot of settings, etc that really show the latitude and flexibility of the camera you have. Take three pictures of the same subject with 2 stops/steps above/below what the camera tells is the correct exposure and load them into DPP and play, knowing which way the exposure goes is a good thing. Move all the sliders around and see what happens - some are kind of funny effects in my opinion.

The 650 has an equal/better sensor to the 7d - arguably a "pro" level camera - you have enough hardware to take "great" shots, in a few short moments of practice you will certainly "get it" and have yet more fun.

Again, welcome to forum and many happy clicks to you.

Mike