jecanes Loc: Taumarunui, New Zealand

And it shows, I've taken the liberty of liberating some of the detail on your picture, approx 15secs in Camera Raw!

2MATO Loc: CNY -Central NoWhere

If you are a Newbie, the 60D will be a wonderful camera for you. You will be able to grow into photography with a very good tool and it will serve you well. It has features that will delight you. Don't be afraid to use the video feature on the shores of Lake Michigan. I have captured quite good wave action with this camera as well as spring stream torrents. This is a very nice and solid choice. LOTS of room to grow with it.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

jecanes....Your touchup has made the photo much better. Can you do one more thing. Crop out everything but the runner and the one defender. Everything else is extraneous to this shot. I wonder what the photo would like like when pared down to the essentials.

riverlass Loc: northern California

But not together.

emmons267 Loc: Arizona, Valley of the Sun

The 60D is a great camera. I've used the 18-55mm and the 18-135mm, and there's no question that the 18-135 is a better and more useful lens. Enjoy.
Happy Trails.

bgl Loc: Brooklyn,New York

You are getting a lot of good advice but I have a question; have you gone into a camera store and held in your hands the latest models from the major brands? All the majors offer great cameras and there is no one best camera. There is really no way you can go wrong once you have held one of the little buggers in your hands and looked through the view finder. You can find informative reviews of the cameras that get your attention. This can be a major investment once you start adding lenses, cases, etc. to your original camera purchase so you owe it to yourself to go through this systematically. In any case, the best of luck!

Greg-Colo Loc: Fort Collins,Co

I was thinking the same thing.... or all that grass and fence on the right side...... will also bring up more detail in the players.....photos tell a story... the grass and the fence arn't saying anything :-D

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Wirepusher, I suggest you do as I did and start a chart to decide which camera you really want. I used Excel, and I started with possible camera choices across the top of each column, then down each row I put a feature that was important to me, such as MP, IQ, dynamic range, bracketing, HDR, etc., related to imaging. I continued on down the left side with things like min/max shutter, fps, articulating screen, shutter lag, weather sealing, video features, and much more. As I researched cameras on sites like snapsort, dpreview, and more, I filled in each corresponding box and soon was able to narrow my choices from about 15 down to three.

There are just so many features and variables to keep track of in one's head. Unless you're set on a particular make or model, do your research and keep track. I started out knowing nothing about DSLRs but wanting an Olympus because that's what I shot with for years with film, but Oly hasn't a decent DSLR offering. I then thought I wanted Canon, but was surprised after completing my research that Sony was the best choice for me. The a65 would have sufficed, but it has no weatherproofing, a dealbreaker for me. I ended up buying the a77 with a 16-50 and I have no regrets (Nikon D5200 and Canon 7D were runners up.) Surprisingly, even the Pentax K5 was a contender because of its image quality and best-of-the-bunch dynamic range. You really would benefit from doing your research in this way, and I bet you would be surprised at some of your findings.

Regarding the lens, I actually wanted the 18-135 - a good range for daily use, but I ended up with the 16-50, which has far better IQ and is quite a bit faster at f2.8 throughout the f3.5-5.6 of the longer lens. 50mm sounds short, but it's the equivalent of a 75mm portrait-length lens on a 35mm so it really isn't a bad walkaround lens. If you need to get closer you can always swap lenses (after you get another lens) or crop - this rig has great IQ that allows for quite a bit of cropping in post.

I have always used a polarizer for outdoor shooting, but there is no benefit from one indoors. For snapshots indoors a Tiffen or Hoya UV is most adequate for lens protection, but you might consider Heliopan or B&W for your polarizer (I also did some research on filters. These two brands are very good and can be found reasonably priced on ebay if you patiently search.)

I hope this helps. Good luck, and please let us know what you decide!

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Very good advice. After narrowing my choices I did just that. I actually liked the smaller D5200, but lack of weatherproofing killed the deal.

bgl Loc: Brooklyn,New York

Just wanted to mention to Duane that I also have the A77 and long ago used the Olympic OM system cameras. But I switched to Minolta film cameras which led me on the path to Sony (as you probably know, Sony bought the Minolta camera business). The A77 is the most awesome camera I have used. Regarding the use of filters to protect the front element of a lens, I understand that UV filters aren't appropriate for digital cameras. I have to revisit the subject of "daylight" filters. I have, but don't use a polarizing filter because it slows things down like an ND filter.

StephenVL Loc: Los Angeles, USA

UV filtering is not needed for digital cameras due to the sensors having low sensitivity to uv light. For protection use a multicoated clear filter. I use the Hoya Pro 1 digital filters on my lenses.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Regarding UV, my understanding is that digitals suffer no ill effect from UV light like film cameras do, so UV filters are not needed (something about UV filtering built in). They will not hurt, though, so they are good for lens protection.

Indeed, the a77 is an incredible device. And regarding Sony/Minolta, lens compatibility is another benefit. There is a lot of great Minolta glass (and some Sigma designed for Minolta) out there for a steal, and I am currently shopping for additional lenses. Any suggestions? (I might start a thread on that topic.) Sounds like we have similar tastes for equipment (I started at 13 with a Minolta XE-5, but when we involuntarily parted ways I bought an OM-2 that I used for many, many years.)

You might want to look into polarizers again. For landscapes I find them invaluable. Try typing "images polarizer" into Yahoo and look at the images, and you might agree. I think the most benefit comes from a deeper-blue sky, especially with puffy clouds. Greens are also deepened, and reflections removed from water & glass. When shooting outdoors I almost never removed it from my Oly lenses. Also consider that there are varying degrees of tinting on polarizers, but in bright sunlight it doesn't usually hurt to lose a stop or two.

DebAnn Loc: Toronto

Get the 18-135 - it covers more situations than the other one. I have never regretted buying this lens.

ole sarg Loc: south florida

you are to be congratulated you even got some detail of no. 78's face. no small feat.

bgl Loc: Brooklyn,New York

I've bought 2 used Minolta lenses; the 70 - 210 f4 "beer can" and the auto focusing 500mm mirror lens both of which are superb. I have 2 sonys; the A550 and the a77. I keep a tamron 17 - 50 f2.8 on one all the time. While I have other Alpha mount lenses including a Sigma 170-500 f5.6 - 6.3 and a Tamron 70 - 300, the first 3 I mention get the most use. There's an ad in Pop Photo by Novoflex which says in part "adapts almost any lens to almost any camera" well I've got a lot of Olympus lenses that might be candidates.