I have looked at the SIGMA lens and also the Canon 50mm. At this point in my life, I am trending to the Canon. Do you know how to test a lens for sharpness? Get a newspaper and take pages and tape them to a wall. Back up and shoot at various distances. Inspect the center of the shots, and the corners. You should see if there is any aberation or fuzziness in the lens. I would suspect the SIGMA lens is just sharp as the Canon. So it is just a matter of preference and budget.

Try KEH.com in Atlanta. They are pro camera brokers. Have bought and sold things to them for years. Their ads are very accurate and well priced.

One last quick note on your JPEG images. All images (except portraits) captured electronically through a sensor, will need a LITTLE sharpening when you are finished editing them. There are several programs on the market that effectively combine various Photoshop tools to sharpen images. You have to use care to not oversharpen. That is a key way that judges can tell if you used a digital or film camera to capture. I use NIK Sharpener Pro and get great results. Just a suggestion.

Since you are not shooting in RAW, once the image is captured you are Done. Little or no chance to change anything. If you shoot in RAW, then you can change a lot of things before the digital image is "developed" I know RAW creates larger files, but you have way more control over the finished product.

I agree with other folks, the 225 GB SSD for the primary drive is too small. It is where you put all of your programs. My next one will be 1 TB as the primary and 4 TB as the secondary drive.

The only advice is to purchase one from one of the big companies. They tend to be here when there is a warranty issue. I always purchase 1 notch below the current top technology. Get Good Speakers. You will enjoy them. My last two have been HP. Little more expensive, but they really take a beating.

I like the top one. Beautiful shot. If you are asking about some technical stuff, the camera metered itself off the left side of the set. The dynamic range between the dark and light was too great for a camera to capture. Your eye can see it because the human eye can see a dynamic range of 8 or 9. Cameras with film can only see 2-3, and some digital cameras can see 4-5. If you lit it, then you would have to deal with a flat image.

I think it looks great just the way it is. Frame it.

You are right, cell phones produce some pretty incredible photos, but they have some short comings. Cell phone photos are made to be viewed online, that means they are usually at 72 DPI resolution, and have had some sharpening in the phone computer. If you download the photo and view it in Photoshop, you will see a very small outline around things in the background that becomes obvious when you print it at 180 DPI or more. When it is blown up, it becomes aparent that it has been oversharpened and is not pleasing to view. If you want pictures that you plan to print larger than 8 x 10, you will need a real camera.

But in the phone or on a computer, photos look fine.

Fully auto, semi auto (aperature or shutter priority) or manual. All have a place. I have always thought that any were OK, as long as the camera operator chose to use the particular mode, and understood the reason for using it.

Fully auto is designed by the manufacturer to produce a reasonably good photo in a wide range of environments. At an event where you need speed, it is often the best choice. But when control of shutter speed (dragging it) or control of the depth of field and focus are the choice, then use something else.

The key is to know and understand your camera and what it is capable of.

Stanford is very picky. They do not like anyone without a permit taking pictures on a tripod.

Good reason to always back up photos to a DVD before doing any editing.

Camera RAW images can be "developed" with your manufacturer's software at + or - 2 f stops, just like negative film. That is why wedding photographers like shooting with color negative film. Better chance of getting the shot. But if you take the digital pictures as JPEG's, then you are cooked and if they are under exposed, you have no options. This is the chief reason to ALWAYS shoot in RAW format. You can also cool down the strobe by setting it to shoot under by 1 fstop, this will get you a little more lattitude. You might consider purchasing a second strobe and switching back and forth if you are going to do that kind of event a lot.

The camera manufacturer's is always better to convert RAW files. But Adobe DNG has its uses. For example, several years ago, Kodak released one of the first digital cameras. A few years later, I needed one of the images I had taken with that camera. Unfortunately, Kodak's converter had been discontinued and only worked in Windows 98. Only Adobe DNG was able to save the day and open the image to a TIF file that I could use in Photoshop. So, I suggest you keep a current version of DNG for the inevitible day when a given manufacturer stops supporting their own proprietary system.