I am now the proud owner of a Canon EOS 500D

[pinotnoir]

I am now the proud owner of a Canon EOS 500D with an EF-S 18-55 IS Lens

I finally took the plunge and bought it from Jessops today.

I did consider purchasing a 55-200 Zoom lens too was a bit unsure which one to get.

Now to go and fiddle, and read that thick users manual.

[Donald]

George

Congratulations on the new delivery.

Once your User Manual starts to fall apart through over-use, as mine did some time ago, then you'll be getting the feel for it.

Enjoy ... and we look forward to seeing the first images.

[Hansm]

Hi George,

Congratulations with your new stuff.
Looks like you are one of the few who really RTFM

Have fun!

[Wirefox]

Congratulations and welcome to Club Canon. I used to have the 450D (my daughter still has it) great image quality and nice and light to carry around. Looking forward to seeing some images.....after you have slugged your way through that manual. Plenty of Canon users on CiC so any problems or questions just ask.

[Dave Humphries]

My commiserations George - from a Nikon shooter

Only kidding, we don't do all that 'war' stuff here, well except light heartedly like this.

Congrats on the new arrival; be sure to look after your new 'baby' well and I hope to see the first shot soon.

All the best,

[jp01]

George - enjoy!

Suggest you get a large glass of red and start to read the booK!

[pinotnoir]

Thanks everyone

[rpcrowe]

Congratulations on your new camera...

BTW: The 55-250mm IS lens from Canon is quite a nice lens at quite a reasonable price. Canon produces only one of these lenses so you don't need to worry about which one to get. I realize that there is a price differential between the U.K. and the USA but, I would suspect that the lenses and cameras pretty well fall into line regarding their relative expense. Canon produces or has produced a 75-300mm lens (not the 70-300mm lenses) which doesn't have the quality of the 55-250mm but, which is often found at a lower price than the 55-250mm. I would stay away from that lens if I could.

One accessory which I would get before anything else is a circular polarizing filter. Your 18-55mm kit lens accepts the 58mm size filter as does the 55-250mm lens. The better CPL filters are relatively expensive but, their quality is far better than the cheaper filters, including the Canon variety.

Don't let anyone tell you that longer lenses cannot be used for landscape photography - they are very useful to isolate portions of a scene or to compress distances.