As of today, I’m the proud owner of a Canon Rebel XT. Yep, I’m just a few years behind the curve, but it’s a good camera and it’s right in my price range (well, still a little above it).

The story of why I have it is quite sad, however.

I love my Fuji F30. That camera has, single-handedly, kept me from buying a DSLR for two years now. It may not have the zoom power that I really want, but absolutely everything else about it is what I needed. In fact, I just recently cycled the odometer on it, so to speak, and blew past 10,000 photos. It went back to one. I was so sad…

Anyway, it’s a great camera, but it has a veritable Achilles’ Heel: the lens barrel is not sealed properly and dust gets inside. Large amounts of dust. This isn’t a huge issue when you’re taking photos with a tight aperture, but once you get it open wide (bright days, blue skies…) then the picture is covered in dust spots.

The kick in the balls: Fuji wants over $200 to clean it.

So, I said to myself, I said, “Self, why pay over $200 to clean a camera that’s useful for all situations other than a single one when you could put that toward a really nice camera.” I had to agree with myself; I had a good point. That, and Asher’s going to be born any day now (sometime in the next 1-3 weeks) and I need a reliable camera for that. Fuji wants, in addition to the car payment, 6-8 weeks to unscrew two screws and blow it out with a can of air (the art is putting it back together, of course).

I searched and searched for a camera that I liked and narrowed it down to two older models of Canon’s: the Rebel XT and the XTi. They’re compatible with current lenses (of course) and they have a good deal of mostly-modern tech inside them so I’m not using something a step over film or anything like that. The difference between them? Sensor cleaning, 2MP, and $150. Nuh uh, not that important. I bought the XT today (w/kit lens).

Watch Flickr in the coming weeks for my boredom to surface. I’ve already discovered that I can take about 20 photos in a row before the memory card can’t catch up. I suspect I’ll have some fun with that one…