Catherine, I started with that lens and still got some good pictures with it - even with the lens that I have (which is a 400mm lens) I have to get pretty close to the birds to get good detail. Have it ready at all times, you just never know when a bird is going to land right in front of you! And you have more pixels so affectively a longer lens than me as the images are larger.

The zoombrowser is just for zooming in the picture. You will need software to crop the picture. I use Printshop but there are other software packages, such as Picture Manager that comes with Microsoft's office tools suite. The zoombrowser has some editing but I've not used it - when you are viewing the picture, go to the edit menu and use the trim function. You draw a box with the cursor by starting in the top left corner and dragging the mouse until you have the size you want and then click on trim. Unfortunately it doesn't have the capability to resize the photo which is nice to do if the photo is greater than 800 pixels. However I believe that photobucket will resize it for you. I also compress the size of the file (not the size of the picture) to make it load faster.

There is some post processing that is expected with the digital SLR's - mainly sharpening the image. Most point-n-shoots do in-camera sharpening but the typical setup of the SLR's is to do some sharpening but the rest is done with software (the software typically does a better job). But you can change the setting in the camera to do more sharpening so you don't have to do it with software.

Also, the contrast and hue saturation of the Rebels can be a bit off so sometimes it requires adjusting those too.

But don't panic, start slow and learn one adjustment at a time. It sounds like alot of work but once you get the hang of it, it literally takes seconds to post process. I'm sure the pros take much longer than that tweaking details but not something I do.

Let me know if you want more help - I didn't want to overwhelm you! And let me know if you have any software, there are a variety of software packages available that are reasonably priced or free.

Catherine, did you get anywhere on it? If you want, you can email me the pictures until you get some assistance. I love to play with photoshop almost as much as taking the pictures!

Hi jeanner,
Thanks so much for your help. I've been really busy lately and haven't gotten around to checking anything out, but I will soon!
(Son is graduating from high school, daughter moving into an apartment, colonoscopy, planting the garden.......I don't think it will ever slow down!).
Thanks a million for offering your help! I'm sure I'll have many more questions.