There are several good telephoto lenses (the kind you want to buy) available for your cameras. Since your current lens can cover distances to 80mm, you should look for one with a focal length of at least that. Bigger numbers indicate the ability to handle longer distances. A 160mm lens will focus to twice the distance your current lens will. A 240mm lens will focus to three times the distance. However, as this focal length increases, three things will happen to the lens: it will get more expensive; generally larger and heavier; and less able to handle lower levels of light. Expensive is expensive; there is not much you can do with that besides buy a used lens or a third-party lens (in your case, a lens by anyone other than Canon). The inability to handle lower levels of light can be compensated for several ways. You could keep the camera lens open longer to admit more light -- but that can cause blurring if you're shooting a moving subject or holding the camera without a tripod. You could use flash, though the flash that comes on the camera likely won't have enough power to light something far away, so you might have to buy a flash unit. You could spend more money :-) and get a telephoto lens that has a wider maximum aperture. These are sometimes dramatically bigger and heavier than less-capable lenses. Or you could buy an "IS" (Image Stabilization) lens; the lens largely eliminating blur caused by handholding. Neat feature; not cheap. If you choose to buy a used lens, it's best to buy one in person at a place that sells used photographic equipment and will give you at least a little warranty. Bring your digital so you can see some results right away. Since Canon is a popular brand, if you live near an urban area you shouldn't have trouble finding a good lens. If you buy a third-party lens, stick with better-known brands (Tamron and Tokina come to mind, but try to avoid their very cheapest lenses). A good third-party lens will have a metal lens mount and operate smoothly and quietly. You also will have to make sure it works with your particular Canon camera model. Sometimes third-party lenses don't work well with a given manufacturer's camera, so you may lose some automatic features or exposure information. That's a lot to digest at once, I'm sure. There also are several Web sites which discuss lenses for Canons -- but be warned that there is just a firehose of information out there because Canon is such a popular brand.

oh,I'm still learning with my xti. It's been great, everytime I learn something new. So I started taking baby steps following directions in the XTi 400D Manual. I found photoworkshop.com/canon to be very helpful. Also, XTisite.com is another. However, makes sure you check out that some of these sites cost money. But, most of the time, they will let you read a few things. It's been interesting. Now that big long lens you spoke of. I too went through the same thing of not realizing it was supposed to be an IS lense to help me with the photograph, unless you have a tripod. Recently, a man I met on a photography forum was speaking about how he was getting rid of most of his long range IS lenses. His reason was, he enjoys and gets as much satisfaction out of the Macros. I have yet to enjoy this anomoly. However, it would be nice to try one of them macros he speaks of. May want to try. Seems to me, smaller lenses have been mostly the cheaper ones. Starr

Got up at 5:30, darn race didn't start until 8, they said 7 on one of the news websites. Had to get there early enough so I didn't have to park too far away, people everywhere all over town. Hot already but not as bad as I thought. Here I am telling you what to do and my photos did not turn out too great. I shot sports mode, buildings & background were bright but runners too dark, many blurry or out of focus, many good and fixable. I am going to have to process each one that's worth keeping (shot 594) and brighten most of them up with shadow highlights. Good learning experience. I shot most in sports mode which kicks into burst, but I'm not happy with a lot of today's because I can't change any of the parameters in that, picks too large apertures and too slow shutter speeds and continuous auto focus I'm not used to at all. It is hard shooting a sea of people, never been in a situation quite like that before. I'm thinking about what to do next time, couldn't figure out how set burst so I could use tv mode standing out there with all those people, should have shot tv mode, 1/800, ISO 800, partial metering. Maybe. I'll have to get some help with that. Coming home, I was trapped in by lots of street closings, had to go way out of my way to find a way out of that maze, lucky I know my streets around here, only one way out from where I got myself. Filled two 1 gig flash cards in about 1/2 hour! Good timing though, a few stragglers were coming up the hill when both cards were full. I'll wait for your photos. Yours will be easy. I know people steal photos. I haven't caught anybody doing that to me yet, maybe mine aren't that good? Somebody in France liked my peacock java applet and wrote and asked, I said ok. What do I care? I just don't want people making money off my work. Will address some of the other issues later. Too bad you have to break up your lily garden, that would be very hard for me to do. You must be either a specialist or have special lilies and maybe getting older like I am? Granny out shooting a race. Hah! I wonder which lens would be best for that? Used 50mm with a different race, much smaller, this time went with the 28-135 so I could zoom. 70-200 not wide enough even if I had it which I don't. That is a conundrum for sure since I was so close to most of them standing on the sidewalk, brushed by a few, tried not to get in their way. Then some other photog gets in my way. There now you taught me something about bracketing. I've been doing it the hard way. Shoot, look at histogram, set exposure comp or some other adjustment. I'm going to try bracketing and quit on the bright end like you do. So thanks for that tip! I dared not shoot that race in AV (my favorite) because with the early morning bright light and shadows, it would have picked too slow a shutter speed. Frustrating. THIS is where I would like to have been positioned lol. She hadn't turned her camera toward the race yet, she had to swing it about 45 degrees to her right to be pointing at the runners coming up the long hill. I fixed this one a little. Later, Alice

Good Morning Lindsey and welcome to the photography forum. While you state that this is your first post in this forum we certainly hope that you will stick around and become a regular contributor. I was initially trained as a "Still Photography Specialist" while serving in the USAF in the 60's and if I have learned nothing else in my mere 40 years of photography, I have learned that only you can answer your question. Now don't think that I am trying to pass the buck or be a wise guy here. At best a camera is merely a tool through which you can express your personality, providing of course that you use it whereas while sitting on a shelf a camera is little more than an expensive ornament. The key to deciding which lenses or accessories you need is to first begin with what you have and use it often. Use it so often that instead of looking through the viewfinder to see what you can get, you begin to see an image in your mind and you use the camera to capture it. Once you are thoroughly familiar with both the capabilities and limitations of the lens you have you will then know what you want the camera to do and you will be able to determine what lens you need to achieve that goal. The human eye produces an image that has roughly a 90degree angle of view. Regardless of what camera we use, in order to produce an image with the same 90deg angle of view we must use a lens that has a focal length equal to the diagonal measurement of the negative or image format. Your camera uses a Type C image sensor and the "Normal" lens for that camera is approximately 30mm. If we then shorten the lens we get a wide angle view and if we lengthen the format we get a telephoto effect. Your 18-55mm lens is giving you a good beginning range from a modest wide angle to a short telephoto. That telephoto is also an excellent portrait lens. If you could provide some information on what you desire to shoot we may be able to help you decide what additional lenses you may need, but for the moment I would strongly encourage you to thoroughly explore the capabilities of that lens in regard to what you want to shoot. Having said that, there are a couple accessories that in my humble opinion are almost mandatory. Get a good tripod. You don't necessarily need a professional grade Bogen, but do not be lulled into those flimsy aluminum and plastic junky things in you local discount store either. I would look for an all metal tripod in the $45 to $75 range that will hold up to hard use under all conditions for years to come. Keep in mind that when shooting vibration is your worst enemy. The tripod you select must be able to hold you camera steady while outdoors in a mild breeze. Get a remote shutter release. Most modern digitals have provision to use a small infra red shutter release that works like a TV remote. With one of those you can set the camera on a tripod and shoot self portraits or family shots but even more important, when shooting on a tripod in dim light you can use the remote to release the shutter and you don't have to worry about vibration from your finger on the shutter button. My camera also has a small mini jack where I can plug in a hard wire remote shutter release button. If your camera has that feature I would strongly suggest you get the remote cord. (they are usually about $10 on ebay). If I can offer you no other advice allow me to say this. Quite often we see amateurs who have super fine cameras such as yours but in their zeal to amass a collection of lenses the opt for the cheap after market lenses from other companies such as Sigma or Tamron. I don't mean to imply that some of the lenses from Sigma or Tamron are not fair lenses, but they are not nearly as good as the OEM lenses that were designed and manufactured by your camera company for your camera. In the overall scheme of things you would be much better served to have one or two OEM lenses than a half dozen aftermarket ones. I personally shoot Pentax and I have amassed a collection of over 25 genuine Pentax lenses ranging from 16mm to a true 1,000mm prime that is 45" long and weighs 12lbs, not to mention a long list of after market ones, but it has taken me nearly 40 years to put this mess altogether and in the end, the lens I use most often is an 18-55mm.