ahh....ok, I understand what you're taking about now, Rob. Especially in the bee picture. It seems as though the flowers that are in the background, which are slightly out of focus have sort of a mirrioring effect to them. Well, I sure hope these problems are being caused by the lens. Hopefully when I get a better quality lens, it will solve the bluring and give me nice, crisp, clean pictures with perfectly blured backgrounds.

Jeff, ill look into how to clean the cmos. I know there is an option in the menu to clean the cmos. I just need to read about how it works and what to do.

By the way, which picture has the white flower with the black center? I cant seem to find which one you folks are talking about! lol...

Being that this is my first SLR camera, I still have alot to learn. The owner of the store I bought the camera from, which is also a friend of mines, gave me a book called "EF Lens Work III - The Eyes of EOS", which I am reading to get a more technical view of the lenses and what they do. All in all, I am slowly learning and becoming used to the SLR format. Now, I just need to save up some money to invest in some good lenses and a flash!

Anyone out there got a used Speed Light 550EX for sale?

Thanks for all of your comments and information regarding which lenses would suit me best. Keep the information comming! I apprecaite it!

One more thing, How are Sigma lenses? My mom has some connections to a sigma dealer and she may be able to get the lenses at cost. If the price is right and you folks recommend the lenses, I may get maybe 1 or 2 Sigma lenses for my collection.

hmm...just wondering! let me know! :D Thanks!

Sigma make pretty good lenses. If you were shooting professionally I would say stay with Canon but as you are starting out Sigma lenses are good alternatives. The high-end Sigma lenses fall between Canon's standard and their L lenses in price but come very close to the L lenses in performance in many cases. You will miss little things like being able to leave the lens in Auto focus and temporally disable it with a button on the camera body (not even sure you can do this with the Rebel) but optically their lenses are very good especially the 17-35/4 and the 28-75/2.8.

My wife's old Rebel G is too low-end to warrant the expensive Canon glass, so I bought her a pair of Sigma's that we've been very pleased with, for about $280 I think. They are a 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 and a 70-300mm f/4-5.6, both with macro capability. If you can't justify Canon (or Nikon) glass, in my opinion Sigma is an affordable alternative for either brand.

If you like Sigma glass you can also consider the Ritz Camera house brand, Quantaray. Sigma makes all the AF Ritz lenses.