Digital might be a good choice if you are traveling. You just have to make sure you can charge your battery there. In A country like you are going I would love to shoot slide film, but I guess digital would make more sense and a pretty long lens if possible. Monte Johnson.

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My questions are...do you think the cost of the dSLR is justified?

The justification to go digital is easy from a financial point of view. Assuming $8.00 per roll for film and developing costs (cheap but it makes the point) per roll of 24 photos, you will recoup the full costs of a $1000 dSLR after 3000 shots. You know your shot volume today so you can see how the return on investment comes in. I exclude prints b/c with either the cost per print is the same.

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Also, what would be a good lens to pick up distance shots of animals? I'm not looking to spend a whole lot on the lens and want something as small as possible that will get the job done so I'm not trekking around with a huge lens.

I understand your weight issue. I am not familiar enough with Canon's lens lineup but you surely can locate a good all around 70-300mm zoom for under $300 that will be relatively light and still give you nice shots.

Digital, Digital, Digital I am a Canon user, the rebel is good but I would check out the 20 D, a few better features, as far a the lens goes there is only one choice to make for a fantastic trip like you are taking the Canon 100-400 VR very fast $1300 add a 2X teleconverter $300 you will not need to buy another lens or 55 - 200 USM $400. My 2cents
Brad

I made the change to all digital about five years ago. But if you change to digital now, you have to be aware of the issues that digital brings to the table.

The most important issue is archiving the images so you still have them when you arrive home. If you haven't traveled with digital cameras before, start thinking about a laptop with a DVD burner so you can make multiple back up copies of each days shoot.

I have a friend who just baught a digital Rebel and a four gig compact flash card for a trip to Africa. He decided the $700 memory card was worth not traveling with a laptop. The only problem is that he's putting all his eggs in one basket and taking a chance on loosing everything. I suggested four 1 gig cards instead which would offer more insurance and be a lot less of an investment.

Anyway, though most of the world is trading in film for digital, you have to make careful decisions on what to do about your trip.

If it were me, I'd take two or three prosumer CoolPix cameras, a small tripod and a laptop and not stress myself over missed images.

In 1998, I went on a three week trip to China. I took my Nikon N90s and two lenses. I don't remember now how many rolls of film I shot, but I do remember it ran almost $800 to develop and print (4x6) what I had shot.

Now consider how much it would have cost had I shot digital.

With digital, you must remember that you also need to bring along something to store your digital photos (laptop computer, portable hard disk or lots of memory cards).

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison of costs - maybe not apples and oranges, but granny smith vs. delicious. The $800 for processing was a one-shot expense, and now it's gone. Spend $800 for a laptop, and you have a tool you can use for many things besides digital storage, and for a long time. The same is true for an external hard drive. I hear that even flash cards can be used for storage for data other than digital images (but I haven't tried it yet).

If you're wondering whether I'm a film geek or a digital geek (geez, this is getting to be like "red states" and "blue states"), I'm both.....and neither. I use my Hasselblad a lot more than I use my 20D.

Larry,

As an alternative to a laptop, there are standalone CD/DVD burners available. They aren't as likely to attract attention - both from customs and thieves - as laptop computers might be. They are also a whole lot cheaper.

-EdT.

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I understand your weight issue. I am not familiar enough with Canon's lens lineup but you surely can locate a good all around 70-300mm zoom for under $300 that will be relatively light and still give you nice shots.

I have suggested to others in a similar circumstance that they take a look at the Tamron 28-300 XR (Di if a DSLR) lens, as it does a reasonable job and is about the lightest thing I have seen. Add a teleconverter, and that is about all the lens one would likely need.

I am still not sure as to whether a DSLR or 30mm SLR is a better choice, I think it depends on whether or not you can recharge the batteries.

-EdT.

I carry the Jobo Apacer portable cd/dvd burner, <$200US refurbished at Jobo website. AC or DC powered. Since you have to burn your files anyway, do it and get it out of the way.
The unit will also play jpegs on your tv.