newbie with lens & flash question.

[soundqueen]

8) Hi all. new to site and its been very helpful.
I recently went form a canon rebel eos to a digital rebel eos. I have a 70-300 lens i really like and since they are interchangable...
my other lens are 35-80 and then a Bower o.38 super wide HR Macro AF.
My question is should I purchase a flash other than what comes on the camera and what would be another good lens? Thanks. Melis

[scottbergerphoto]

There are suggestions for many diferent Canon and Sigma lenses depending on what you want to shoot and what your budget is. If you do a "search" above on "Lenses", you'll get a wealth of information. I am partial to the following lenses. There are comparable lenses with smaller max apertures that are also good and cheaper:
1. Canon 50 f1.4 ( 50 f1.8 is also good and cheaper)
2. Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS and non IS (f/4 is very good and cheaper)
3. Canon 16-35 f2.8L (17-40 f4 also very good)
4. Canon 100-400 IS L (There are no comparators)
5. Canon 400 f5.6

There are three main flash choices. The on camera flash is really just for emergencies. It's only good for about 40 feet at ISO 100 f/1.0. So if your using a lens with a max aperture of 2.8, it drops to about 12 feet, ( Distance = Guide Number / f stop). It also will give you red eye because of its low angle to the lense subject axis. Consider the Canon 420EX, 550EX and Sigma 500 DG Super. If it's your first DSLR or if you haven't done much 35mm flash, the 420EX should be a good start. All Canon EX series flashes (not EZ) are ETTL compatible. The Sigma 500 DG Super is also ETTL compatible, just not as well built as the 550EX. The 550 EX compared to the 420EX has manual controls and a larger Guide Number (55M vs 42M on the 420EX)
Scott