Two years ago we purchased a Canon Rebel XT, and have been enjoying it ever since. It has introduced my wife Jess to photography in a way she never had been before, and she has become quite good at it. Our initial purchase eventually led to buying studio backdrops and strobe lighting equipment, wireless triggers and other fun toys.

We were taking studio portrait pictures a few weeks ago for our church Christmas party, and the shutter started developing problems. The shutter was slow (or late) on some pictures, resulting in pictures with the bottom portion blocked by the shutter, or completely black pictures. Also mixed into the fun was the infamous Err-99, which required a camera restart.

Frustrating. The XT's shutter is rated for 30k pictures, and we've only taken ~17k. We made it through the night, but it is clear that our XTs days are numbered. We can fix the shutter for something in the neighborhood of $200, but it requires our camera to be sent into the shop for a couple weeks, and that isn't a good plan right before Christmas and the New Year!

We have a few options within our price range. The cheaper option is the XTi, the XT's current incarnation. It's been upgraded to a 10.1 MP sensor and has a few other improvements, but is otherwise the same XT that we've come to love.

The more expensive option is the 5D, the cheapest Canon with a full-frame sensor. It has a 12.8 MP sensor, and it will remove the slightly annoying 1.6 focal length conversation ratio as a result of using a full-frame sensor. It does have the size and heft of a full size camera, which is quite a but more then the smaller XT.

An XTi body is ~ $500, and the 5D body is  ~ $2000. The 5D is a better camera, but is it $1500 better? We've decided not. The problem with Canon's lineup isn't that the 5D isn't good enough, it is that the XTi has become pretty good. The 5D hasn't had an upgrade in a few years, but perhaps Canon will announce such an upgrade soon.

One of the advantages of the 5D is the fact that a 28mm lens actually acts like one, instead of the 45mm it becomes on the XT or XTi. This is a problem for indoor shooting, as you often can't backup enough to get a good picture. We decided to buy the XTi with the 18-55mm kit lens, which will turn into 29-88mm as a result of the lens conversion factor. Since that gives us most of the desired benefit of the 5D, the only difference would be a 2 MP increase in picture resolution.

We will likely fix the XT as well, and keep it as a backup body, but it will be nice to have a working shutter during the holidays!