Long time stalker, first time poster, just got my first mac (macbook pro 15) 2 days ago and am very excited about it! Anyways, i am looking into buying my first dslr camera, and have been looking at sony and canon, specifically the a380, a500, and the rebel it1 and it2 i think that is what they are called? I live in Colorado and do alot of scenic shots so was wondering what would be best?? any help would be apreciated....p.s. your guys photos are absolutely amazing!!
Frankly, it really doesn't matter too much which camera body you choose for scenic/landscape shots- spend your money on a good tripod and head (by which I mean hundreds of dollars) and a remote release- they'll do more for your landscapes than anything camera-body-wise. Also, get a good rain cover (I really like the Fotosharp ones) and get up early to catch the good first light of the day- you might also look at photo stitching software like Autopano Pro for doing multiple-exposure panoramic shots (or the freeware PanoTools.) When weather is moving in, you can get some very dramatic shots too, though that depends a lot on where you are and the prevailing wind direction- even with weather sealed bodies and lenses, I always have a rain cover or two in my bag.
Lens-wise you'll be drawn or pointed initially to the ultra-wides- personally, I find that the more I shoot landscapes, the more I tend to go in the 35mm+ range, especially if I'm shooting panos. Ultra-wides just end up with too much sky in the upper parts of the picture, and if I'm shooting specifically for panos, I'm generally shooting vertically where a closer perspective gives me more information to work with. When I first got my 10-20mm (Crop sensor) lens, I shot a lot with it, now it generally only gets hauled out if I need to shoot from the same side of the street as a building and I'll happily shoot landscapes at 80mm+ if I can.
This image is a little unusual for me, as it's a bunch of horizontal frames stitched together instead of verticals, but there's still probably a bit much in the way of sky- the shots were done with a 60mm lens on a full frame camera- which gives about the same angle of view as a 45mm lens on a crop sensor body like the ones you're looking at:
Simply selected because it was the last time I went out and shot some landscape images, but it illustrates that you don't need an ultra-wide to get a landscape shot fairly well.
Paul