Hi guys,

I try not to post too much, especially with "this camera vs that camera" posts, but I really need some opinions. Here is the background;

I'm a student, low budget, started shooting 3 years ago with the brilliant Canon G2. I think I used it to near its full extent. Here is my gallery for some examples:

www.pbase.com/andreaskellas

Last month I sold my G2 and purchased a Rebel Xt thinking I would jump on the bandwagon and never look back. Now I've used the SLR for some time, and while I love certain aspects (notably the high iso performance and the autofocus/shot to shot speed) I find myself yearning for a camera with a live display and more importantly with a swivel display. As you can see from my gallery, a lot of my shots are taken in the studio, at odd angles, or self portraits. I find with an SLR I am just so limited when it comes to this. I have a wireless remote, but its just not the same.

What has made me start to think twice is the Sony R1. Its finally got the swivel display, the high iso performance (not quite there but acceptable), and an amazing lens. The main thing is that on my budget, I would be so hard pressed to get a lens anywhere close to that for my rebel. I don't want to skimp on image quality, and I really like the shallow DOF of large apertures (currently I only own the 50mm 1.8 for this reason) and the lenses I want to get are the sigma 15-30, and the sigma 70-200 F2.8.
Honestly, I dont want to buy halfway there lenses. I feel for my shooting i need large apertures for the depth of field, and there no cheap way to get that.

The problems I forsee with the R1 are the slow autofocus speed, which is unnaceptable for portraits I believe, and the fact that it can't use my 420 EX flash with automatic metering. I put together an off shoe cable, and use it for studio lighting with an umbrella. With the R1, I figure I could buy a set of alien bees and do away with the 420 ex flash, but it sure is nice to have that TTL metering.

I guess the two big factors are money and the swivel display. I could sell my Rebel, the grip and lens and probably get the R1 and be done. No more lens buying. I will lose the tele range, but honestly, Ive never had it, so dont know what its like to be without it. People will argue that I have lost the TTL viewfinder, but I can't get used to looking through it. Its a tunnel, and unless my eye is against the cup and lined up just right, I cant even see the readout at the bottom.

My greatest hope is that pehaps canon would bring out a camera similar to the R1, but honestly, I have pictures to take, I dont want to sit around and wish for a new camera.

Just so you have an idea, here are a few pics I've taken with the rebel. All the rest of the pics in my gallery are from the G2.

www.pbase.com/andreaskellas/nu

Please let me know what you think is the right decision. I'm just looking for some insight, or some factors that I may have missed when trying to rationalize my decision. I'm also gonna post in the Sony forum, and see how differing the opinions are.

Thanks a lot,
Andreas

--
www.pbase.com/andreaskellas