I was ready to buy yesterday. Fortunately for me Best Buy was closed so I did a little more research.

I am looking for my 1st DSLR. I had settled on the Canon Digital Rebel XSi

http://www.bestbuy.com/si...5537713445

Now I have found the Canon Digital Rebel T1i

http://www.usa.canon.com/...elid=18385

It adds megapixels, up from 12.2 to 15.1 but also shoots HD video (1080) at 20 fps.

My question is: is it worth another $200 for that feature? I also see that the T1i uses the same chip as the Canon D50, which is a much more expensive camera.

What are your thoughts on the two? It's my 1st camera, so $800 was excessive for me to begin with.

The T1i cannot use SDXC cards either, so how much HD video can be packed onto a 32 GB SD card? Should I just buy a camera and separate camcorder? Can anyone tell from the specs if the T1i can auto focus while shooting video? Otherwise it seems pretty worthless as a video camera.

Confused yet? Me too. Can you help out?

first things first, lots o' megapixels really only help you 1) print large and/or 2)crop in really tight with out losing detail. So, unless you plan on printing 20x30" prints, or frequently cropping out 50-75% of your photo, don't pay the megapixel thing any mind. Actually, the more MP they cram on to those small APS size sensors, the more digital noise is produced in your file.

20 FPS is so-so quality, even at 1080. 30 fps is generally accepted as the better quality.

That being said, having the video option is very handy. If you will be using this as your all around camera, and are not expecting top of the line quality video, you'll definitely like and use the video option. I have a little 10 MP Sony point and shoot that takes 720p/30 fps also, and I use it ALL the time. Way easier than carrying a camera AND a video camera.

The better sensor may be worth the extra $ alone IMO.

Not sure if the camera uses continuous AF when taking video, but I would think either does or sets the lens to "infinity" which is fine also.

Good luck!

oh, you can get LOTS of video on a 32GB card. A few hours at minimum.

Thanks for the info!

on a separate note, I wouldn't use such a large memory card either. Memory cards get corrupted. Not all the time, but it does happen. If you're using four 8 gigabyte cards instead of one 32 gigabyte card, you only lose 1/4 of your images if one gets corrupted as opposed to ALL of them.

Putting all your images on one card is leaving a lot to chance IMO.