As much as I would have liked to get a new camera this year, I’m not going to. I’ve had the XT since 2005 and this spring will make 3 years – the longest I’ve used a single camera since I bought my first Pentax SLR back in late-2000.

The truth is, there’s lots of little things I want/need to upgrade, but have better thing to do with the money. I want/need a new camera. I’d like to upgrade the video camera to an HD model. My computer is becoming woefully underpowered with each passing day and it’s time to build a new one. Hell, I even want to upgrade the audio half of the ‘home theatre’ – we’ve had this receiver and speakers since May of 1996 – how fucked up is that? It’s not even 5.1 – it’s old school basic first gen dolby surround.

Anyway, I decided to try to hold off on all of those things (and more) in lieu of some responsibility – mainly paying down some debt we’ve been riding on various things.

But then Canon drops a little advertisement into my inbox. The Rebel XSi drops in April – right around my birthday. Granted, it’s far from top of the line stuff. In fact it’s pretty much bottom of the line shit. But the old XT has worked just fine and in the three years since I got it – it’s paid for itself time and time again. Why drop more cash on tools I don’t necessarily need? Why buy the $50 hammer when the $8 hammer will drive the nail in?

I passed on the XTi as it offered only marginal upgrade over the XT – not enough added or cheap enough to make me bite. But now another generation later and the XSi offers enough over the XT to pique my interest. I clicked on the email from Canon and start reading through the info on their site.

Amazon has it listed for $799 (body only) or $899 with the 18-55mm kit lens (which is now apparently an IS lens). Shit, that’s chump change for this thing. It looks to be a hell of a camera for that price.

Hmmmm….that’s a pretty tempting cheap upgrade. One that I could score just in time for the summer.