If, after noting my invitation to join the creative fun of becoming a semi-retired, sort-of-professional, travel photographer, and if you happened on an evening stroll through a RV park walking your “social secretary” dog as an excuse to stop-n-talk, and you picked-up on the notion that both Bobby and I —perhaps on account of our wearing our custom photo-art T-shirts— might be just the people to ask for an opinion as, “what digital camera would be a best for an RV traveler to do “freelance” magazine work?”

After complimenting your dog’s good socializing manners, also, I would probably start to answer with a long drawn out, “Well, glad you asked because back in 1953, it was..” only to be saved from boring you to death Bobby would toss it right out — “Canon Rebel.”

That’s it. Much of my wandering life has been seen through Canon lenses, published in the pages of LIFE, Holiday, and lately, AlaskaTravelMagazine.com. The digital age has made it oh-so-much easier to get past the technical stuff to actually bring back what you are seeing in your head. Professionally I never did buy into that one had to show up to a press conference wearing a Nikon, so I also like the name — Rebel.

I am hoping that you realize we are not being paid to “advertise” Canon. But I do want to say — “Pssst! Over here. Want to buy a camera?” I am working on trying to get our reader’s an exclusive RVTravelMagazine.com dollars off reward, but for the time being you can support our corporate mission to entertain, inform, and delight by buying something from our virtual store, where Amazon.com does all the grunt work dealing with boring things as collecting money, packaging, and shipping.

If you are shopping for cameras by price alone, know this can lead you to murky gray area types peddling units that are not warranted in the US, that practice bait and switch on accessories that make up for any loss on the main item, and that are very difficult to track down as to who is what, why, where, when, and how.

A couple of years ago following the path of a fraudulent, high profit, “extended warranty” through a number of online photo dealers I realized (thanks to knowing how the URL system worked) that one person was using a extremely low price (but back ordered) via one website, to lure an anxious buyer to access the second lowest (also sold out) URL, to lead to a third “online store” that did have the item ready to ship at a higher, but still discounted price. And even better, this “legitimate” outlet promised accountability, a statement made hollow by my knowing that one person owned all of the online web sites and front corporations supposedly bidding against themselves!

Yes, you may find a cheaper advertised price than the already discounted Amazon.com price, that brings us a very small present for linking your eyeballs through to the “buy” page. What we are offering is a validation that this particular brand, and model, is something we would recommend to friends. If your feedback proves us wrong, then know your —honest and justified— complaints would be “reverse advertised” Information Age style. We also would probably take a look at other camera brands and models to sell in “partnership” with Amazon.com by their guaranteed “drop shipping,” delivery system. After all, we are the ones concerned about our own reputation.

Click on the appropriate text link below to order your Canon Digital Rebel XTi 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens.