Geet asked me what inspired me to switch to Canon after my devotion to Nikon and coveting of his D90.  I was intrigued by the D90 and other Nikon offerings, but I preferred to stay in the $500 camera territory (D90 bodies start around $700 used).  True, I would not have had to buy new lenses, but my current lens situation isn’t really to die for (kit lens, 55-200mm VR lens, and 50mm 1.4 manual focus prime lens).  I’ve had the most fun with the prime lens, and I’ll probably spend some real money this time on a Canon version with auto-focus.

The real selling points for me for the Canon XSI over the Nikon D40x were the following:

• Auto-exposure bracketing (for HDR mainly)
• Shot Rate: 3.5 fps vs. the D40x 3fps.  Minor, but still better.
• Image stabilization in the kit lens (a bit gimmicky since it’s a low focal length, but still nice)
• Automatic Sensor cleaning (D40x doesn’t have it)
• More stuff in the viewfinder, like ISO settings.
• Better menu, more features to configure
• Larger screen (I usually use the viewfinder though)
• Live View (very minor advantage, see previous comment).  It will be nice when I’m taking a picture away from my face.
• Weight with the kit lens seems lighter than the D40x (I could be imagining things)
• Auto-focus metering is better, and the up-close performance is better
• Low-light performance seems to be better at ISO 800, but there are so many factors here that it could just be settings away.

The cons exist though:

• The D40x has configurable hardware buttons, which is cool.  I don’t see this on the Canon
• None of my filters will fit the funky 58mm format!  I have quite a few :(
• The SD card slot door isn’t spring loaded – the Nikon’s is.  Very very minor.
• After taking a picture or a set of them, it shows on the screen, but you have to hit the play button to activate review mode before hitting a directional button.  On the Nikon, if you hit a directional button when a picture is showing, you’re magically in review mode.
• The sound!  The squeaky nasty gear-driven shutter sound is rather awful, while the mechanical-sounding Nikon shutter sound is totally awesome.
• The feel of the adjustment wheel is better on the Nikon.  It seems cheaper on the Canon.
• Deleting pictures on the camera is more cumbersome.

Overall, I’m still happy.

Now, I just need to go take some nice photos.

So, I was trying to get rid of the obvious flaw in the following picture, and I found a pretty easy way to do it with GIMP.

Now, I’m no expert at GIMP or anything, but all I did was select the region in question using the lasso, like so:

Then, I used the Colors -> Components -> Channel Mixer tool to bend it to my will (make sure you grow your selection to encompass the whole flare using the Select -> Grow tool):

Notice how in the preview window the blemish isn’t visible?  That’s what you want.  Now, hit OK.

So, now all we have is a little bit of a color/contrast issue.  Let’s fix that up with the Colors -> Color Balance tool:

Now, if you look closely, you can still see just a tiny bit of brightness, but that’s alright with me – it’s much better than the blue crap.  Here’s the end result:

And there you have it: how to remove those annoying lens flares with GIMP.