[font color=\'#000000\']Mike--
Holy smoke, Batman...the 1DS will be your FURST digital camera? I suggest you start with a used D30! You could buy and sell it for about $1200, and it'll get you used to playing with CF cards, card readers, notebook computers for field use, CF-card readers, etc., instead of film, processing, lite tables, cataloging and physically storing slides, scanners, Digital Ice, etc.[/font]