Sorry, 1st place is for 17-85 IS

[]

Only on full-frame.  On the XT it's nearer to 42mm FOV, whereas many
compacts are 36mm FoV or wider.  My Panasonic TZ3 is 28mm FoV, a lot wider
than a 28mm on an XT, and almost as wide as the 18 - 55mm on my Nikon D40.
I would want wider than 28mm (physical) on an XT.

Cheers,
David

Still not wide at all, just 'normal'. You can get a 24mm f/2.8 for $270
plus a 50mm f/1.8 for under $100.

My wide lens is the 17-40 f/4L, but that's a bit above his $500
cutoff.
Like Steven Wright says, "You can't have everything .... where would
you put it?"

Kinda gives new meaning to the word "homesick."

Of course the correct answer to your question is, "Someone who had to
pee."

When I was there (it was many years ago, but some things never change), the
rental car company gave us coupons for McDonald's. The kids liked it and the
coupons made it cheap, so that's where we ate lunch most days.

Bob

Stop down 1 or 2 stops.
Make sure you focus correctly.
Use a faster exposure time.  (=> more light!)
Set ISO to no higher than 400 for best sharpness.  Increase
   ISO however before accepting too slow exposure times.
If in doubt, use a *good* tripod.
Make sure that object movement doesn't cause blur --- many sports
   want 1/500s, 1/1000s or faster.
Make doubly sure the AF latches onto the _relevant_ part of
   the image --- the AF may be sensitive to areas about 9
   times as large as the central AF spot marker (i.e. "copy" the AF
   spot marker to directly above, below, left and right of
   the marker in the viewfinder, and make sure nothing there
   is of stronger contrast or closer).[1]
With portraits, try to focus on the pupil of the closer eye.
If possible, decouple the AF function from the shutter
   release.  It really helps, but takes getting used to.
If critical focus is important and the AF is in "One Shot" mode,
   trigger the AF more than once.
Remember that with a lens slower than f/2.8 Canon's AF just
   guarantees that the focus point will be within the allowably
   circle of confusion (as defined by Canon) of the wide-open
   lens.  The CoC is larger than one pixel!  You may need to
   resort to manual focussing and focus bracketing.
Use a lens screen.  Not only does it protect the lens from quite
   some abuse, it also strongly increases contrast and image
   quality by keeping strong lights away from the front element.
   If necessary, use your hand or some other object to keep your
   front element in the shadow (unless the sun is in the frame,
   then you cannot do much about it).
Do _not_ use an UV filter or protective filter of any kind for
   "protection" unless your shooting conditions include sand,
   salt water (spray), mud spray, or similar.  Even high
   quality, expensive filters can degrade image quality,
   cheap filters often degrade the quality lots.  (Note: if
   you are using a filter for effect, i.e. gray filter,
   polarizing filter, etc. that is something else.)
Make sure you expose your shots correctly.  Look at the
   histogram and adjust exposure if necessary.
Don't judge the sharpness exclusively on the 100% view, unless you
   want to print, present or beam the image _really_ _really_
   huge.  Your monitor has probably 75-100 DPI, thus an 8MPix
   (3504 x 2336) image at 100% would be 35x23 to 47x31 inches
   (98x58 to 119x79 cm) at that magnification.
   (And even at barn door size most people aren't going to get
   out the loupe looking for pixels.)

   Look at 1200x1800 for 300DPI 4x6 inch prints --- and
   that's taking a loupe to them.  I doubt most people you
   show the shots to have more than 1200x1600 on their
   monitors, either.

Set the in-camera sharpening and contrast higher, or accept
that you _have_ to sharpen (increace acutancy) digital images.
(You do the same when developing film, but there it is a chemical
process, not a step you think about.)

Be aware that point & shoot digital cameras oversharpen and
deliver very contrasty images.  They look "sharper" at first
glance, but ugly on the second glance.

Please show examples where you feel the image is not sharp.
Scale down the full image and show 100% ("pixel for pixel")
crops of areas where you think it's most noticeable.   Make
sure the EXIF data is not lost, as it is important to
understand and evaluate the conditions of the shots.

-Wolfgang

[1] This is due to the facts that the screen cannot be 100%
   aligned to the AF (which is in the camera bottom, btw.)
   and that the active area of the AF cannot be too small.

I don't see what your problem with the 18-55mm is.

You are asking "What brush and colours did Michelangelo use to
make such images?" assuming with the same tools you can, too.

The answer, unfortunately, is not "you lack the tools", but
"you need more experience".

-Wolfgang

Your pictures are quite good.  John's camera and lens will take virtually
indistinguishable pictures from yours when used with the same settings.  If
you two switched cameras, yours and his pictures would look exactly the
same.  The 18-55mm has a bunch of advantages over the 17-85 including less
vignetting, larger aperture at the wide end, less barrel distortion when
wide, less chromatic aberration, and much closer focusing.

If you want your pictures to look like his, then expose a bit darker, turn
the colour saturation up and be more careful in your post processing.  Some
of the sharpening and/or resizing was done poorly on yours.  Also watch out
for time of day differences.  John looks for better lighting.  You will also
learn to recognize good light in time.  Try early in the morning or later in
the afternoon.  Not every day even has good light.

Pictures like the cannon were taken when the light was good but also very
heavy sharpening has been applied to bring out the surface texture probably
applied with layer masks to avoid applying it to the edges and causing halos
and noise in the sky.  You can learn these techniques too.

With a _cheap_ (!= "good value for money") object you
will be happy once ... when you pay.  You might cry when
using it, though.  Every time.

With a well-researched and choosen object of good quality (which
may be dear or very inexpensive) you may cry when paying.  Once.
But using it should be a joy.

-Wolfgang

That a great thought. Apply for any aspect of life.
I think maybe I should take my first choice rather. Canon 17-85mm IS.
I'll try if I wont like sigma, I will replace for 17-85.