Lens recommendation?

I have a Canon Rebel XT. Scored it from craigslist for about $230 and I love it, it's been great. It came with a lens (but it's not the regular 18-55mm lens that they usually come with... but it's pretty much equivalent to it). Anyways, it takes pretty good shots and I've always been pretty happy with it but I want something better. I only have one lens right now for it.

I take a lot of action shots and most come out decent with the sports mode on, but I want something a *tad* better. I also have a thing for major bokeh shots (aka blurred background) so maybe something that would be give me a little more of that. So action and portraits (I would say 85% of my pics are of dogs) are what I take most of.

Here's the catch, I really want to keep it under $200 (or I could find it on ebay or amazon for that under $200, even if the lens itself is worth more).

I've heard that the simple 50mm lens is great for blurred background shots but not action. So would it be smart to just invest in a 50mm (which I've seen for less than $100 on some sites) and then get another lens for action? etc?

Thanks for any suggestions you all can give me. I'm still semi clueless when it comes to photography.

I'll touch on this in two parts.

Firstly, a 50mm f/1.4 or f/1.8 is always a nice lens to have around for available light photography. The lens I use most often is something very close to a 50mm. The only draw-back to a 50mm as an 'action' lens is that it's only a short telephoto lens. It'll work, but you'll end up doing a lot of cropping. On the flip-side, some of the 50mm lenses out there are amazingly sharp and are well worth the money (especially at $100 or less).

I would suggest that a 50-200mm zoom lens or a 75-300mm zoom lens would likely better suit 'action'. The consumer zooms are slower to focus and not quite as sharp, but you can still work with them and if you keep the subject within 15-20 feet and shoot wide open (f/5.6, based on your budget), you'll end up with a nicely blurred background. Having said that, a faster or longer lens will cost more, but you will notice an improvement in auto-focus performance and image quality.

All in all though, I think an EF 50-200 or so would likely fit the budget and deliver very good results.

This photo was done on my old Canon 20D w a 24 - 105 L IS.
You should consider a L grade lenes as Expensive and more suited for Full Frame Cameras.
The motion blur effect of Savvy's body and ivy was added in Photoshop.
For motion shots stick to zooms.
Primes like 50mm are sharper but not great for motion.
Bokeh is best done w long lens, full frame cameras, and software.
Unless you want to spend a lot more ... stick with what you have.
You might want to pick up a copy of Photoshop ...

How about messing with your settings some more? You might be suprised!

These are ones that I've taken with my 18-55 Nikon lens:







With my 70-300, the pictures usually turn out like this:

Set portrait:



For action it's usually something like this:

I really like my 50mm 1.4. It focuses really fast and is sharp! Great bokeh as well.

However, I think if you're doing mostly dog photos, especially outside, go for a 55-200 (the not image stabilized version is pretty cheap), there's a 55-250 IS version that's a bit more expensive. or go for the 75-300 non-stabilized.