Happy late holidays and a late Merry Christmas to everyone! (: Indy, Adam and I have been out of town all weekend and we all had a blast! We drove to Dallas (5 hour drive) and Indy was great the whole way there. When we got to my aunt's house with the family Indy fit right in! (: It was his first Christmas! He had a blast with all of the people and other dogs, he was actually upset that we had to leave and was a major brat the whole way home! He did nothing but pout LOL!

So I got a new camera.... My first DSLR. It's great and I LOVE it, but it's only my first day with it lol. I'm trying to get used to the minefield of options and settings and "zones"! Do any of you have experience with the Canon Rebels? I did some reading and research before deciding..so I know a little about it...Mine is the new T3i and I am just having one problem that is irritating...so far..In sports mode I can't figure out how to turn the flash on (if it is used in this setting) and to take clear pictures that don't blur sometimes! GRR! I get some good ones often, but not - say when Indy is playing with another dog and they're wrestling. I'm sure it's something stupid simple and I just don't see it yet lol.

Some family members have been so aggravating this weekend! I love them all to death, don't get me wrong. But come on! One incident that really made me grind my teeth was when we were having Christmas dinner and Adam's grandmother was talking to Indy next to the table (he knows not to beg and we just ignore him until he gets bored) and next thing I know, she's slipping him her scraps! I have told this woman countless times to NOT feed him any "people food" and she does it right in front of me! And then after I asked her several times not to do it right there before she gave it to him she still does, and then keeps talking about it like it's MY fault that he can't have those foods! The nerve! This isn't her first offense either. And then later asks if it's okay that he have cooked chicken bones! Indy is on a strict diet and only gets raw foods that are appropriate for his diet at feeding time and as treats not so often - only. He never gets fed from the table or when we're eating, much less foods that are fried, battered, and injected with heaven-knows-what. She feeds her little dog anything and EVERYTHING and I don't even want to bring Indy over to her house anymore now! AUGH!

Sorry for the rant but I am just so mad about it.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I have a Nikon, but the features should be similar. I really don't use the 'sport' mode to take my pictures of my pups. I will set the ISO higher and depending on the depth of field, I will set the aperature on a lower setting to let more light in. That'll make my shutter speed faster. I'll also set my auto focus on the setting for moving targets. You should be able to turn off auto-flash, but setting the ISO and aperature to a combination so that you're letting enough light in should not trigger the flash to go off. (e.g. if I set my ISO to one of the highest setting and open the aperature wide open, I can take pictures at night without the flash).

Hope this helps....

The issues you had at the dinner sounds exactly like my family, I can tell them things a thousand times and tehy´ll do the complete opposite of it, that´s why I stopped taking Anuibs with me when I´m there.
My aunt and my grandparents feed everything to their dogs too, they even fed chocolate to their former dog, although every dog owner should know that this can cause death.

The flash won't fire in sports mode. The T3i, I I believe, can do about 4 frames per second, the flash can't recharge as fast as the camera can take photos - so it's not really an option.

Yay more camera fans (: Thanks Claudia and Riley! I'll have to try that! I've seen your pictures of your two pups playing outside and they're fabulous. I just need a few more days - or weeks lol - to figure everything out. I've been bugging both Adam and Indy by taking tons of pictures of them haha. I haven't played with any of the ISO settings yet, I was trying to get a feel for the camera first before Idove into all of that lol. Claudia, how long have you had your Nikon? And are you satisfied with its performance? Riley, what camera do you have? It's pretty outside today and Indy has a play date with Bailey so we'll see if this camera can handle those two!

Dennis, I know! I was just like"really?!" She feeds him cooked chicken bones, foods full of starches and preservatives and scraps from the table. My dad swears that chocolate doesn't kill or make dogs sick. He used to have a hunting lab years ago and would feed him WHOLE Hershey bars! I told him that just because that dog must have been Super Dog doesn't mean that Indy is too. He gave Indy a chocolate chip cookie one day and I wanted to knock him senseless! My dad is a retard when it comes to animals lol. At least I can tell him something and it doesn't go right through him lol. He always jokes about it now.

I've had different rebels since the release of the first digital Rebel, even delved into the fancier Canon DSLRs. Currently my wife and I have the T2i (basically the same camera as yours, only no swivel LCD).

I LOVE my camera. I've done photography a looooong time ago when it was still film! I developed my own film and I had a darkroom that I shared and then fell out of it. I took some time to figure out what I wanted in a DSLR, and ended up with my Nikon a few months ago. Also, if you set the image quality to high or if you can take raw pictures, you can create canvas prints and use them as art work - I've done this with a few pictures of Ginger and Storm and they look like I've paid someone to make those canvas prints. Only cost me $40 for 3 8x10 canvas prints

I love my Canon! Just takes time to get used to it and realize just how much it can do

This sounds like my family so much. Thankfully last night things went smooth and no food was snuck off the plates.

I looked into the T2i. I wasn't sure if the T3i was right for me, but like you said basically the only differences are the swivel screen and a few minor things. I've always wanted one, but I wanted to hold off till the time was right (it was a little pricey for a college student...) I was surprised with it for Christmas! (: I've figured out a few settings that are allowing me to take better pictures of Indy and the stray cat around here. So far they're not blurry if they move, but if I set the shutter speed too high the aperture doesn't set to where it'll allow much light in and the pictures are really dark.

That's pretty awesome Claudia. I don't think my pictures will be that good on this camera for a while lol. But I am hoping to get a few good prints. I've done a very little of the dark room development, I wasn't that good lol.

I remember mentioning a raw diet to my mom and she looked at me like I had lost my mind at first. I had to explain why it was beneficial to Indy and myself. Everyone around here isn't used to worrying about what dogs eat.

Can you set the ISO higher? The bigger the aperature, the faster the shutter speed you can go, but you'll sacrifice depth of field with a bigger aperature opening. So, if your shutter speed is fast, and your aperature is on the biggest opening, then you'll need to set the ISO to a higher number.

Right now I'm in Tv mode (Time Value) and my shutter speed is 1/200 and ISO at 6400. If I set my shutter speed any higher the picture fades darker the higher I go, and I'm not sure if I'm setting my aperature right...If I am, then the aperature automatically adjusts when I adjust the shutter speed while holing the shutter button half-way down. I have some of the shots up under Indy's scrapbook that I took today after playing with the settings.

Claudia, you're right about the Raw photos! That's crazy how much more detailed they are compared to the basic photos!

Raw photos will take up more space on your memory card, so unless you're doing a lot of editing or you have a big memory card, you can set the photo quality to high.

I noticed that one really quickly. I just deleted them off the card once I put them on my computer.

Just remember that your computer WILL die some day so be careful on deleting pictures from your cameras card.

I've experienced some of my computers crashing, unfortunately! I have a relatively new Mac, and it's babied. But I back up my computer with an external hard drive just in case as well. All of my bad experiences were with Dell and HP, so I'm partial to Apple products.