I've had my new Canon Rebel XTi for a month now and am thoroughly enjoying it. As helpful as I have found online and print references about SLRs and DSLRs, I've found that I'm learning the most by just taking lots and lots of photos. By lots, I mean an average of 50-100 photos a day. I end up trashing most of them, but am learning a great deal in the process.

What I do:

- Pick a subject. I try to pick subjects that are somewhat challenging in some way. People are the best for me, but not always available. So I photograph the sky, buildings, objects around the house, a leaf on our front walk. I try for different light conditions.

- Choose a general setting on the camera, like Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, or Manual. I've only opted for Automatic a few times but don't tend to use it because I find I get better results if I can twiddle some settings myself.

- Take a photo.

- Check the photo on the viewfinder. I take my friend Beckett's advice and am also starting to regularly use the histogram to check my light balance; it's sometimes hard to properly judge the success of a photo by just looking at the viewfinder, especially in bright light conditions.

- Tweak a more specific setting, like focal length or shutter speed. Or I experiment with different angles, composition, unusual effects.

- Take another photo and check it again.

- Repeat the previous two steps ad nauseum or until the subject (if I've chosen a live person, for instance) gets bored and walks away.

All of the photos in today's Blathering except for the dinner table shot were taken with my Sigma 30/1.4 lens, in natural light conditions at my mom-in-law's 70th birthday party. These real-life people situations are far more of a challenge, I find, because I don't have the luxury of time to do much tweaking and light testing, and I'm not expert enough to just whip up the camera and take a photo with only a few seconds prep (like I am on my point-and-shoot).

As a result, many of my photos didn't turn out -- they were either too bright, too dark, or not in focus. However, I did get a few decent people shots as well as learning lots in the process. The photo above, for example, is slightly out of focus but I find that I still like it.

My favourite lens so far is still the Sigma. It's amazing in low light conditions, and I like being able to have finer control over depth-of-field for close-ups. It's a bit trickier to focus than my other lenses, but the results are well worth it.

I would have never have been able to take the photo below with my old point-and-shoot, simply because the light levels were so low:

On the other hand, I'm still using my point-and-shoot in situations where my Rebel would be more of a pain to carry around. Like on our canoe trip last week, for example, or in situations where I don't necessarily want to stand out as a photographer so much.

As some of you warned in my LJ comments a while back, carrying around a DSLR/SLR is far different than carrying a point-and-shoot when it comes to being noticed. Everyone these days seems to have a point-and-shoot, so no one really pays attention when someone takes a photo.

My DSLR, however, looks like a Real Camera and also makes Real Camera sounds, so people tend to get more nervous and self-conscious and I find myself more on the outside of a scene looking in, rather than being an active participant.

When I realized this at my mom-in-law's party, I found myself putting my camera aside (in its case or on a nearby table) more often. I missed a lot of photo ops that way but in the end, I wanted to be part of the fun much more than I needed to photograph it.

LINK O' THE DAY

Squirrel Obstacle Course For Peanuts: courtesy my friend Ray. :-)

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