Here is my very short guide to taking great photos. First, read your camera manual. There is actually good stuff in there. Second, take a LOT of photos. Take pictures every day, annoy your friends and family with your constant shutter-bugging (is that a real term?) Then when you realize your camera won't do what you want it to do, go buy a ridiculously awesome new camera. Enter the
Canon EOS Rebel T2i 
.
We've been kicking around the idea of a new dslr for a while now. We've had a Canon PowerShot G6 for years and it's been great. 7.1 megapixel resolution has been plenty for our travel and store photos and the full manual controls let you have the same control (more or less) as an SLR. However, it's not an SLR and sometimes the clunky menu-based controls get in the way of a great shot and mostly it's really hard to get consistently good focus. The T2i or 550D as it's known overseas is everything that we could want in a camera (except maybe small. Side note: For going small, I'm really impressed with the
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 we have at work). The T2i's 18.1MP sensor combined with an ISO range up to 6400 gives you an incredible amount of room to work in any lighting type. With an image stabilization lens you can hand-hold shots in lighting where the G6 simply would have said, "No, thanks, I'm afraid of the dark." And(!) it shoots full 1080 HD. Check out some of the unedited test pics below and hopefully we'll have some travel prints available at Etsy soon. I'll be busy reading the 278 page manual.
