Canon dSLRs feature a CD full of free utilities, such as EOS Utility, Digital Photo Professional, Picture Style Editor, and Zoombrowser EX. These programs let you perform all kinds of tasks - copy photos onto your PC, sort your pictures, edit your photos. If you can't find your DVD, you can download and install the software using this guide. it ain't quite as good as using the full group of Adobe's picture editing and sorting software, but it also ain't over a thousand dollars. Free is nice.

EOS Capture Utility. You can link your camera to your computer and manipulate it remotely using the EOS Utility. You can utilize your computer to get a live preview from your camera. You can modify any of the settings via your computer. You can snap pics, and have the images saved on the computer instead of or in addition to the SD card. There are all kinds of cool ways to use Canon EOS Utility.

Digital Photo Professional. Digital Photo Professional (DPP) lets you to process RAW images and change images. Each of the things that you could complete with Lightroom or Photoshop - i.e. curves, color temperature, etc - can be accomplished with DPP. It ain't as feature rich as either Lightroom or Photoshop, but if don't wan't to spend hundreds of dollars on the Adobe software you can work with this free Canon software. Photoshop costs a lot of money, and Lightroom ain't free either. Download Digital Photo Professional and get started with that.

Picture Style Editor. If you have to develop RAW picture files, then
Picture Style Editor is a different way to alter the development settings of RAW images. It's useful for batch working RAW images. Get PSE yourself and work with it to find all that it can do.

Zoombrowser EX. Canon Zoombrowser EX is an organizational tool. It enables you to copy your images from your digital camera and place them on the PC. You can order and view images, and you can also do some uncomplicated editing stuff. Install Zoombrowser EX to witness everything it can do for you.

These applications can be extremely productive, especially if you haven't purchased professional tier applications. Use the free stuff you can, and if you instinctively trashed your Canon utilities disc read this post to help you download and install every one of the software for free.

If you might be performing a decent amount of people photography, then you need to work on how to use wireless light. At times, available light is alrightacceptable, but you're able to create much higher quality work by using a couple flashes, a couple light modifiers, and designing the light in your picture.

There are a couple problems with this. You'll have to drop some cash on flashes, to start with. Next, you need to have a trick to fire those flashes without wires. When you begin to experiment with strobist style photography, this other part can be quite complicated and scary.

Older Canon digital cameras didn’t have built in radio capabilities. Either a pair of pocket wizards, a name brand Canon radio trigger, or some less expensive off brand radio triggers are among the gear you'll need. I needed to invest in a handful of wireless triggers when I first got into using speedlights with my Canon EOS Rebel t1i 500D. It didn’t come with a pop up commander flash.

The trend in recent years, however, has become for Canon to include a pop up commander flash on a lot of its latest cameras. So which Canon digital SLR cameras have the capability to fire speedlites?

The on camera commander flash is a feature on each of the most recent Canon  cameras. That means that the Canon EOS  t3i 600D, the Caon 60D, and the Canon EOS 7D will all work. On any of these cameras, the pop up flash can be set as a commander flash, and it will wirelessly set off the rest of the flashes in the group. The on camera flash fires off to send this infrared light, but the power strength of this initial flash is so low that it can't alter the exposure of your image (unless of course you set it to and you set the output).

Past cameras, like the Canon EOS t2i and the Canon EOS 50D, don’t include this feature. The professional end Canon  cameras, like the Canon 5D and the Canon EOS 1D , don’t include on board flashes at all, though. So those cameras don’t have that feature either. But in that case, if you’re spending upwards of $2,000 on a camera, it isn't a big issue to spend a few hundred USD on a Canon ST-E2 IR transmitter.

If you’re still comparing the t2i vs t3i, then this is a perfect reason to go for the more recent camera. If, on the other hand, you’re confused going back and forth between the Canon EOS 60D vs 7D, this isn’t gonna be much help. They both have the same capabilities for flashes.

So you're in the market for a digital SLR camera. You're comparing a Canon t1i, a Canon t2i, or a Canon t3i. Which one should you get? One definining piece of info you should look at is the SLR's megapixels. Which of them has the highest camera resolution?

The Canon t2i and t3i both win a tiny edge when it comes to resolution. They claim a eighteen megapixel res, while the Canon t1i has only fifteen megapixels.

Should this push you one way or the other? Not really. In most cases, approximately eight megapixels is excessive. Anything on top of that is unnecessary.

A normal 4x6 image, printed at 300 ppi, needs about 1200 x 1800 pixels. That's a little over two megapixels. A bigger, 8x10 image makes use of 2400 x 3000 pixels. That's more or less 7.2 megapixels. Unless you're going to be making huge pooster prints, you're never going to make us of all the information saved in those extra pixels.

There are a few other justifications for why you could want to upgrade from the Canon t1i to another camera - like a Canon t3i, or a Canon 60D or 7D. Yet, resolution ain't truly a valid reason. The step up here is tiny. Surprisingly enough, all of these SLRs (the t2i/550D, the t3i/600D, the 60D, and the 7D) all use the same chip, leaving them with exactly the same resolution and image quality.

If you need a more detailed judgement of these cameras, check out this rigorous review of the Canon t2i vs t3i. Digest that for a breakdown of how the three SLRs are alike and unique. If you're in the market for, you would likely be interested in another thorough analysis about the conrast between the Canon t3i vs 60d vs 7d.