Decisions, decisions (and lots of research)

I've been non-stop researching the Canon Rebel this last week. After hearing nothing but sung praises for it from my professional photographer roommate, Mandy, pro camp photographer Boy Jordan, and hundreds of people in message boards worldwide, I figured out that it's kind of a kick butt camera. (Well, I already knew that, but I got it confirmed enough to satisfy knowing that it won't be a waste of money.) Finally decided I needed to have one in my hands to really play with to see if it looked like something I could catch on to.

I decided to hit up Liz for her XTI at the Wild West Show; her battery was dead.

She directed me to Boy Jordan, who gave me a whirlwind summary of all five versions of the Rebel, including his personal preference, what was so great about the XS, and how he ordered one online, they took his money, then found out they were out of stock (!), and how he still wasn't over the whole ordeal, all in the time it took to get from the WWS stage to Oak Rock. Then he handed me the camera and I proceeded to not know what to do with it in the dark, as hundreds of campers filed past, old camp staff stopped to say hey, and new camp staff who had been campers when I worked there, paused to exclaim over the fact. (That's always fun- working at camp turns everyone into a celebrity of sorts.) So short story: Didn't get a darn thing from the experience (except, of course, for Boy Jordan's vast wealth of knowledge on the subject.)

Brings us to yesterday (Friday). I found this great dealonline (the XT, a fairly good lens, extra battery, 1 gb CF card, and a pretty nice camera bag to boot, all for $469, free shipping, and no tax since it's out of state), and I've been just itching to take the leap. Fortunately my sensibility kicks into high gear when monetary amounts over $200 are involved, and I told myself I was not allowed to seal the deal until I had actually spent time with an XT and found everything online about the XT that could answer anything I'm unsure about.

So today Ryan and I headed over to Best Buy to play with the cameras. It was fun. And I'm definitely loving the Rebel, and definitely hating the lighting in Best Buy. I was able to figure out how to change all my main settings (ISO, aperture, AF-- shutter speed took awhile to figure out), except for how to turn off the bloody flash. It kept popping up for every picture, unless I set it to a specific no-flash mode on the dial, but then I got no other manual options so that just won't work. Seeing as my little point and shoot has auto flash, manual flash, and no flash settings, I'm thinking there's probably an easy way to fix this, and five minutes from now I will be poring over the XT manual online to find that answer.

So all that to say, I will most likely be making my purchase tomorrow night. And maybe, just maybe, I'll even have my brand new little Rebel by this time next week. Woo-hoo!

I'm going to need to come up with a name for that little guy now....


(Also, the 'I did it' in the previous reference refers to my hair. As in, 'I did cut it.')