Top ten reasons I love my new DSLR

In celebration of Motography's new, exciting, expensive, and wonderful upgrade, I have gathered my top ten reasons that I love my new Canon Rebel EOS T2i, with photographic proof.

If this inspires any of you to schedule a shoot - great! Leave a comment, shoot me an email, send a carrier pigeon...whatever works!

1. The images are sharper and clearer. This probably goes without saying, considering my camera trade was a clear upgrade. But even when I decided to buy, I had no idea just how much improvement I would be seeing in my photos. Just check out this close up of Mo's face. You can practically count his whiskers.

Compare that to the image that you see on the top of the page, and you'll see what I mean. You'll also see that I might need to upgrade my logo now...

2. It takes incredible photos in almost all light conditions. Low light, back light, natural and artificial light. Here's an example of back light, with my mom's beautiful (but very snooty) cat, Mitzy.

3. It's sports settings and better flash (in relation to my G11) make action shots easier to catch, without washing everything out. Now, I don't exactly have your typical "action shot" to show here, so bear with me. When I'm not standing behind my camera, and not earning a billion college degrees, I am a nanny to three little boys aged 5, 7, and 9 months. The youngest fella is a mover and a shaker, to say the least.

That being said, he didn't say, "I'd like to take a break from my oatmeal and pose for you, please." Nope. When you're shooting kids, you basically point the lens and pray whenever they're looking in your direction. And the Rebel's speed, which has got to be at least 4x that of my G11, makes that infinitely easier.

4. Changable lenses. The obvious reason to upgrade to a DSLR. Because I am just starting out and working with a relatively small kit, for me this mostly means two words: telephoto lens. Emma, our newest addition, is camera shy. More like camera spaz, actually - whenever she sees a lens, she immediately stops being cute and gets even more erratic and spazzy than usual (which is saying a lot considering she's an energetic 3-legged kitten). This is where the genius of the telephoto lens comes in. Emma snoozes, happily unawares of me snapping away from across the room.

5. The option of manual focus. Not everyone is into fuzzy, artsy pictures. But still, the option to focus more or less on a specific part of the frame isn't a luxury I've ever gotten to play with before. So I'm like a kid in a candy store taking weird, fuzzy shots that no one but me will ever understand or enjoy looking at.

6. It makes a really pleasing clicky sound when I shoot that makes me sound like a professional. I guess this one isn't so important, but I think it's fantastic. And it made this little guy laugh and laugh.

7. Manual zoom, which also makes me feel like a professional. It also saves time, saves battery, and makes way less noise. In this case, my old G11 was like an old, rusty car missing a muffler. The zoom was painfully slow and so loud that it was a miracle if it didn't scare whatever I was shooting away. Controlling the zoom with my hand makes even more of a difference than I expected. It also gives me somewhere to put my left hand, which I love, as a lefty. In studying the falling snow the other day, Emma found her own reflection in the window and was completely entranced. My old dinosaur zoom would have loudly caught her attention and torn her from the window, which would have completely ruined this super cool shot.

8. It takes video in HD. The only video I have taken so far is of my mother dancing in her pajamas with her cat to Kanye West's 'Golddigger', and I think I would get disowned if I posted that, so we'll skip straight to number nine here.

9. I can shoot Large or even Raw images, making the editing options in Photoshop endless. It also allows for the images to be blown up as big as you want, which means I can get myself a life-size cardboard cut out of Mo sitting like a human being in a sweater, as such:

And who wouldn't want that?

10. Incredible speed. The camera turns on quickly and quietly, and is ready to shoot as soon as I am. There is no wait time between pictures, and I can shoot multiple frames in rapid succession even when I'm not in Sport mode. The only issue I've had so far is when I tried to take a series of pictures with the flash and it had to stop and reload the flash charge. But you can hardly blame the camera for that.

If not for its speed, I never would have caught the following act of sneakyness:

While Molly distracts me by pretending to try and steal my dinner in the kitchen...

Mo sticks his entire head into a jar of cheese dip.

Delighted with themselves, they share the spoils.

And that, my friends, is photography.