Bought an XTi for the wife and I as a couples gift. Now that I have had it for a few days I know this camera should do better. Some pics are mindblowing and others are just average. Is there any pointers on what to experiment with. So many adjustments and yes I read the manual but it is pretty vauge. What gives you great pictures as far as aperature, ISO, ect adjustments. I am going to need a lot of time to get good with this damn thing. Pretty much the first real camera I have ever owned besides point and shoots.

I posted these in the other thread (the same time you were posting this one ) but I'll put them here as well, they helped me alot when I first bought my XTi

http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=HomePageAct

http://photonotes.org/articles/beginner-faq/

http://www.morguefile.com/archive/classroom.php

http://www.shortcourses.com/

And finally a great forum for checking out pics

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/index.php

What kind of photos are you taking? There is no perfect setting for a photo, it just depends on what your taking a photo of and what your trying to accomplish with the photo.

There is a book out there called "understanding exposure" written by Bryan Peterson that helped me ALOT I was 10 times better a photographer after I read it then I was before... and I am still a complete newbie.

Good luck you will absolutely love the XTi

Thanks for the links. I am not taking pictures of anything in particular. We decided to get a better camera because our 1.8MP Sony Cybershot just couldn't cut it. We would take beautiful pictures and they just still sucked. So the camera will take photos or everything, nothing in particular. We would really like to get to learn landscape photography to decorate our walls in the house a little though.

Thanks again. Will have to browse the links and bookmark them for later.

the manual is vague, look for some online forums to get hands on advice, there's a ton of great shared info out there you just have to dig a little

Did you get the 18-55 kit lens when you bought the XTi? Are you thinking of getting another lens?

Here are a couple tips (I'm still a DSLR newbie and by no means an expert so take these with a grain of salt)

1. I would definately recommend picking up that book by Bryan Peterson it will help alot.

2. Try shooting in Av mode (aperature priority) so you can control the depth of field, you can completely change a photo by changing the DOF.

3. Do exercises with your camera (no not crunches ) take a bunch of photos of the same thing but between each photo change the camera settings slightly and then download them and see what kind of an effect each setting had on the photo. Don't do it in full auto though try one of the manual or semi manual settings.

4. Go to the photography-on-the-net forum I posted above and look at pictures other people post, there are some incredible photographers on that site.

I have had my XTi for 1 year (ironically enough my wife and I bought it together as a Xmas gift) and I am still very much an amatuer, but I'll try to find some pics I've taken with mine and post them up later.

Here are some pics I've taken with mine. most of them are of my daughter because thats all I have on my computer at work. The landscape pic is actually kinda crappy because my yard and the trees behind the house are all shadowed out, but it gives you a good idea of the kind of color you can capture.... okay I'm done Bogarting your thread

Nice pics. I did get the 18-55 lens kit with the camera. I do not see getting a new lense in the near future but maybe down the road after I see what this one can do.

Here is probably my favorite pic I have taken since getting the camera. The other thing about photography is being able to get the angles and see something and put it in picture form in your brain before you even snap the picture. I definitely don't have that mind set yet.

Great looking dog.

Regardless of what you may read on the internet the 18-55 lens you have is a good lens for starting off and I'm sure you will be happy with it, but once you get into photography more you will start wanting more lenses... it's an addiction.

I forgot to mention in my other post, your best friend (especially with landscape photography) is a tripod, get one and get a good one.

Your second best friend is a proper, bounceable flash.