Two awesome Digital SLRs and tips to get the most of your Digital SLR

In this article I will be giving short reviews on 2 must buy cameras for professional photographers and I will also share 12 ways you can get the most of you Digital SLR Camera.

Canon EOS 60D
The Canon EOS 60D represents a new category of Canon DSLRs designed to specifically to bridge the gap between the consumer level EOS 550D / Rebel T2i and the semi-pro EOS 7D.

The 60D is smaller than the 50D that it replaces, measuring 144.5 x 105.8 x 78.6mm.It's also a little lighter too at 755g (including the battery and memory card) thanks to the adoption of a metal chassis covered with a plastic outer.

The Canon 60D packs new goodies including an 18MP sensor, 1080p HD movie capture with option of frame rates and Canon's new iFCL metering system. With a 3:2 aspect ratio LCD and 1,040k pixel resolution it comes with full pivoting facilities, in other words it’s a swivel screen - a first for any Canon D-SLR (awesome).The Canon EOS 60D offers two control wheels; a small one on the top of the handgrip, and a large, spinning dial on the back of the camera. There’s now a dedicated Q button which opens the Quick Control screen. Depending on which shooting mode you're using, this lets you set various parameters via the LCD screen, using the four-way controller to move around the various options.
The Canon EOS 60D offers fast, positive autofocus, which can track moving subjects very well and which is also near-silent, even with the EF-S 18-200mm lens.

Canon EOS 7D
The body of this DSLR is riddled with buttons, which while initially scary for beginners, will be unbridled joy for anyone upgrading from a consumer body. Focus zone, continuous shooting and ISO are controlled from a row of buttons next to the shutter release.

The 7D is the first Canon to come with an integrated Speedlite transmitter.

At 7.2 frames per second, it's great for wildlife shooting. There is no shutter lag or measurable time between shots, making it very responsive. The responsiveness is aided by the 7D's superb focusing system. It has 19 cross-type focus sensors and limited only by the speed of the lens' focus motor. It tracks superbly.

The smaller sensor hides another plus for sports and nature photographers – the 1.6x crop factor means every lens you attach gains a little distance. A 400mm lens on a 5D MKII, for instance, will be a 640mm lens on the 7D, getting you closer to your subjects. The inclusion of a RAW/JPEG button is useful for one-off RAW shooting – when faced with a scene with particularly wide dynamic range, for instance.

12 tips to get the most of your new camera, especially if you’re new to DSLRs:

1) Read the Manual. Reading the manual will immensely help your confidence and flexibility when using your new camera. Knowing what each feature or button does can be a life saver when you need it. And the chances are your new camera does a lot more than you thought it could.

2) Learn the basics of shutter speed, aperture and ISO. One of the greatest strengths of DSLRs is the level of manual control they offer, which gives you the power to craft each image exactly the way you want it. This is powerful, but it can also seem tasking when you’re confronted with a jumble of numbers and icons on the displays. The only real way to take advantage of this control is to understand the basics of how shutter speed, aperture and ISO affect each other and the shot you’re taking.

3) Disable the auto-everything modes. Once you understand the basics of shutter speed, aperture and ISO, you’re free to explore your camera’s capabilities. Leaving the camera in auto-everything will give you fair enough to good shots, but you’ll never really know in advance what you’ll get because the camera decides on depth of field and shutter speed issues (and ISO on some cameras).
Get comfortable with Aperture Priority mode first. In this mode you control the aperture and the camera will choose a shutter speed to give a properly exposed shot. Choose an appropriate ISO for your lighting conditions (higher for darker), and see what you come up with at different apertures – keeping an eye on the shutter speed to guard against blurring (unless that’s what you’re after). Always do a test clip when shooting to be sure of your white balance.

4) Switch off the on-camera flash. On-camera flash tends to be very bland, creating a harsh flat light on faces, and spoiling the elements of a scene. Cameras these days are getting really good at shooting in low-light situations, and you’ll get much more satisfying results if you increase the ISO and shoot without the flash.

5) Try an inexpensive prime lens. If your camera came with a kit lens, it’s likely a medium zoom lens that covers a pretty satisfying range. It’s handy in most situations (especially outdoors), but likely isn’t as good in lower light conditions, and the image quality might not be stellar.
Playing with prime lens will let you work with a much narrower depth of field, use a faster shutter speed in lower light and might give you better overall image quality than a regular zoom.

6) Shoot all kinds of different things. Landscapes, sports, events, wildlife, still life and street photography all offer their own challenges. So try all of them (and anything else you can think of) and see what excites you. Even if you discover that you’re not that interested in that particular area, you’ll probably learn something along the way that will enhance your photography skills.

7) Use a tripod. It’s not rocket science, you want stable images/videos while saving your battery too by turning all image stabilizing functions off? Use a tripod.

8) Use a better mic than the camera's built-in mic. The camera’s built-in mic is ok, but why stick to ‘ok’ when you can get better audio by adding a better mic. You could try the "Zoom H2", "Road Shotgun", "Wireless Lavalier” to mention a few.

9) Shoot a lot. One of the joys of digital photography is that each shot is next to free. I’m not advocating ’spray and pray’ – there should be a thought behind each image – but the more you experiment, the faster you’ll learn.
So have the camera easily available when you’re at home, and bring it along with you even on unpromising outings. And if you can, set aside some time just to go out and shoot.

10) Shoot RAW. Chances are your DSLR offers you the chance to save your images in RAW or JPG format. JPG images are ‘cooked’ in the camera – everything is already made from adjustments to saturation, contrast and other settings to give you a more nearly finished and smaller file. RAW files keep everything the sensor captured, and need processing in your computer to get the best out of them. RAW files give you much more flexibility to correct mistakes later (especially with exposure and white balance), so even if you didn’t completely nail the image you were after, you can improve things later with programs such as Apple Aperture or Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop.

11) Print some images large. Seeing an image as a physical object is a special, bringing the subject to life in ways that any number of viewings on screen can’t. Even the smallest DSLR these days is capable of producing wonderful prints at large sizes.

12) Share your photos. Sharing your images online is another way to give your images life after you’ve taken them. Photo sharing websites like Flickr are a great way to find an audience for your work, and also get exposed to a group of people with similar interests and skills.

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