A Bit About the Camera I Will Be Using

For this course I will be using a Canon Rebel EOS T3 Digital SLR camera.

 A big con for this camera is that it is larger than a point-and-shoot camera and therefore is susceptible to damage at the Animal Shelter.  The size of the camera may scare the animals as well.  Another con would include its price.  While this is not a cheap camera, its price tag is on the low end for a DSLR, which was a plus for me as a budding professional photographer. 

I especially like the various controls that are available to me as a photographer, including the control over the depth of field through the use of AV Aperture Priority.  By changing my depth of field, I am able to focus more on the animal than the background.  And we all know that it's the image of the animal that gets you to come see it and hopefully take it home to be your pet rather than the image of the animal's background.  

One of my goals in this class is to learn more about utilizing the many controls available to me on this new camera.  I have used a DSLR before when I borrowed a Nikon for another photography class.  But I'm a loyal brand follower and since my film SLR and point-and-shoot are Canons, I easily gravitated back to Canon for the Digital SLR.

One pro of this camera versus a point-and-shoot camera is that I can use a higher quality lens with a DSLR and can even change out lenses depending on the focal length I'm after.   This camera came with an 18 - 55 mm lens.  The quality of the lens is also important because it improves the quality of the picture.  It is my goal to give you the best quality photographs I can.  I want you to see the details in these animals that cannot be conveyed by a point-and-shoot camera.  And learning to capture these details is important to me as a budding professional photographer, because it will help me to capture the details better in my future photographs and portraits.

Another pro I will point out about the DSLR camera is the control of the ISO/ASA I have.  This is the same as a 35 mm SLR.  The higher the ISO/ASA the greater the ability to photograph in low light situations.  This is such a huge benefit for the pictures I will be taking as many of the kittens hide in the back of their kennels where it is dark and you normally would not see their individual markings or details.  With a lower ISO/ASA chances are good you would believe the cat would be all black.  But with the higher ISO/ASA, I can capture the color markings of the cat and you would see that it really is a tortoise colored cat with brown markings around the eyes.

The last pro I will point out about the Canon DSLR T3 is the resolution quality.  DSLRs typically capture a higher resolution than a point-and-shoot camera.  This does not mean much to the novice/amateur photographer, but when you go professional this is an important quality.  There is more information available so we (the professional photographers) can give you (the client) the absolute best quality photo possible.  As professional photographers, we can size the resolution down before posting our photos online so that you do not have to face the challenge of waiting a long time to download the photo from the internet, but you will be receiving the highest quality image because of the work we do in "developing the photo."

That's the pros and cons of the camera I have chosen to use for this course in a nutshell.  I hope you will enjoy the photos of the animals I will be posting in the coming weeks and that they entice you to make a trip to your local animal shelter.