There are many aspects to the craft of photography. One that I try to concentrate on is sharpness. I bracket focus, I watch my depth of field, I take dozens of pictures to get that one that's juuuust right.
Why don't I just review them on the LCD? Sorry, my Rebel XT has a tiny, grainy little screen that is okay for showing the general composition, colors, or histogram, but it just can't show me if I've got a truly sharp photo. So what I do is take lots of pictures, copy them to my computer and review them on a large screen. This works after a fashion, but it has its drawbacks. If I have to wait until I get home from a hiking trip to review my photos, and I find I juuuuust missed the shot I wanted, I'm kind of out of luck.
Okay, so it gives me a good excuse to go hiking again, but still...
I recently found a pretty useful piece of software. It's called DSLR RemotePro and it allows your computer to control your Canon SLR. It allows you to review your shots, even saving them to the computer without having to later transfer them from the card. It supports more features for newer cameras; I can't set AF points in my Rebel XT.
I noticed one other bug: If your aperture is stopped down when you boot the program, it 'reads' that as the minimum aperture setting. Changing the aperture in the camera and rebooting seems to fix it. It's only a minor inconvenience - not a deal-breaker.
My plan is to try to take my laptop the next time I go hiking and use that to review my focus live in the field. I'm also thinking this is where a netbook might come in handy, at least for the weight savings.
Stay tuned to see how this idea works out.
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