Meet our newest family member

Every year, for the past 9 years, we go to Smugglers Notch Resort in Vermont as a family for Thanksgiving. The first year we went, Gabrielle was only 3 months old and now she’s 8. Crazy how time just flies by. This year it was only my parents and my family who went (usually my sisters come too with their families), however we did bring along our newest family member… the Canon EOS Rebel SL1 camera. And what a fun family member to travel with! You can see some pictures from last year’s trip here: Our Family Tradition. You’ll notice right away the difference in the quality of the photos.

I always have a camera by my side when we go on family outings and vacations, but I find it gets in the way sometimes. It’s bulky and heavy… however, bulky and heavy are not words meant to describe the Canon Rebel SL1! It’s the World’s Smallest & Lightest Digital SLR Camera (as of March 1, 2013, Canon’s research. Among digital SLR cameras with APS-C size equivalent sensors)! I put it to the test and it’s way lighter than both DSLRs that I already own.

As soon as we arrived at Smugglers Notch, Sébastien brought us to the scenic Notch so that we could snap a few shots. We were quite surprised to see that many of the trees had already lost most of their leaves. Of the 9 years we have been, this is the first time the trees have little leaves in the Notch. Luckily when we drove down from the Notch, the trees still had leaves. As you can see in the below photos, the camera captures beautiful shots!

The first full day of our family vacation, we always visit the town of Stowe. It’s a beautiful town filled with breathtaking scenery. Our first stop is a shop where they sell everything under the moon from candy, clothes to even books! After we are finished our shopping, we always have to pick up some of their delicious cookies! What a delight.

Once we were done our shopping, we decided to go on the Toll Road up Mount Mansfield. We have never been up there before, but my sister did last year and highly recommended it to us. We drove as high up as we could and we hiked the rest of the way up. We weren’t prepared to hike (I for one, was not wearing proper hiking shoes), but we made it that high, no way were we not going to see the rest. The entire time we hiked up, I held the camera in my hands… and I honestly forgot on many occasions that I had it, it’s really that light! What a sight it was! We were 4,393 feet high!

During our trip, we brought the kids to do real hiking. This was the first time they went hiking. We had so much fun. Little Emanuelle was a trooper, she didn’t complain once, but lucky for her when we got to areas that were wet, her grandfather would carry her. I was really impressed with Gabrielle too, she hiked and hiked and she was willing to keep going when we decided it was enough for the day. Even our Canon #RebelSL1 hiked like a champ! A true pleasure to hike with, snapped pictures when asked and he didn’t weigh us down one bit!

We spent the rest of our long weekend enjoying the activities at the resort, walking, hiking and spending quality time together. Each year I make sure to take a family photo. I set the timer and run to join the family but the Rebel SL1 has a great feature that I love! It has a timer that you can set the time for! Yes, that’s right… you can select how many seconds until it takes the photo! Not just 5 seconds or 10 seconds, but custom! It came very handy when I was standing further from them and I needed the extra time to reach them and place myself.

Family Portrait with the Canon #RebelSL1

Check the difference from last year’s family photo:
See how much crisper the colors are. Way better quality of photo!

The camera is GREAT for portraits! I rarely take portraits, I never seem to get them right. But that’s not the case with this camera. The view finder is so clear and the screen has such great resolution that it allowed me to take many portraits. The 40mm lens is a true gem! I love how simple it is to change the lens. Press a button to unlock, twist the lens to remove it and twist on the other lens.

I mentioned the screen had great resolution, but did I mention that it’s a 3.o¨ Touch LCD Screen? Seriously the best feature EVER! You can do so much with the touch-screen. When taking a photo, you can touch the screen to tell it where to focus, plus it will take the photo right after it has focused. GENIUS! Do you know how much time I have saved with this feature? No more needing to use the arrows to slowly get to the focus area I want, which gets very annoying when you have many photos to take.

I’m basically IN LOVE with the Rebel SL1 and I’m proud to say it! I love its size, weight and especially its features! I honestly believe that whoever gets a chance to play around with it will love it. To put it to the test, I will lend it out to some family members to see what they think of it. Stay tuned for an update!