Here's a total ignorant newbie question, but I have to ask, while waiting for my Rebel to arrive:

I do a lot of animation, but I haven't done stop-motion in a while. Last time I did, I used a digital SLR (this was years ago) by capturing to the card, frame by frame, and emptying it out to a laptop every time it filled up. Not the best workflow. I assume that, by now, one should be able to hook up a DSLR to a mac, have the image flow right into the laptop at whatever resolution / frame size the camera is set to, and use some kind of software to capture away, frame by frame, bypassing the recording media.

Or am I wrong? And if not, what's the best / easiest / cheapest way to do so with the T2i? Can you used the supplied USB cable?

thanks!

There isnt a usb cable. You need to take out the SD card to get your data to computer.

I think you also need a remote to do time photo captured set to an interval.

Not sure if the T2i applies, but I've done plenty of stop-motion work with DSLR's using the program- iStopMotion 2 (http://www.boinx.com/istopmotion/overview/)

We used a Canon 20D back in the day, and were able to have the image on the computer screen for each shot, as well as a "ghost" image of the previous shot superimposed on top. All you needed to do was press the spacebar and it captured the image and placed it into a timeline sequence.

Real simple and elegant workflow.

David,

There is a USB cable icluded, Canon calls it a data cable. You can do what you want with the eclosed EOS software that comes with the camera. You record photos directly to your computer with the included cable and software and there is also a interval timer in the software and the only limit is the amount of free space on your computer. You can also control the camera functions from your computer and see the changes to your images in real time. (well almost real time)

You cannot record video to your computer's hard drive but all the monitoring and control functions are available in the video mode. It's a great piece of software!

For those who don't yet own the camera, here are the instructions for the EOS software, check out the remote shooting section. Maybe Chris could make it a sticky.

Wow, thanks guys, this only makes the deal even sweeter!