Today I was shooting a family session and my camera kept kind of freezing up - it would just start blinking (the file number) and refuse to take a picture till it finished whatever it was doing. It was like I had filled the buffer - but I have done that before legitmately and this seemed to take longer to recover. I can't figure out why it was doing it, and of course it concerns me.

I was shooting indoors with a Rebel XT, Raw, on Manual or Aperture priority, I started noticing it when I put my 50mm lens on, but then it continued with other lenses, I also had put a new CF card in right before it started this - a SanDisk Ultra II, 1.0 GB. I had a flash on that I had used previously in the day, but it was off at this point. Any ideas as to what was happening or how to fix it?

I would hate for this to randomly start happening at weddings. I feel like it is a stupid technical thing I've forgotten about.

Thanks.

Don't fret. Both of my Xti's started doing the same thing. Except on mind, everytime you tried to mess with shutter speed using dial, it kept going up until it gets stuck on "bulb." I sent the cameras in to Canon to be fixed, and would recc the same.

It sounds as if your buffer was filled up. shoot slower and it will be fine, this is normal as any digi camera can only take so many photo in a certain amount of time, try switching to single shot mode instead on continuous.

Thanks all for you helpful suggestions. After an hour with my manual and some experimentation, I figured out what the problem was - I was comparing the buffer performance now (where I shoot RAW) to before, (when I shot JPEG), there are about 4 shots of tolerance in difference between the two. I wasn't shooting continuous, but in trying to shoot the siblings I had in front of me and get just the right expressions, I was shooting a little fast for the buffer. Until I can upgrade I will have to practice more on waiting for the sweet shot.

Regardless, I appreciate all the help everyone offered. Thanks!