Canon Digital Rebel XTi and Missing Unavailable RAW File Option

So I was experimenting with the RAW feature on my Canon Digital Rebel XTi and was frustrated to find that the RAW option was not available in my camera settings. They had always been there before, but when I tried this time to set the image type to RAW, it wasn't available.

The solution: (which makes tons of sense) is to make sure the camera is not in automatic mode. The Digital Rebel XTi will only allow you to saw RAW image data (and hence the file in RAW) format if you are in any shooting mode other than automatic.

It took hours to find the answer to this one, and the solution wasn't even in the manual.

Hope this tip saves you some time (and don't forget that RAW files are massive -- but very cool to work with).