My Canon T7i Experience...5 Years Later // Street Photography, Lenses, Camera Settings & Review

Introduction

Everyone always says, the best camera, is the camera that you have on you. People also say, the best camera, is the camera that you know. Of course, having more expensive gear will get you the fancy 4k, 8k, 120fps footage, more pixels for higher res photos, and whatever else higher quality specs there are. BUT, it won't give you a more creative eye, or give you one key element to creating impactful art...a good story.

Over the last five or six years or so on my photography journey, I’ve been using the canon T7i. I’ve used it for everything so far from street photography to shooting landscapes portraits, shooting events, and I’ve been absolutely blown away by how much I’ve been able to get out of this camera, especially with it being such an affordable option for a DSLR.

This won’t be a typical review where I go over all the specs of the camera, but I do just want to share my experience with it. I’m just going to talk about the lenses I’ve been using, share some photos I’ve taken with the camera, share what I’ve learned so far, share some dues and don’ts, and just kind of talk about my experience with it. The whole point that I want to get across is that if you are just starting out with photography, you don’t need super expensive, high-quality gear to get you going. It’s more about training your eye. Honestly, I just don’t want you to think you need to spend $3000 on a camera just get started. So with that, grab yourself a coffee, and let’s get into it.

OVERALL BUILD QUALITY / ERGONOMICS

One of the things that I've never had an issue with with this camera, is the overall build quality and ergonomics of it. I always found it really easy to use and understand. I remember when I first got it I was overwhelmed because of all the buttons and knobs, but it would've been the same with any camera. I watched YouTube tutorials and figured it out. This camera has always felt really nice in my hands. I've always loved the grip that it has on the right hand side. The camera as a whole is some kind of hard plastic, but has never felt flimsy, it actually feels really durable, and the hand grip has a rubber texture over it which helps to give you more grip while shooting. Depending on the lens you're using, the camera can get a bit heavy, and won't be the best option for wanting to stay discrete, BUT, it's a DSLR, they're always a little more burly. I also find the wheel right behind the shutter button to be very satisfying. You can turn it left or right to either increase or decrease your shutter sped, iso, or f stop. It helps when wanting to change something quickly. Everything is very self explanatory, which I like as well.

LENSES:

I just want to preface this section by saying, I understand that higher quality lenses and camera bodies will give you different results. There's a time and a place for everything. But when you're first starting out, or if you're like I was and didn't know anything about photography and gear yet, and you just want a great affordable camera to learn on, then this video is for you. This has been the perfect beginner camera for me, and I hope this video is helpful to anyone else who might want the same as well. Especially since when I first started shooting, I just wanted to shoot, and I didn't know anything about camera settings yet anyway. I had to learn, in order to understand what I wanted.

18-135mm

As someone who started with street photography, this camera paired with the 18-135mm lens has been my trusty combo. I absolutely love this lens. People are always confused as to why I use it, since it's older and not even a "good" lens compared to what's out there. For me, it's more so of the "why". Even though it only goes down to a 3.5 aperture, I can use it from sun up to down with no issues. It won't give you the beautiful bokeh that you see with lower aperture lenses, but this lens has it's own perks, and I have other affordable lenses in this video to recommend that will do that too.

As more of a shy, introverted person, this lens taught me comfortability when shooting. It gave me the ability to learn street photography, just getting comfortable with the act of being out with a camera, from a distance without getting too close to subjects. Some will say having the comfort of a zoom is a negative, and I agree to an extent, but in the beginning, I didn't know what I was doing. I just wanted to go out and shoot, which is arguably the most important part of learning and growing as a photographer. I will say now after shooting for a while, that it is super important to physically get closer to your subjects for more true to your eye compositions, but, to each their own, and again, this is about learning and getting comfortable first, then growing as you go.

Because of the zoom, I could stand across the street, and photograph subjects without them seeing me. As I said, this got me comfortable with the process of being out with a camera. Something to be aware of, is that this does create some compression, which I didn't know of at the time, but I do now. I've even found myself liking the compression sometimes personally, bringing buildings in my city closer to subjects than they actually appear makes for a unique look. Overall this lens is extremely versatile, it's prefect for learning on, and allows you to shoot just about anything from street to landscape, since it's also pretty wide at 18mm, and the zoom going all the way in to 135mm.

50mm

The next lens I'd always recommend, is the 50mm f1.8, known as the nifty fifty. And it's great, because it's also a budget lens, being only $125. This was the second lens I invested in, because I knew I wanted the bokeh effect with the higher depth of field, that I couldn't get with the 18-135. This lens is great for portraits, but be aware that the canon t7i has a crop sensor, which means the lens is actually coming in at around a 74mm. This is super weird and something that still confuses me. But again, while I was learning, I didn't even know what that meant anyway, so I wasn't missing out. I just had a stand a mile away while shooting, but I got used to it. This allowed me to shoot at night more easily because of the 1.8 f stop, opening up wide to allow more light in, which allowed me to start experimenting even more and honestly opened up a ton of doors. I could only go down to f3.5 with my 18-135mm, 5.6 when zooming in, so shooting at night wasn't the easiest. Highly recommend this as a lens to start branching out with. Or if you want to shoot portraits and don't want to spend an arm and a leg, give this one a shot. It's also great for video too.

85mm

Next, came what some say is the holy grail of street photography lenses, the 85mm. When I first got this lens, to be honest, I absolutely hated it. Coming from my 18-135mm zoom lens, I hated how I couldn't zoom, and it was so cropped because of the crop sensor, I almost gave up on it. The frame felt super tight compared to my zoom lens. But after using it for a while, I started seeing the power of this lens, and now it's one of my favorites. Beautiful bokeh with broll, powerful portraits, and it still gave me the comfortability of not having to get in people's faces in the street. One of the first things I noticed about this lens is how incredibly sharp it is. Also being able to shoot with a low aperture allowed me to have a faster shutter speed, which I like for street since your subjects are usually on the move. Paring street with the bokeh was fun too while experimenting. This lens allows you to single out subjects much easier when shooting, or details of subjects in the street, like a hand, or article of clothing. Anytime I wanted to shoot at night, this lens became my go-to because of it's low aperture at f1.8.This was the 3rd lens I got for my camera, and I highly recommend it.

I do just wanna add, that within the last year or two, I also invested in my first sigma lens, the 18-35mm 1.8 art. That's a mouthful. I wanted a sharp, close range lens that I could rely on for portraits and professional work, since I didn't have that in my arsenal yet. This thing is just incredible. That's what I mean when I say use what you have, than upgrade from there.

SO, just because the camera doesn't have the highest quality tech built in, doesn't mean you can't create great work. And, the lenses open up even more possibilities for you as well. The whole point is to learn and grow anyway, and we all have to start somewhere. My recommendation is to start with the kit lens, learn how to use your camera first, get comfortable with it, learn the basics of photography, and then add on as you go. The whole point is that more expensive gear won't give you a better eye/story, and it won't improve your ability to see moments that you'd like to capture. That comes from us, not the camera or lens we're using.

CAMERA/SHOOTING SETTINGS:

The next thing I'll talk about are the settings I use. The t7i has a LOT of settings built in for shooting, but honestly, I haven't used the majority of them. It has your standard auto mode, manual mode, shutter priority, aperture priority, and then a bunch of options for different scenes depending on the condition you're shooting in. It also has a bunch of creative filters built in which I honestly didn't know about until filming this video. For example, I didn't even know that it has this fish eye setting built in. Of course it's not the same as using a fish eye lens, but still pretty cool.

When I first started shooting, I tried fully automatic with this camera, but I noticed that it always tended to stray more on the over exposed side. I didn't really understand settings yet, so I started watching YouTube videos to help me learn. That's when I started shooting in manual, just because I wanted more control. As I've developed my shooting style overtime, I also like to edit in more of a darker/moodier tone. To get that, I intentionally shoot underexposed and brighten it up in the edit, which manual mode gives me control over to achieve that look. I always set my focus to auto and tracking mode, since most of the time, your subjects are on the move with street photography.

The auto focus with this camera is actually something I've been pretty impressed with, especially with the 18-135mm lens. I have mine set to AF servo, which tracks your subjects that are in frame. These blue boxes come up on screen, locking onto your subject and telling you where the camera is focusing. Very helpful and accurate in my experience.

As time went on, I started missing a lot of photos in manual because I had to constantly adjust the settings, so that's when I tried shutter priority mode, and it changed everything. It actually works extremely well with the t7i. I still use manual for when I want a certain look, like shooting light and shadow in street, when I want dark shadows for isolation, and pro tip, using the screen is super helpful for this, since it shows you what the final photo will look like.

The fold out touch screen is another thing I love about this camera. It allows you to take photo and video from tough angles, and the touch screen also has a feature that allows you to touch focus on particular areas of the frame, which is something I use all the time. The touch screen is also very responsive and allows you to change your settings quickly if necessary. I also always shoot in raw for more control over the edit, and continuous shutter mode. There's a lot more built into this camera that honestly I'm not even using, but this is what's gotten me by over the last 5 years with it.

IMAGE QUALITY / COLOR

I might be biased by now, but something I love about this camera is the color and quality of photo I've been able to get out of it, especially with it being such an affordable option for a camera. I'll be honest and say the video isn't anything super impressive compared to the cameras now that shoot 4k, with this one shooting up to 1080p 60, BUT, you can still get by with 1080. Especially if you're mostly using it for photos, then it doesn't matter much anyway. When shooting in RAW the image quality is great. I've printed photos on 40x43 canvas that I've taken with this camera, and I loved it.

BATTERY LIFE

I've actually been pleasantly surprised with the battery life on this camera. I google'd it while making this video, and canon said you can take 600 photos on a full charge. I've gone out for countless street sessions for a few hours long, and I got away with having 1 battery for years. It was never an issue for me personally, but I did get 2 extra from amazon somewhat recently, because I got annoyed with myself when I forgot to charge the 1 that I didn't have. I'll link those below, they were cheap.

CLOSING REMARKS

Overall, this camera has been the perfect camera for me to learn on. I've been blown away by how much use I've gotten out of this camera over the last 5 years, with it being such an affordable option for a dslr. Only after using this camera for 5-6 years now am I thinking about getting something else, and those reasons are to have a full frame camera, maybe 4k video, maybe a little smaller since I shoot street, and because my shutter button is starting to stick. but, it took 6 years to get to this point. I had a lot of learning to do first about photography and camera settings, lenses, etc, before I even knew what I wanted to upgrade to. Use what you have, get comfortable with that, and then add on. Don't waste your money right away thinking that more expensive gear will improve your work right off the bat, because it's your eye, and training your eye that counts.

So if you're like me and just want something to go shoot and learn on, this will be more than enough. I had to start somewhere, and this camera will always hold a special place in my heart.

So, with all of that said, I highly recommend the T7i to anyone out there who is doing research. If I missed anything or if there's anything that I didn't mention in this video that you're curious about, please let me know down below, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. I also want to give a shoutout and thank you to my friend leon for helping me film this video, you can check out his instagram and youtube channels at the links in the description.

If this video was helpful, it would mean a lot if you could hit the like button, share it with a friend, leave a comment, and if you'd like to...maybe even subscribe.

Thanks so much for watching. Get out and shoot, and I'll see you next time.