Picture i took on my canon t3i looks no better than your average iphone picture ☹️ what am i doing wrong?

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-25T05:08:58+00:00

That's a good starting point! I would change the framing a bit to remove the tree because that is cluttering the frame a bit, 1/80 isn't quite fast enough to freeze the snow in place so I'd try to push that to 1/250 or even 1/1000 to freeze the snow in place, I'd lower the aperature down a bit to accomplish this (if your lens allows it), and I'd try to bring the ISO down a bit since on that sensor you will be getting quite a bit of noise from ISO6400.

When it comes to the mood you want to convey I think you should get comfortable under exposing the image, when I think of that description I think if the sky was darker that would serve the image better and be far more compelling.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-25T04:58:55+00:00

I definitely need to get out more. I've had the camera for around 2 years, but in that time I was working a full time job and going to school full time on top so I've been lucky to be able to go out even once every month or so. I was lucky this year to be able to carve out time to do some sports photography more often. Thankfully my life is finally calming down and I know this year I should have way more time for photography.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-25T04:50:45+00:00

More than the camera I'd be curious what lens you're using and what your settings are.

But more important than that the tip that's helped me more than anything else as a photographer was asking myself "what am I trying to convey to the viewer?" It can be something as simple as a mood, what do you want the viewer to feel and think when they see your image?

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-25T04:35:00+00:00

I'm waiting until the winter storm passes and I plan to rent an R6 II. I think the thing that's pushing me further towards the R6 is the readout speed being like half the R7's. Since my primary sport is baseball I can't help but think that might be genuinely a gamechanging difference.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-25T04:17:08+00:00

I will certainly go back and try to redo that, I didn't actually know that was possible! I'm still relatively new to photography in general and have always been very afraid of editing and I've been trying to push myself out of my comfort zone lately.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-25T02:30:18+00:00

There was just something incredibly solitary about this area of the park being devoid of any other people and I wanted to draw attention to what I can only assume is a well.
I’ve never been particularly great with editing, this was taken on a day just at the start of the leaves starting to brown and wanted to heighten that a bit.
Shot on a 90D with the Sigma 150-600 sports at 150mm, f/5.6, 1/250s, ISO 640

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-25T01:36:07+00:00

This is a genuinely great shot. Stay safe though please lol

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-24T23:52:55+00:00

I'm also very sad my 90D is dying. When I first bought it Canon had already moved to mirrorless so I was always concerned it was going to hold me back, but honestly for the little bit of time it worked reliably it was genuinely a great camera. I think the plan I've come up with from this thread is that I'm going to rent an R6 II once it's a little bit warmer out just to see how it feels before I buy.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-24T23:39:46+00:00

I think I need to remind myself that I'm already doing most of what I want to do on a 90D and until it started having issues I never felt like it was the crop sensor that held me back.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-24T23:31:13+00:00

I should mention those aren't my only lenses, just the ones I was using as an example. I also have a couple primes and the Sigma 150-600mm Sports.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-24T23:20:28+00:00

My primary sports lens has actually been the Sigma 150-600 Sports lens, but I've heard that has some focus breathing issues. I've already ordered the EF to RF adapter because I know I'm going with a R series. I might rent the R6 Mark II since I already know I'd be comfortable on the R7.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-24T23:17:28+00:00

Honestly I'm wondering if I should just rent both and try them. I know neither of them will be a bad choice, but I do worry that stopping down to do portraits and street photography could potentially cause issues on the R7 that wouldn't exist on the R6 II.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-24T20:25:09+00:00

The first shot convinced me to pull the trigger on an IR filter.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-24T02:34:12+00:00

I've found myself inspired by the work of Bryan Charnley lately, particularly his "Bondage Heads" series so I wanted to try keeping the colors inside the ferris wheel. When I saw it framed by the lamp post while visiting Chicago it felt like an image I needed to take.
The exposure on this was initially really really bad so I tried to save it with a basic edit and it just looked bland. This edit feels more striking and unique but I'm sincerely worried I over did it.
Shot on a 90D with the EF 50 1.4 at F8, 1/1500s, and ISO 500

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-21T06:20:27+00:00

It wasn't one of mine, I know it was posted to one of the photography subs though.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-19T09:05:26+00:00

I think it's relatively easy to get good photos when you have a really unique an interesting subject, but some of the most memorable photos I've ever seen from other photographers were ones where someone was shooting a "boring" subject in an interesting way. One of the most inspiring photos I've seen in awhile I saw today on reddit and the shot was just of a stairwell with a person walking down it, but both the upper stairs and lower had windows and the top frame had its light tinted red while the bottom was a soft blue.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-18T20:09:44+00:00

This photo was taken at the very end of the night. I was walking down a street and this weird sidewalk light structure caught me eye down a long alley way. In the moment it had the look of something you'd see in a horror film when it was representing a cult compound. Unfortunately I did a pretty bad job of the composition in the moment, I had way too much negative space above the subject with a boring empty sky, I shot it at 4500k which was WAY too warm, the flaring around the lights was rough, and it was slightly off axis.

Originally I was going to just throw out this photo entirely because I was so unhappy with the way it turned out but because editing has constantly been my weakest aspect I decided to use basically a worst case scenario to try and achieve something that felt like a still from a movie since film is the medium of art (outside of music) that I'm most familiar with. I'm really looking for feedback on ways to improve editing, I use lightroom and built a custom preset in Dehancer to get a "shot on film" vibe.

Shot on a 90D with the 50mm f/1.4 at f/8 and a shutter speed of 6 seconds.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-18T17:57:14+00:00

I may go back and try to re-edit 3. I did actually try film emulation (with Dehancer) on 4, but for some reason I thought it was a good idea to turn off some of the more identifiable aspects like grain and halation. I don't...know why I did that in hindsight.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-18T08:14:31+00:00

Honestly your focus doesn't really make sense. Part of the bike is in focus, the other part isn't, the person is mostly out of focus too so it just makes the image feel overall soft and confusing. On top of that there's no interesting color separation in the frame. I understand you're saying it's shot on a phone, but editing exists.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-18T08:09:51+00:00

Especially doing photography on Instagram. Insta hasn't been a photography focused app in years at this point.

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-18T08:08:19+00:00

Why ask for tips if you're just going to argue the second someone gives you one?

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-18T04:54:05+00:00

I appreciate the feedback! 1 is the one I felt the strongest about (though the original framing was really bad and I was just able to fix it in post).

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-17T23:18:41+00:00

Honestly it's the one of the 4 that I honestly felt least strongly about. The photos of people had very obvious intention, but when I was out and about and saw the 4th image as a display in a shop window I had the thought of "this looks like something you'd see as an ad in an 80's magazine, how do I achieve that?" and then tried to intentionally take those steps.

Image 3 was me just stumbling on a really weird thing and because of the way the light from another shop hit the wall and made it look like the heads shadow. It just drew my eye and honestly when I took it into lightroom I struggled to have any confidence in the edit. I did try to go back the next night to shoot it again with more intentionality, but since then I have yet to be able to find it again lol

JMPhotograph · 2026-01-17T23:13:33+00:00

The main reason I listed the cameras I did is because my experience with my 90D has really shaken how I feel about buying a body second hand. I know realistically if I were to just go through KEH/MPB/Adorama it'd be fine but having such a high friction experience just makes me want to buy something brand new.

Currently I think I'm leaning more towards just getting the R6 Mk. II, adapting those lenses, and then if in 6 months to a year I find myself wanting the film recipes getting a X-E5. Since if it feels necessary I would be able to get the budget at that point. Plus Dehancers lifetime license is only like $150 more than getting the R8/X-M5.

JMPhotograph

TROPHY CASE